This is my Secret Santa gift for incessantstorytellers. Thank you for all of the amazing things you do for the OUAT fandom, and I hope you enjoy! Happy holidays!
Many thanks to my beta nonsequiturvy/ninzied who always knows just how to make things better.
"Still playing nice with Snow White and her Prince Charming, Regina?"
Regina scowls at Ursula as she throws the door to her Mercedes shut, tossing her hair more neatly over her shoulder.
Even without tentacles, the other woman still manages to slither as she walks.
"Yes, why is it again that you drive to these meetings?" Cruella croons. "And what are you wearing?"
The rest of them have poofed in with magic, red, green, and black clouds, with no purple to join them. And sensible pantsuits aren't exactly in keeping with their style.
"I can't tell you what the heroes are up to if they suspect I'm using magic behind their backs.""Yes, you have to be above suspicion, Regina, don't you," Maleficent taunts.
They know in a vague sort of way why Regina has professed to rejoin the ranks of the villains. Being good has gotten her nowhere; control of the town is Snow White's again, and now she'll help them in their quest to return to and take over their old land. (Oh, if only they knew, if only they understood that leaving this land is the last thing Regina could do, that it has been a better home for her than the Enchanted Forest ever was, that as long as Robin exists somewhere on this earth, she could never leave it. Not out of hope, she has little of that, not that she believes she will ever touch his hand again, feel his lips on hers, hear his voice. And yet…)
"Can we get on with it?" Regina demands, blinking away her distractions. She glances at her watch. She's meeting Emma and Henry at the diner in half an hour. Ostensibly to trade off her son, and really so that she can pass updates from this meeting along through Henry.
"I have something else to deal with that might interest you, Regina," Maleficent adds.
Regina arches an eyebrow, replies dryly. "Oh?" This might be tiring to some, but being the center of intrigue, paying the villain in order to protect Henry and his—their—family, it's a welcome task, something to do, someone to destroy. And it scares her to realize it, but it is a distraction, as well, to pretend she does not feel, does not love, to reach in and pull that hurt to the surface. Just for an hour or two every day, with these Queens, and then back to the feeling she knows is better. Though it doesn't always feel that way.
"I'll show you," Maleficent offers.
Regina chuckles dismissively. "I thought we had something to discuss." She turns to Cruella. "You called this meeting. What was it you wanted?"
"I have a plan—one of my dogs could steal that hat from Rumpelstiltskin."
The idea is that the magical beings contained within it will then be forced to open a portal to the Enchanted Forest. Regina's not terribly impressed with this plan. At least she doesn't need to behave like she is.
"And how, exactly, would that work?" Ursula asks.
"The traps he's set only work on…humans."
"Unless something's changed," Regina points out, "your canine friends don't obey you here. Or did you plan the cricket's dog tearing holes in your upholstery?"
"I'm working on it," the woman growls.
"Is that all?" Regina laughs darkly. "I'm busy."
Maleficent glances at them, then tells the other two with a cloying voice. "We'll see you later."
She waves her hands, and she and Regina vanish. Regina feels the lurch of being poofed against her will, and finds herself in the basement of the dark house her former friend has chosen to inhabit. She blinks, brushes off her coat, scowling.
"I have a meeting in—" Regina looks at her watch, "23 minutes. What is it that we couldn't have done there?"
"You never were terribly patient," Maleficent observes, waving her hand to the side. The locks on two paneled wood doors click, the doors swinging open.
"I found him at the town line," Maleficent explains.
The doors hit the wall and stop, revealing a holding cell, and a man within it. Regina nearly collapses. Robin.
Her heart begins to race.
He's here, back, without his family, where are his son and his wife, where is Roland? Have they returned on purpose, or did Maleficent force—and how did he…has he?
She cuts herself off, forcing a snarl on her face. If he says something to Maleficent, or to her—if she figures out that one of the easiest ways to hurt Regina is chained within her reach, a thousand times better than the pet Regina manipulated to acquire the dark curse, then…
He stares, jaw slack, eyes pained and warm and wide and loving. His arms and legs are chained firmly to the wall, she's certain painfully so, the metal cutting into his skin, raw red rings forming over bruises."Who is this?" Regina asks pointedly, voice harsh. She fights the urge to run to him, to free him, to cry, to laugh.
