So are We Alright, Then?

by fiadorable

When the Savior is the Dark One, your soulmate is raising her niece as her own, and your kind of sort of but not really step son thinks you're slacking in the "take care of my mother or suffer the consequences" department, does the word "normal" even deserve a place in your vocabulary? A season five au-ish tale rated D for domestic angst/fluff.

Summer spreads a thick layer of heat across the town with a generous dollop of humidity even the crisp coastal breeze can't penetrate. Residents crank their window units to the highest setting, the community pool is choked with splashing children, and after a rolling blackout keeps Regina and Mary Margaret at the power plant all night, united in a battle of wills and electricity, Robin volunteers to take Henry, Roland, and little Marie to the beach for a bit while she catches some shut eye. And he would have, had Marie not chosen that morning to have the fit to end all fits, one that had her tiny body scrunching and arching by turn as purplish blooms of color stain her fair skin.

"Go, take the boys," Regina says, freeing the restraints of the infant car seat sitting on the kitchen island and scooping the baby into the crook of her arm. "You'll never get a moment's peace with her like this. It's the heat."

"Neither will you, though," he points out as he slathers sunscreen on Roland's back. "That's the whole point of this."

Regina shakes her head, sweeping her hair around the back of her neck to fall over the opposite shoulder, away from Marie's flailing fists. "We'll be fine. Go. Have fun. You'll be able to stay all day this way."

He wants to argue, insist he can handle one fussy infant and two boys for a few hours, he is a parent, too, after all, but he stuffs the words down the back of his throat when he sees her resolve in the set of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin as she hands Henry the bottle of sunscreen with her brows raised when the boy walks into the kitchen, blue beach towel slung over his shoulders.

"Done," Robin says, patting Roland on the back. "Go upstairs and find your towel, please."

As his son runs out of the kitchen and Henry squeezes a generous amount of sunscreen into his palm, Robin ghosts a touch over Regina's elbow and nods toward the mud room off the kitchen. She huffs, shifting Marie up to her shoulder, but follows him.

Once inside, he shuts the door almost all the way, leaving it unlatched, and turns to face Regina. She leans against the washing machine as it churns, the hum thrum loud enough to keep their conversation private even with the door cracked. Her gray blue silk shirt is unbuttoned down to her navel and half untucked from her trousers, revealing the lace edged black camisole she'd worn beneath, and her hair clings to her neck in thin black whorls, curling and starting to take on a life of its own in the unusual humidity throttling the town.

She looks like hell.

"I do hope you're not planning on taking me against the washing machine again," she says. "Marie's a little young to be exposed to such debauchery."

A drizzle of heat drips into his abdomen, quickening his pulse as their past dalliance dances across his mind's eye, and he swallows his opening line with a grunt. "Oh, no, milady," he recovers, smirking and shaking his head. "I know better than to take you anywhere with that gleam in your eye. I rather fancy my bollocks where they are."

She raises her brows, running her tongue along the inside of her cheek, and that little motion is almost enough to override the sensible part of his brain very much keeping him from kissing her senseless against the machine.

Well, that and the crying infant in her arms. Which brings him back to his argument.

"I'm going to take Marie and the boys to the beach, and you are going to get some sleep."

"I beg your pardon. What part of 'We'll be fine' did you not understand?"

"The part where you stumbled into the house an hour ago wearing the same clothes from yesterday after spending all night at the power plant, and gods know where else, looking as though you've come up on the wrong side of a round with Emma again."

She says nothing, glaring as she sways side to side, smoothing slow circles over Marie's back.

"You ran into Emma again, didn't you?" he accuses. She'd neglected to call him, again, even after what happened at her vault months ago, after she gave him her word. He curls his fingers into his palm as heat climbs his neck. How many times will they have this fight?

Once more, it seems.

"I can take care of myself," she hisses. "I did so for a long time before I met you."

"Of course you did. And do." It's too hot today to be this riled up; the heat sucks the sharpness out of his words as they leave his lips. He uncurls his fingers one at a time, a deliberate, slow motion she watches with bright eyes. "But I thought we agreed you'd at least let me know when you were off risking life and limb."

Her eyes flash, breaking his gaze for a moment as she shifts Marie in her arms."It was over before it started," Regina mutters as his daughter's cries taper into exhaustion. "Nothing to write home about. I'm fine. Mary Margaret is fine. No damage to public property this time. Emma just wanted a quick mindfuck before retiring for the night."

