It's dinner at Granny's, and the discovery of milkshakes – too much sugar for anyone this time of night, and Regina promises just this once, though she cannot seem to tire of watching Robin and Roland delight in new things (they must take sweetness where they can find it) – that leads to full bellies and a meandering walk back under streetlights and stars.
The boys pull ahead, skipping over the cracks in the sidewalk (there is a saying about mothers in this world that Regina has never understood) for blocks until Henry bends and ooofs! when Roland tackles into him for a piggyback ride.
They're far enough – not far, but a mindful distance – away that Robin bumps his shoulder into hers, reaches close to claim her hand and swings it between them, and it's all so new, still, this being together, that they turn in opposite directions to smile at it because they cannot bear to look so boldly at their own happiness.
Roland makes pony noises, urging Henry that little bit faster, until his head begins to drop and he quietens, thankfully within sight of the house. Henry bounds up the steps, taking care not to shake Roland loose, and Regina makes to help him with the door, but Robin drags on her hand, stubborn-heeled, until she slows.
"I've got it, Mom," Henry calls from the porch, good-natured but with an edge of the teenage boy smirk that comes more readily every week. "Don't stay out too late."
It's too dark to know, but she imagines him rolling his eyes in their general direction as the door clicks shut behind him.
Robin tugs at her again, gently, walking her back to him until he can catch her at the waist, hands parting to graze against her hip bones and turn her until she is cupped against him, back pressed to the warm expanse of his chest.
They'll only linger a moment – they need to see both boys to bed – but Regina will take this, every second of it, will let it fill the spaces in her that have been lonely too long. This is theirs, hard-fought and maybe never won, and it wouldn't do to let the sweetness of the night pass without one more sip of it.
She follows the tilt of Robin's gaze up to the sky, head resting against the sweep of his collarbone, and tries to put names to what she sees. She was never a good study of constellations, lacking in teachers or patience or cause for it, but she finds the swooping dippers, the belt, two points that might be Castor and Pollux or, just as believably, satellites, and then her knowledge is exhausted.
Robin is quiet, still searching high for things she knows nothing of, and she thinks how strange this all must be for him, how dim the stars, for a man shaped far from light pollution and suburban lawns and, oh gods, her chest tightens with the fear that this place is too pale for him. Too tame.
He is kind, and easy, and he will promise he doesn't regret the curse that forced him here, but some sacrifices, even the willing ones, are too much.
He bends to her neck, taking care, leaving the softest prints of lips and tongue along its slope, and Regina wonders if she is really so transparent, if the beating of her heart is so tell-tale under his mouth.
The question comes thick, no matter how she hides it in nudging him back, in bringing the stars into it again because they are untouchable, and she can be too – she can outlast the guilt, the griefs that may (must) yet come to pass.
"What do you see?"
And he's not looking to the sky at all when he steps around to meet her, hands leaving and finding her again (isn't this how it has always been?), and it's her, it's her fixed in his eyes, in his earnest palms, as he holds her fast to earth and to him and to whatever life they are building and speaks his answer.
"Home."