"Did he never steal from you?" Maleficent inquires curiously, sighing, "Anyway, you certainly heard the stories. This is Robin Hood. The so-called heroic thief. Doesn't even have a family to speak of." She walks forward, nudging his leg with her boot so that he falls forward, the restraints digging in even more. Regina flinches, luckily while Maleficent's turned away, but breathes a sigh of relief for Maleficent's ignorance of Robin's family. God, how is he here? If Maleficent thinks he has no family to speak of, then where are Marian and Roland? How long has she kept him? If Maleficent has injured him, she'll—
"He did from me," Maleficent continues. "I thought I'd offer you a chance at punishment as well."
Regina forces a scoff, allowing herself another brief glance at Robin. He's no longer looking at her as his savior; his jaw firm and still, the expression in his eyes flatter. "I've heard stories of the thief, but I have nothing in particular to punish."
"Well then," Maleficent laughs darkly, throwing her hands forward. Robin begins to choke.
Regina forces down her tense shoulders, waits it out, forcing her gaze to Maleficent's hand and not Robin's tense, pained eyes. "Continue if you want," she says, as casually as she can manage, though she can feel the panic clawing at her, trying to drag her under, "but I'm not certain this best suits our plans."
Maleficent pauses.
Robin coughs, and there's the blessed sound of his breaths, of his lungs filling and emptying regularly again.
"We need someone to rob Rumpelstiltskin," Regina continues evenly. "Why not the infamous thief? I have heard that Robin Hood has stolen from the Dark One once before."
"Twice, Milady," Robin coughs. The lilting accent, the whiskey-warmth, she'd never thought to hear them again, and for a moment she cannot move, cannot do anything but listen and stare and fear and hope.
Maleficent eyes them, and so Regina spins on her heel to glare at him. "Your Majesty," she snarls.
She expects hurt, but all she sees is his blue eyes darkening. "Didn't realize a thief had to use the proper terms with villains, Milady."
Maleficent steps forward menacingly, but Regina halts her with one hand.
Regina laughs darkly, bringing Robin into a magical chokehold of her own, gentle enough that it wouldn't do lasting damage, though he couldn't know that, will not trust her. God, villains don't get happy endings. She should expect this by now, let him think her evil again, let him leave and go back to his family and be happy with them as he should, let Robin and Marian and Roland be another perfect page in their perfect book.
Robin meets her eyes evenly. "Never." Maleficent stands behind Regina, and she feels magic brewing, the kind that will not leave her True Love unharmed and able to return to his wife and son, who are likely now the family they always should've been to him, and all he needs.
"This is a waste of time," Maleficent grouses.
"Who's being impatient now?"
Maleficent nearly growls. But she's not threatening Roland or Marian, so she must've grabbed Robin alone, does not know about them. They have that on their side, at least.
"Much as I hate that Imp, Milady, I don't work for anyone but myself. And certainly not for corrupt, evil royalty," Robin snarls. Regina flinches at the darkness in his eyes and voice, the slick, viscous poison of his words reaching out for her.
Then slaps him across the face before Maleficent can reach him.
Their first touch in months, and it is hateful, wrong. She chokes down a sob.
"I'll report him to the sheriff," Regina suggests, "Then we'll see if this thief prefers prison to our job."
"But—"
"Then once he's stolen, you can do whatever you want to him," Regina assures Maleficent, "just promise me you'll save at least one torture spell. Or perhaps a potion. I already have some…interesting ideas."
"Fine," Maleficent agrees testily. With a wave of her hand, he's free, on the ground, and then pulling himself up, rubbing at his wrists. Regina longs to help him, reach for him, heal the wounds. Which is exactly why she can't.
"I'd get out, thief, before we change our minds," Regina snarls with as much venom as she can muster. "See you in prison."
He gives her one last pained, lingering look, like he's memorizing her features, and then he's gone.
"I have to get to the diner," Regina reminds Maleficent, before poofing back to the clearing where she'd left her car. Cruella and Ursula are still arguing over dogs. Isn't that fantastic.
When she pulls in to Granny's, her heart has not yet stopped racing. She'll need to find Robin again, somehow without Maleficent knowing, lock him up in prison but without access for the other Queens that will make it dangerous. She has to make sure that Marian and Roland are still safe, that the town line hasn't altered any memories or brought in any dangers. They'll have to find a way to send him back, if he can even still…no, he'll have to go back, to leave again, to—She'll have to explain, convince him, and he'll know why she—or perhaps it's better to let him think that—
She's distracted as she parks in front of Granny's, before she notices Snow's car parked in front of hers. That encounter in public has become so complex that it's necessary to avoid. The Queens think she's spying on Emma for them, that she still wishes Snow dead, or at least injured, and would be at best confused and at worst betrayed to watch Baby Neal's joy at seeing her.