As she speaks, he watches the weight of each word settle on her shoulders, hang from the crooks of her arms, burrow into the lines on her face as she frowns and presses a kiss to Marie's wispy curls, and he melts, the anger slipping out of him like a receding tide. He steps forward, lifts a hand to tangle in her hair. She leans into his palm, lips pressed together, eyes closed, and when he slides his fingers along her temple she sighs, her breath cool against his wrist.

"Are you okay?" he asks, leaning his forehead against hers.

She nods. "Please, just take the boys. I want them to have at least one normal day this week."

Seems he's not going to win this one. He hums an assent, squeezes the back of her neck and then disentangles himself from her. "You're sure you don't want to come with us?"

Regina laughs, shakes her head, and though the former is a bit forced, the tiny smile she graces him with is genuine. "I'm twelve seconds away from setting something on fire or joining Marie's tantrum. Neither should be done in public."

"All right, then," he says.

So they go. Leave Regina at home with Marie while he and the boys spend the day digging in the sand, standing at the lip of the ocean as the waves siphon the beach away beneath their toes, Henry taking turns with Robin tossing Roland into the surf, watching his son's thin, orange floaty-clad arms pinwheel through the air. It's not the same, sans Regina and Marie, but they manage to have a good time without them, enough that Roland conks out with his head against the window mere seconds after he buckles himself into his car seat.

And they were able to stay out longer, Robin admits to himself as he and Henry pack up the car.

"So what are you guys fighting about this time?" Henry asks, sliding the last folding chair into the back of the suv between the scuffed red cooler and the white plastic basket housing their beach toys. He steps back, allowing Robin to pull the hatch down and shut, and brushes sand from his hands. "And don't deny it. Mom was wound tighter than a corkscrew when we left."

Robin leans against the back of the suv, crossing his arms across his chest. "It's an old fight," he says.

"And that's an old excuse."

Robin huffs a dry chuckle and wets his lips; they're chapped and salty from the ocean and sun. Regina is doing her best to keep the worst of Emma away from Henry, to not sully his relationship with her any more than necessary, and the boy, naturally, is doing his damndest to find out everything he can despite her efforts. She likely wouldn't want Henry to know about last night, and if she did, she'd want to tell him herself, of that Robin's certain.

"She's dealing with a lot," Robin says, choosing his words with care. "New babies take a lot of time and energy. And then there's her sister, your other mum, us, and the town. She's run herself a bit ragged, and I called her on it today."

Not a whole lie, not an entire truth, but it's all he's willing to give the boy. Any more and Henry would try to ferret out more details than he's willing to give.

"Good," Henry says. "She listens to you."

Robin raises his eyebrows. Henry runs hot and cold with him at times, always respectful, of course, being Regina's son, but exceptionally protective of his mother if he feels Robin isn't taking care of her.

"But I still know you're not telling me something."

And there it is. Robin hides his amusement inside a compliment. "You've good instincts," he acknowledges. "But as much as I know you want to protect your mother, part of my job is to help your mother protect you."

Henry adopts a pinched, sour expression. "I'm tired of being protected. I can help. I've proven that I'm old enough."

"I know you want to, but it's not my call," Robin says, clapping a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Talk to her when we get home. After we make sure she's had some sleep and get some food in her, yeah?"

"Okay," Henry says, a blustery sigh on the end of his assent. "I am pretty hungry."

"Come on. Maybe we can talk her into ordering pizza tonight."

"I approve of this plan." Henry walks to the passenger door, stands on his toes to see over the roof of the car. "But no olives this time."

"On my honor," Robin says, grimacing as slides behind the wheel. Roland had not taken well to the topping last time, and the night had ended with one very tired, very sick child stretched across his lap on the floor in the bathroom as the boy spent the next hour emptying his stomach over and over again.

They drive home in restless, tired silence, air conditioning blowing hard against Robin's knuckles as he dances his fingers around the hot steering wheel. Regina detests this car, finds it unwieldy, unattractive, and possessing the grace of something called a "go kart", but she does acknowledge its usefulness when transporting multiple children and their accessories. Wrestling two car seats into the back of her Benz had been an exercise in patience on both their parts. He's still not sure who came out on top after that one. Probably the car.

After they pull into the garage, Robin shuffles the three of them to the backyard with the basket of toys. A cursory spray from the hose knocks the last of the sand loose from his legs, and then he passes it to Henry. He leaves Roland in the teen's charge with instructions to hose each other and the beach toys off until every grain of sand is gone; then and only then may they come in the house.

