It was nothing special, what they were doing.
Father and son, sitting on an old stone bench in a garden still overgrown with leaves and vines - nobody had taken the time yet to trim this courtyard back to its original glory. Hell, Regina wasn't entirely sure their meager, cobbled-together grounds staff was even aware this little inlet of stone and greenery existed. It had been hers, private, something she'd created in the brief span of time between sending Hook to kill her mother and casting the curse.
Something to remember her by, even for the brief days she'd had left in this realm. (Somewhere to go, if ever the curse failed her in the future).
And so here she is, with a heavy heart, hoping for solitude in a place she thought secret. Hoping for a chance to grieve her boy, her mother, her father, her every hope and dream that has been dashed to the stones and shattered.
Of course it is he - they - who have discovered her secret. The thief and his boy. He's been casing the joint; it hasn't escaped her notice. He walks the castle halls, during the quiet hours of the day, during the dead of night. She has seen him, has crossed paths with him on more than one occasion, questioned his motives and been told he's simply wandering. Unused to the boundary of stone walls, of towers and guards. Of a roof over his head, lofty as it may often be.
But she knows better - he has been learning the lay of the land. His gaze crawls all over the walls, ceiling to floor, he notes every nook and cranny, peeks in doorways whose hinges squeak with rust, turns down hallways that only go into deeper, darker, more cramped quarters. He's hardly searching for freedom and open air.
Oddly enough, despite his frequent compiling of mental blueprints, she finds she's not been the least bit concerned that he'd steal from her. She ought to be, she thinks, that's what he does. But his smile is always so genuine, his exploration so bold and unhidden, that she finds it hard to convince herself he's a danger.
But he feels dangerous now, in this place. Or maybe it's she who feels dangerous, she's unsure.
She stands at the stone archway that marks the entrance to this hidden little nook of hers, an overgrown rosebush keeping her mostly hidden from view, and she watches her intruders.
He has stolen from her now, she realizes. Stolen her last unknown place of solitude, and covered it in sandwich crusts and cherry pits, and Roland's discarded cloak. They are having a picnic, right here in her private garden, he and the boy, and they are talking quietly, and smiling. Roland is telling a story, his little eyes wide and full of imagination, and it calls up an ache in her. Fierce, unrelenting, that heavy heart she'd already been carrying on her walk here turning to dense stone inside her, so weighty now that she fears it may begin to slip down, down, through the cavity of her chest, past her belly, past her shoes. It may drag her down by the veins, until she's left a crater of raw grief in the ground where she used to stand.
Grief and, she realizes, envy.
He is there, with his son, and there are tears burning in her eyes, and her stomach feels hot and cold at the same time, and there is that slick, coiling, ugly feeling in her gut that she has felt before, felt so often with Leopold when he'd look at Snow or talk of Eva, or the way she sometimes felt for Daniel when he'd leave the manor grounds at night and return to a mother who loved him without punishment or force or fear.
Jealousy.
It is not a clean emotion for her, it always comes with friends. Hatred, or loneliness, or, on the rare occasion, acceptance. Today, it comes with grief.
Today, she wants her Henry more than anything, feels the loss of him down to her very bones, and is forced to watch this man, and his son, his son, his sweet boy, sweet just like Henry had been sweet. She is forced to watch them spit out cherry pits and smile and bask in each others' presence, and she seethes with it, jealousy, feels it crawling through her, feels it so strongly it raises the hackles of her magic, and yes, she thinks, she is the dangerous one today, and she should leave them to this place. One more corner of this castle that was once hers but has now been taken over, extra bodies swarming like bees around a hive, she feels suffocated, she is seething, she needs to get out of here before her fingertips go from tingling to conjuring.
And then he looks up, the thief, and she is not as hidden as she'd thought, she must not be, because their eyes meet with a jolt of connection, and he stills. Freezes mid-sentence, and she doesn't know what she looks like, but she imagines it's murderous, because he turns to his son, and says loud enough for her to hear, "My boy, I think we've intruded on the Queen's privacy. We should leave her be," and Roland swings that sweet gaze to her so fast she barely has time to school her face into something appropriate for a child.
Robin is packing up their things, quickly, but without fear, and Roland smiles at her and waves, and Regina feels her elbow creak with effort when she raises her hand to wave back in kind. And then the boy is scooped up into strong arms, and carried toward her, and past, and Robin sets him down and says, "You run ahead," and Roland does with only a single look back. Robin turns to her, and says, "Apologies, Your Majesty-" his use of her proper title does not go unnoticed, "I didn't realize anyone knew of this place. Clearly, you wish it to be yours and yours alone?"
She nods, a tight, curt jerk of her chin, and she tells him in a voice darker than she'd meant, "Never come here again."
"I won't," he vows, and he shifts his armful of burdens, and reaches a hand out toward her, touches her elbow gently (always so forward with her, she finds it unnerving). "Are you alright, milady?"
Her eyes narrow, at his words, at his tone, at his boldness and his ability to see through her. She strikes at him with words that hiss like acid, "Take your precious child and stay the hell away from me."
And he does not reel back from her, doesn't cower, doesn't even frown.
He simply says, "As the lady wishes," and leaves, catches up to Roland who is waiting for him yards away, close enough to catch with a jog, while reaching out for Henry would require her to cross realms, punch through the walls between worlds with magic she hasn't the strength to muster, and she watches them weave hands, father and son, and feels sick, and sad, and so green with envy she thinks she could blend into this overgrown riot of foliage that she stands on the cusp of.
Her hands are vibrating now, energy hot and coursing through her, magic that demands to be spent. So she walks into her private garden and burns off every tortured bit of feeling by putting the place to rights. She uses her magic to cull wild bushes, and trim overgrown ivy, and free a stone sculpture from the grip of creeping vines, and then she conjures a door for that open archway, and seals it with blood magic, and she sits behind it in this place this is hers, slumps her back against the fresh wood, and weeps.