She slams the car door shut, steps around the piled slush of snow that's collected on the curb to avoid slipping in her black stiletto boots, and heads for the back door. She's reaching into her pocket for her cell to check the time as she pushes open the door, when a large, calloused hand closes around hers just past the entryway.
She's being tugged, around the corner into that hideous green hallway, and then there are warm lips—Robin's—on hers. Her brow furrows, but confusion falls quickly away into desperation, and she sinks into it, to his fervent kiss and furrowed brow and prickling stubble, to the way his touch makes her stomach flutter and her hands tremble, to the contact she cannot believe she has lived for months without. Her hands fist into his shirt as he falls back against the wall with a desperate groan, pulling her with him.
She breaks off with a gasp, her breath heavy and fast, and when she starts to back away a couple of steps, one of his hands cups her jaw, the other sliding down to curl around her hip, keeping her within reach. "Where're you going?" he rasps, dropping his forehead onto hers.
"What?" she blinks, still panting, bewildered. Just a few moments ago, they were hurling insults and threats between them, and how could he know that…she stares at him, all of that anger and darkness in his eyes from just a few minutes ago melted away into love and relief and more than a touch of desperation.
Robin grins, then smiles, beams at her, and she cannot help but cradle his face in her hands, and smile back.
"Did you figure out their nefarious plan yet?" he asks, his teeth digging into his bottom lip, eyes dancing.
She laughs, a short, uncertain sound at first, and then she gives into it, burying her face in his neck, her arms sliding around his shoulders as quiet laughter makes her shoulders tremble.
He knew, all along.
After a few moments, it is not laughter, but tears. "I missed you," he tells her, twisting a hand into her hair, and the gesture is comfortingly familiar, anchoring.
Regina lifts her head, gently clears her throat, blinks away the lingering tears, echoes his words. "Where are Roland, and Marian?"
"Safe, several towns over," he promises.
"How do you know?"
"I wasn't with them when she grabbed me, and she only did that because I was by the town line already. She clearly doesn't know about them."
"You were at the town line?"
"I went there sometimes. Often," he admits. "Whenever missing you got to be…"
Words seem to evade her mind and mouth, and she cannot settle on the right ones, but a tear does escape her eyes, wet on her cheek until he gently sweeps it away. "But…now that Maleficent's taken you back across the line, I don't know if you'll be able to—"
"We'll figure it out," he promises.
"But—no one can leave, and Henry and I still haven't found the auth—"
"Regina," he interrupts, gently, his hands gliding across her shoulders, down her arms to cover her hands on his chest, "we'll figure it out, together."
"Not in public," she argues, halfheartedly attempting to free her hands. This is dangerous, they really shouldn't—but she hasn't felt his hands on hers in far too long, and his care has her quickly moving beyond the capacity to care.
"So it'll be like the year in the Enchanted Forest, then?" he teases.
"It will not," she grouses. "Unless you plan to be as intolerable as you were then."
He smirks, his hands carding through her hair, fingers sliding across the strands. She leans into the touch despite herself. "Always, Milady," he promises.
She frowns, her fingers lightly tracing the red marks on his wrist, and then the bruise that's begun to form on his cheek, the bruise from her hand. "Do they hurt?" she wonders.
"Less than being away from you," he replies, his fingers still burrowed in her hair.
"Robin," she scolds halfheartedly.
"Some," he admits. "Small price to pay."
"How did you know, before?"
The pads of his fingers play against her cheek. "I know you."
"I have to…" she swallows, one of her hands skating up to his neck, feeling his muscles shift as he swallows as well, the prickle of his stubble against her palm, "I have to go act like I'm using my son for information."
He frowns as she looks up at him, but nods, like he's seeing something in her eyes that upsets him.
"And then," she sighs, meeting his blue eyes and nearly losing her train of thought in the rush, "I have to have her throw you in prison."
Robin grins this time, his eyes light up, and she cannot help but grin back at that infectious smile. "Well then, we'll have to give them quite the show."
