She wakes in the middle of the night gasping for air. The same nightmare has haunted her most of her life. She is in the stables, ready to run away with Daniel when her mother appears in a puff of smoke. The next thing she knows, she is floating off the ground, an invisible hand stealing the oxygen from her lungs as her mother rips out his heart, crushing it without a second glance. Every time she wakes up gasping, on the brink of tears, but in recent months the dream has changed.
Now she finds herself in a rusty old barn. She is still gasping for air, but this time the invisible hand is her sister's. She is still gasping and struggling, but the man she is trying to get to in the new dream is holding her heart. Where before Daniel looked at her pleadingly, begging her with his eyes to save them, now she is greeted with Robin's confident, strong eyes. He knows she can win, and his faith is what spurns her to believe she can too.
She wakes up gasping, but for the first time in her life, she is not alone. Strong arms come around her, pulling her into his firm chest. He whispers comforting words, as he strokes the tension from her shoulders. Quicker than ever before, she begins to lose herself in sleep again. The weight of the world slipping from her shoulders under his gentle attention. It's strange to think that things could be that simple. In the past, when the nightmares came, there was no return to sleep. She would get up, fix a cup of tea, and settle in for a long night where every time she closed her eyes, the images returned.
In all years she has lived, she has never had someone to soothe away the pain. Her mother had laughed at her, when she woke screaming. Love is weakness, she would chuckle, before leaving Regina alone with her tears. Her husband had never spent a single night in her bed. He had a daughter to love, he didn't need to waste his time with his broken wife. And as for her Huntsman, he was always gone as soon as the deed was done. She knew that he didn't really care for her, but sometimes in those moments before he got up, she could pretend.
Only now, she didn't have to pretend anymore. Now, there was a man who cared for her, and though she would never admit to needing a man, part of her knew that it was Robin's presence that chased away the dreams most nights. His warm body wrapped around her, kept her firmly grounded in the present, banishing all the horror of her past. So, before she can lose herself in the land of nod, she presses a kiss to his bare chest. A simple thing really, but she hopes that he understands. She hopes he knows how much his comfort means to her. Someday she will explain, but for now Morpheus draws near and she is lost again, this time in a land of peaceful dreams of a bright future with a certain thief by her side.