DISCLAIMER: "Once Upon a Time" and all its wonderful characters belong to ABC and Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, etc.. I borrow them only with love.
PAIRINGS: Outlaw Queen (AU)

Major beta gratitude to helenhighwater7, wordgypsy (and to Amilyn for trying:)).

LIVING IN THE RED
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2015

Prologue

He is standing ten feet before her. The distance is deeper and more vast than the ocean lapping at their bare feet.

How could the world collapse on itself in the space of a spoken word?

She knows the truth of this. She has felt it too many times, before. She knows a truck driven too fast, with too much hurt and anger and fear, can smash a vibrant life to blood and bones on a city highway in less than a breath. She knows a spark of magic can grow inside her and light the spark of the world or snuff out in an instant. She knows a curse and a safety net and an old habit held onto too long can drop her into freefall with a single final heartbeat.

She should not be surprised. That just when she had begun to feel the life returning to her limbs, when she had caught a tiny glimpse of belief in the woman she used to be, life would grab her by the throat and clutch and pull until she could no longer draw air. She knows. She has always known.

The surf roars in her ears, soothing and numbing and painful in a tangled rush.

"Go," she says at last, her voice ragged and torn, but commanding all the same. She shakes her head, lost for stronger words.

Robin stares her down in the darkness. "Regina, please... You're right, you're completely right, and I'm completely wrong, but just...just, please, let me talk. Please...give me a chance. You owe me that much. You owe us that much."

She swallows hard. His voice is lilting and soft and beautiful and it is tarnished, it is all dark and poisoned, and she feels sick and cold. "No." The word bites like the wind, the bitterness of fresh wounds infusing her tone. "I want you gone. Tonight."

Robin takes a steps toward her, hand swinging out, palm raised, and Regina takes a reflexive step back. The pain that cuts through his gentle eyes, the lines at the corners that crinkle in a flinch, these things almost break her. But she cannot, she cannot allow this.

"Regina, I know you're hurt. You've every right to be. And I know you think that...," he shakes his head, a near desperate expression clouding his elegant features as he stares out over the water, seeming to seek a nameless salvation to appear from the night. "But you can't just-"

"I can," she says, voice stronger and harder than the trembling she feels in her legs and her chest. "It's my house, and I want you gone."

"Please...Bella...," he whispers.

The endearment breaks her. "Don't you dare." She stares at him for a wild moment, breathing like she's been for a run, like she's been in a fight. The wind ravages her hair and she grasps and pulls to keep it out of her vision. "How could you?"

He stares at her, blue eyes aching, and she just wants to run, tax her body to match her breath, run down the beach into the darkness and never stop. She takes another step back and watches his brow furrow and knot. "I'm going to walk the rest of the way up the beach," she says, each word a careful and concerted effort. "Then I'll walk back to the cottage. And you'll be gone. The last ferry is in 40 minutes. Be on it."

Robin's desperation morphs toward anger, and he takes two quick steps toward her, face contorting with a mix of pain and unbridled fury. "No! I won't leave you, this is not about-"

Emotions jump like electric currents, and her own pain flares and burns into shouting desperation. "Yes, it is! That's all it ever was! Take this..." With fumbling fingers, Regina reaches beneath her wind-tossed hair and works the lock of her diamond pendant. She hurls the jewel toward the sand at Robin's feet. "That's $15,000, on a bad day."

Robin's hand presses to his forehead and his eyes close like he wants to unsee every bit of the scene playing before him. "God, Regina, stop," he says, and it's like his quiet voice is willing the world into silence.

But she won't hear it. She is working the stubborn clasp at her left wrist. Fisting the wind-chilled treasure, Regina pitches the diamonds and rubies into the sand beside the necklace. "$10,000 more. Take it all. I don't fucking care. Just...vanish from my life."

She turns and runs. She wants to walk, wants to be controlled and distant and cold, but she can't, she just can't. He might follow, and she has to get away, as far away from him as she can. She hears his voice calling after her, carrying on the wind and over the water, but the sound only makes her run harder.

She is far down the beach, not even certain where she is, when her steps slow to a walk, then to a stop. Every inch of her aches, adrenaline throbbing in her muscles. Her stomach cramps and her head spins. She props her hands on her knees, then with ragged breaths, she wilts to sit on the sand on the empty beach. Lights flicker in the distance, far back from the shore. But she is sheltered in darkness and the roar of the surf. Everything inside her feels as dark and alone as the moonless night. It is only when her rough gasps for breath begin to slow that the pulls for air turn to shaking sobs and her view of the seawater blurs with tears. In the end, Regina Rossi curls on the sand, her dark waves of hair dragging through smooth stones and silt, and she cries. Because the man who made her face everything she lost, and slowly and quietly gave her moments of hope for something to gain, has taken it all away and left her ripped defenseless and ice-filled and alone.

She stares up at the few visible stars in the blackened sky.

"Henry," she whispers into the night. "Henry's waiting at home. Henry's waiting at home." She repeats the words like a mantra. She holds onto the memory of his small, bright, and freckled smile like a beacon tethering her to the shore.

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End Prologue