When his mom asks Henry to accompany her to the back of the diner for just a second, and he catches sight of her surprise, he just about topples Regina with his hug.
After they've all calmed down a little, and Henry's both grinned at true love and happy endings and struggled with a bit of a teenage boy's inability to look as his mom holds hands with and kisses a man, he retrieves Emma so they can all talk.
"Mom, I have an idea!" Henry says excitedly, speaking to Regina amidst their mess of plans. He turns to Emma, directing his next statement to her. "Mom, you're going to go arrest Will Scarlet."
"Didn't Mary Margaret pardon him?" Regina wonders. Most days, her tone would be more biting. Today is not most days.
"Wha—" Robin begins.
She shakes her head gently, half a smile curving her lips.
"Don't ask," Emma says by way of explanation.
"No, Mom, you're going to arrest him for getting into a fight with Robin."
Regina's and Emma's brows furrow, but Robin's already grinning at her son, like he's caught on to some stroke of genius.
(He has.)
Regina would put some distance between them, for all of their safety, but they've slipped into one of the rooms at Granny's, Emma perched on the end of a sofa beside Henry, Regina and Robin standing across from them near the door, and at this particular moment, she cannot bring herself to care enough to drop Robin's hand, or give up the comforting rhythm of his thumb sweeping across the back of her hand, over her knuckles. Her stomach starts to drop every few minutes with the worry that it will all be ripped away again, but then that's better fought by tightening her grip around his hand than by letting him out of her sight. Even if nothing she could have done would've been able to keep him here the last time.
Regina forcibly drags her thoughts back to their plan, to Henry's voice. They'll get rid of these villains, find the author, and then…then she can be happy.
(She ignores the whispers in her heart that maybe, already, she is.)
"Stop, thief," Regina intones, her voice low and dark, "or you'll regret it."
Maleficent's cloak rustle as she lifts her head higher on her neck, preening, pleased.
"If it's all the same to you, Your Majesty, we'll keep going," Will disagrees, turning on them. With the promise of the Savior and the Mayor's aid in finding Ana, he'd been all too happy to play along, to throw a few good punches at Robin, and then be "broken" out of prison by his friend.
"Shall I call Sheriff Swan, have her throw the worthless lot of you in prison again?"
Will makes a show of tensing his shoulders, and Robin attempts the same, but a sliver of worry settles into his stomach that he can't shake. The Charmings, Emma, Henry, the town…they've been letting Regina do this for months? (He knows, he knows, she must've insisted herself.) But surely they did not argue as strongly as they could have. Has any of them thought about what this must be doing to her, how damaging and cruel and wrong it is to force Regina to be the very thing she is fighting to distance herself from, the very person she believes destroyed her right to a happy ending? Part of the darkness and hurt in her eyes and voice is faked; he can tell the difference where few could. Much of it is not. Have the others realized just how much?
"Let's not be hasty," Will argues, putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender, though his posture communicates near total ease.
Maleficent lifts a hand behind Regina, but Regina gets there first, lifts both of them a few inches off the ground.
"What would Sheriff Swan think if she saw you doing this?" Robin taunts through affectedly thin breaths.
Regina takes a step towards him, gets right up in his space, and Robin lets himself blink for a moment, because it's too much—not the darkness in her eyes, he's not afraid of her—but he's not going to be convincing in this skit unless they are not close enough to kiss.
"That," she croons, "is none of your concern."
"Oh, is that right? Then what is?" he demands, breathing in as she steps back, and they need to finish this now so that Maleficent can go on her not so merry way and Will can go back to…whatever it is Will does when he isn't looking, and he can go back to Regina's house and make love to her until neither of them can move, and bury his hands in that silky black hair as they tell each other everything they've missed, and sleep with her arms around him.
"I've heard you and the Dark One don't exactly…shall we say…see eye to eye on things."
Will scoffs, says to Robin. "She's sarcastic, this one."
Regina's next reaction is more honest. "Quiet," she snaps. She turns back to Robin, an almost predatory bent to her posture. "Steal something from him for us, and I will make sure the precious savior can't put you in prison."
Robin waits long enough for his decision to feel considered, and little enough for it to feel not overly so. "Deal," he says.
His partner in crime makes a point of being not quite so easily convinced. "What if we just tell Snow White you've gone all evil again?" Will points out.
"She won't believe you," Regina scoffs.
Robin seemingly cannot help himself. "Are you certain about that?"