Inside, all the lights are off. The air conditioner hums, but the air feels thick, oppressive despite its efforts. Robin shucks his shoes, toeing them into the cubby under the line of coat hooks on the wall, and fishes a dry pair of shorts and a clean shirt from the dryer, stripping quickly in the mud room and tossing his wet swimsuit and tshirt into the now empty washing machine with his towel. Marie's cries are blessedly absent. Perhaps Regina was able to get some sleep after all.

He climbs the stairs, ducks into the nursery to check on the baby, but the crib is empty. Robin frowns. He'd seen Regina's car in the garage. She's here. Where's the baby? He pads down the hallway to the master bedroom. The house is dark and quiet, and the stillness of the air prickles the hair on the back of his neck as he turns the doorknob.

He steps into the room and shakes his head at his own folly. Regina and the baby are asleep on the bed. What's left of it. She's stripped away the summer blanket and the top sheet, leaving only the pale gray fitted sheet stretched across the mattress. The pillows are likewise discarded in a neat stack on the chaise, aside from one of the little decorative ones that's slipped from the pile and landed on the carpet.

Above the bed, the ceiling fan churns, the dangling brass pull chains swinging in lazy circles. Regina lies on her back, wearing a thin gray tank top she normally saves for sleeping and a pair of black shorts exposing the shapely stems of her legs. Her left knee bends toward the ceiling, rocking back and forth (not asleep, then, just dozing), and her right arm is folded under her neck, supporting her head. Marie lies stretched out on her stomach, ear pressed over Regina's heart, clad in only a diaper and sucking furiously on a pacifier, her chubby cheeks shiny with drying tear tracks.

"I think she likes the sound of the fan," Regina says, lifting her left hand and gesturing with her fingers. "Remember that."

Robin shifts one hip onto the bed, careful not to jostle them too much, and smiles. "Were you able to get much rest, love?"

She shrugs her shoulder, opens her eyes and rolls her head along her forearm. "Marie and I were able to reach an accord after a lengthy negotiation."

"I see that." He leans down, bracing his arm on the other side of her body, and kisses her forehead, her nose, her lips. She surprises him when she runs her teeth across his bottom lip, a quick graze more than a nip, and then breaks the kiss. Given her mood when they parted he'd expected a less... enthusiastic response. He pulls back, head cocked as a drowsy smile lights her face, her eyes falling closed once more. "So are we alright, then?"

She hums. "Depends. Are the boys sunburnt?"

"Henry missed a stripe down the side of his arm that's going to look peculiar when it heals, but nothing too bad."

"Mm'kay," she mumbles. Her nose scrunches as she shifts on the bed, her palm on Marie's back to steady her while she readjusts, sliding her other knee up, knocking one into the other, back and forth. She's fidgety, more restless than normal, and it dampens his smile. The baby scrunches her nose, too, her pacifier dropping out of her mouth to rest against Regina's breast as Marie rubs her face against the fabric of her tank top.

"Want me to try to put her down in her crib?" he asks, shifting the hand bracing his weight to rest on Regina's, rubbing his thumb lightly against her knuckles.

"If she'll go without a fuss."

Robin slides both hands around the baby, lifts her as gently as possible to his shoulder, scarce daring to breathe. Marie snuffles and squirms in his arms, but settles after a token protest. The pacifier hides in the dip of the mattress next to Regina's ribs, knocked loose when he scooped up his daughter, and he snags it, swiping the rubber tip across Regina's nose, sparking a tiny bubble of laughter from her. "I'll be back," he says, shaking his head as she flicks her hand at him in dismissal, ever the queen even as she lies in a half made bed with a damp splotch down her front from the warm sweatiness that is a sleeping child in the summer.

In the nursery, Marie goes down with little fuss. He curves his hand around the downy strawberry blonde wisps crowning her head, watching the curve of her belly rise and fall as she slumbers. Such a beautiful miracle borne of an awful, ugly mess. She is the reminder of how a rigid code breaks a man, and love begins to redeem one. One last kiss to her forehead, quick and light, mindful of his scratchy stubble, and then he clicks on the baby monitor on his way out the door.

He bypasses the bedroom, trundles down the stairs, grabbing a few crisp twenties from his billfold, and then lets himself into the backyard. The boys are lying on their towels below the apple tree, the branches shading them from the last of the sun's harshness as afternoon fades to evening. Henry's hooked the hose to an old purple sprinkler shaped like an octopus, the legs wobbling as they spray water in misty arcs. Not an effective lawn watering device or much of a toy at this point, but the boys seem to be enjoying themselves well enough. He beckons to Henry, staying out of the sprinkler's reach.

