This is unbetaed so all mistakes are mine. Hope you like it anyway.
Also, let's pretend that Marian is actually Marian and not Zelena here even though I barely mention her.
Eight weeks.
Eight weeks has passed since Robin left Storybrooke and Regina had gone to the town line thirty-two times since then.
She knows he can't come back. It's painful to go there and remember that day, if she had to be honest, is painful to go everywhere, her vault, her office, her house, everything remembered her of Robin, but the town line is one of the most painful places.
There is a little voice inside her head telling her to go to those places every day. It is easy to ignore it during the day with all the troubles in town, it keeps her head busy. But during the night is harder, almost impossible because there's silence, nothing she can keep her head busy with. The voice had won many times and Regina always ended in the town line staring at the empty road for hours.
Tonight was no different, she tried to resist the voice but it ended winning one more time, so she grabbed her keys, got into her car and drove through the empty streets of Storybrooke until she reached her destiny. It was a path she had memorized for the thirty-two times she had gone there, thirty-three now.
Once there she got out of her car and stood there with the fixed page XXIII in her hands, thinking that she could stay there until sunrise because Henry was spending the night at the Charming's.
She had lost the notion of time, could've been hours or just a few minutes, it was still dark when she saw someone on the road walking on the other side of the line. She knew people couldn't get to the town so she didn't mind much, but the more that person got close to the line the more Regina could see the face, it was Robin.
Robin Hood.
Her soulmate.
He stopped just in front of the line and, even though he couldn't see her, he was staring at her. Regina couldn't believe what she was seeing, Robin was just across the town limit.
She left the page on the car seat and got close to the line too, her brown eyes staring at his blue ones. God, she misses him so much.
"Regina," he speaks, and she feels like her heart skipped a beat, after all those weeks she hears her name coming out of his mouth again. A sad smile appeared on her lips. "I miss you," he continues "I know it's late and you're probably sleeping right know, but I needed to come here, I needed to… I don't even know what I needed, but something was calling me, no, yelling is more accurate, something was yelling at me to come here. I know this isn't the happiest place, but is the closest I can get to you"
He walks a few more steps, closes his eyes and raises his right hand, it is just inches away from the magical barrier that separates them. She does the same. Her hand touching the barrier, just where Robin's hand is. She smiles a sad smile, a lonely tear rolling through her cheek while trying to suppress the others.
He doesn't know it but this is the closest they've been since he left.
Both stay like that for a few minutes. Robin thinking of her and how close she feels, and Regina enjoying the little warm he brought to her. They're quiet until he speaks again after a sad laugh leaves him and open his eyes again. Their hands still in the air.
"I can't be with Marian, not when you're still in my mind. I know that what I'm going to say sounds crazy, but I feel like you're here, like, in the other side of the line here, listening to me, to what I'm saying… again, I know it's crazy but I'll believe it is true."
She answers in a whisper even though he can't hear her. "It is, I'm right here."
"I love you, Regina." Robin says suddenly and all her efforts to restrain the tears to fall fail when those words leaves his mouth. She imagined that moment so many times, all the scenarios she had created in her head were happy ones and they were together, far from this one where they are separated from each other and he can't even see her.
"I love you, too." Regina answered, closed her eyes and left the tears run freely down her cheeks, it didn't mattered anymore.
"Regina?!" She hears her name and looks up.
"R-Robin?" She questions, not believing that he can see her. He intertwines their fingers and stares are her, "You can… you're here?" Is more of a statement than a question but she is not sure if this is real or just another dream.
"I'm here." Robin confirms and Regina throws herself into his arms, he still smells like forest. Robin holds her tight, that mix of apple and vanilla still on her hair. They stay like that for a few minutes, neither of them wanting to be away from each other again.
Regina whispers in a barely audible tone but that Robin can hear, "I missed you."
"And I you."
Regina breaks their embrace but reaches his hand, afraid that Robin might disappear. "What are you going to do now? Roland and Marian are still in New York and I don't know if the spell…" she asks him but Robin interrupts her, "We'll work it out, but now that we're together I'm not going anywhere without you," Robin grabs her chin firm but gentle making her look at him in the eyes, "I love you, Regina Mills. There is no way someone separates me from you again."
"I love you too, Robin of Locksley." He leans in and captures her lips in a passionate kiss. They had been away from each other for so long that almost forgot how the other's lips tasted. They break the kiss for air but their foreheads are touching, "Let's go home, as you said, we will work all of this out, tomorrow." Robin presses one more kiss to Regina's forehead and gets in her car. This time Regina is happy to go back to her house from the town line and finally getting a few hours of peaceful sleep after weeks of sleepless nights, and she guesses from Robin's looks, he is too.