Regina gets close to him again, close enough that she can smirk and only Robin can read the true intention behind it. "Very."
"What are you thinking about?" Robin asks. "I can hear your mind churning from here."
"It's not like I'm far away."
Which is true. Robin's head is nestled against her collarbone, Regina's fingers threading through his hair, both of them naked beneath her Egyptian cotton sheets, half of his body draped over hers.
Robin hums in agreement, lifting his head enough to meet her eyes. "I have to say, this bed is much more comfortable than that makeshift construction in the back of your vault."
He watches her fight through a tightening throat at the memory, and takes an easier breath himself when she smirks at him and tilts her head playfully, nudging one of his legs with hers beneath the sheets. "I didn't exactly plan to use it for…sleep," she says pointedly.
"Oh, I live to disrupt your plans, Milady," he promises. He shifts finally so that he is beside her and not weighting her down, but he doesn't go far, and she wouldn't let him. They end up facing each other, foreheads pressed together, down-facing hands entwined, their free hands tracing slowly over each others' skin. "What were you thinking about, Regina?" he asks again once they're situated.
She sighs heavily, wearily. "Henry's master plan…I'm not entirely sure how we're supposed to make it work."
"We'll figure out a way to cross the town line safely," he promises. "In the meantime, Roland is perfectly safe with his mother in a land without magic. And I'll help you find a way to break into that Imp's house and keep the hat safe."
"I didn't let you help, last time."
"Yes, you did," he insists. She narrows her eyes skeptically, half playful, half disbelieving. "Eventually," he adds. He smooths her hair, smiling at the way her lips curve up softly.
That good sleep he was imagining will probably have to wait until he sees his boy again, even though he knows he's perfectly safe. But he is most definitely going to fall asleep in Regina's arms. Not just yet, though, because his fingers are in her hair, and she is warm and alive beside him, and the urge to kiss her and make her gasp and sigh and come again for him is overwhelming.
Maybe the rest of the talking will have to wait.
This is going to be deliciously freeing and perversely—no, Regina decides, not perversely, just deliciously—fun.
She glances back one last time. Maleficent, Ursula, and Cruella are in place. All they need to do is—yes, ah, here he is.
"The hat, Regina," Robin says, offering her what they'd agreed would be a fake, the real object already emptied of its captives and stored in the depths of Regina's vault. The other women falter at his manner of address, and it's just the distraction Emma needs to slip behind them and gather her magic on her palms.
"Thank you," Regina answers, and in the last crucial seconds when the Queens of Darkness might run, she yanks Robin to her for a brief, passionate kiss, enough of a shock that the women never see it coming until Regina's and Emma's magic has them immobilized.
"Traitor!" Cruella screeches. Ursula covers Maleficent's growling I should've known with a menacing, "You won't get away with it. You may not be a villain, but you're no hero."
Robin's hand squeezes hers, but Regina drops it for a moment to approach the shimmering film of magic that traps them, feels the same surge of pride she had as Zelena stared at her from the floor of the barn, says the words calmly, distinctly. "I am no one but myself."
"Mom! Mom! Look!" Henry cries. Regina spins around from where she and Robin are studying the map she gave him months ago, tracing where he's been and where he left Marian and Roland.
Henry drops the storybook on top of the map, and opens it to the back. At the very end, new pages have appeared. The first shows Robin, Marian, and Roland walking down the road away from Storybooke, and Regina's hand hovers pensively over it, before her son encourages her to keep looking.
She turns the page.
The next is…blank. "Henry, I don't—"
"The author left it for you," he tells her, "I'm sure of it."
"But…why…" She trails off as she runs the pads of her fingers over the page, and an image begins to appear. It shows Regina and Emma trapping the Queens of Darkness, Robin looking on behind them.
"Because hope appears when you need it the most."
Regina smiles, disbelieving at first, but then she glances down at the book, and another page number has appeared, the outlines darkening even as they look at them.
She feels Robin's hand spread across her back as she reaches, cautiously, to touch the page. When her hand meets the smooth cream paper, a jolt runs through her skin, and as the colors of the page appear, they run off the paper and through each of them, then past the walls over her house, a glimmering wave of magic.
The image in the book tells them what has happened.
Henry beams.
The globe of magic with which the Snow Queen had surrounded Storybrooke is cracking and falling away, chased back by Regina's magic. Possibility. Hope.