"Pizza money," he says once the teen trots over. "Order whatever you like on it. Except olives."

"Mom said yes?"

"Your mother is hovering on the edge of finally getting some sleep, and the baby is sleeping, too, so we'll just let her be surprised, yeah?"

"Papa," Roland says, rolling off the edge of his towel and scampering over to them, making sure to run through one of the octopus' sprays, a tiny, high-pitched hoot popping out of his mouth as the cold water hits his chest. "Papa, can we have a pajama party and camp out in the living room and watch movies? Please?"

It's not a bad idea. Certainly not unprecedented, he thinks, rubbing the back of his neck, but he's got a bit of a headache building from the sun, and the last thing he wants is to have Roland still wound up after nine o'clock tonight. Especially after his cat nap in the car on the way home from the beach. "Roland, tonight might not be the best—"

"Please, can we?" Henry interrupts. "We'll be quiet while Marie and Mom are sleeping."

"So quiet," Roland adds, complete with a stage whisper.

Robin rather doubts that, his boy is nothing if not vociferous, but if Henry is game, maybe the older boy will balance him out. Roland worships the ground Henry walks upon. "All right," he says, sighing. "But you get only one warning for being too loud before I make you break camp and sleep in your own beds. Agreed, men?"

"Agreed," they both chime, Roland's voice a beat behind Henry's.

"Go inside and dry off then," Robin says, already regretting his decision and praying the boys will be able to keep their word. Roland scurries off to collect his towel, and then races to the house, remembering at the last second to be quiet as he opens and closes the door. Henry continues to stand in front of him, arms folded across his chest.

"You look terrible," the teen says, softening the insult with a wry smile.

"Appreciate that."

He shrugs. "I do what I can. But if you want to go take a nap while we wait for pizza, I can keep an eye on Sir Roland."

A lie in with Regina sounds like heaven. "I may take you up on that," he says, walking back to the side of the house and twisting the water spigot shut. The octopus legs flop to the ground, the plastic tips clicking together. "Wake me when the pizza gets here, or if Roland gives you trouble."

"We'll be fine," Henry says. "I'll knock on the door when it's here."

They both turn a bit red at that, averting their eyes and clearing their throats. A few months ago, Henry caught him and Regina in a somewhat compromising position, and while they'd all moved on with little fanfare, awkward moments like this still crop up at random. Robin busies himself with winding the hose, and Henry finishes collecting the last of the beach paraphernalia before they both head indoors. Once the boys are set up in the living room with a movie, sleeping bags, and fresh pajamas, despite the early hour, he heads back upstairs and lets himself into the bedroom.

She's still sleeping. Dozing at least, but she's shifted, sprawled herself a little more open so that none of her limbs touch her body, her tank bunched into a thin ripple of heather grey below the curve of her breasts, revealing the sun-kissed plane of her stomach. He tugs his shirt off, tossing it onto the mountain of pillows stacked on the chaise, and crawls as unobtrusively as he can across the mattress, settling on his back, close but not quite touching. It's bloody hot out, after all.

He's almost drifted off when her hand closes around his own and squeezes.

"I lied," she says. "I'm not alright."

He rolls to his side, propping his head up and resting his open palm on her stomach. "Tell me, then."

Her skin is cool to the touch from the fan, but heat radiates from her body. Regina shakes her head, pressing her lips together for a moment as she collects her thoughts. "I miss her. Emma."

"I know," Robin says, curling his fingers inward, murmuring an apology as her stomach hitches and jumps at the gentle drag of his fingertips. He scoots closer, heat be damned, and folds himself around her, dropping a kiss to her temple as she shifts to her side and sniffles softly, her cheek pillowed upon his forearm. "I know you do."

He kisses the back of her shoulder, keeping his mouth pressed to her skin, waiting, holding, but she doesn't elaborate, and he doesn't press her for details. "We've got pizza being delivered," is all he offers, hoping the small shred of normalcy will provide a comfort of sorts. "The boys are having a pajama party downstairs, and Marie should sleep for a bit longer yet."

"Good," she says, nodding against his arm. "That's good."

He pretends he doesn't feel the dewy trails of her tears slipping from her skin to his, she pretends his body wrapped around hers isn't springing a fine sheen of sweat between their supine forms, and that's enough for now, for them, to rest, to sleep, to take comfort and simply be, their children safe between the walls of their home as drowsiness seeps into their bones and the heavy whoosh of the ceiling fan ushers them to sleep.