A/N Once again I've participated in Tumblr's Once Upon A Secret Santa, because apparently I'm terrible at writing without having entered something organized. So shout out to the wonderful people who made this OUASS happen and got me writing!

So to my giftee, reginayeshomomills (I seriously adore this username), I hope you like what I came up with!

As always, any and all reviews are more than appreciated. The chapter wasn't beta'd (yet) so I appologize for any and all mistakes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, obviously.

TRIGGER WARNING: BLOOD

They ducked just in time. First one and then a second arrow whizzed over their heads and lodged in the fallen tree behind them.

"Not another step, ladies!"

A man's voice.

Both women, still crouched on the ground looked in the direction of the sound. The surprise of not being alone on the beach quickly made room for recognition on their faces.

"No, it can't be," Emma heard Regina say as she rose back to her feet. Emma followed. This wasn't good. Mere seconds ago they were holding hands, ready to leap forward, to get back to their family but now Regina wasn't even thinking about the portal. Her brown eyes glued to the man.

"This is a robbery," he said.

"Regina," Emma tried, but without success. Her hand halfheartedly reached for the brunette's arm, but she didn't make contact. Her eyes shot from Regina to the man and then down to the green stirring portal.

"Robin," Regina whispered, approaching him slowly.

"Let's go! Off with the jewelry!"

She had to move fast. Their window was closing. She had to get Regina to see reason. She had to get them home.

"Remember what you said, he's not real!" Emma tried and then added a more desperate, "he's not real!"

Regina barely heard her. Everything seemed to fade away as her vision zoomed in on him. There he was, standing right in front of her. Her soulmate. Her dead soulmate. He was breathing. He was… He was alive. Just the sight of his face, with his eyes open and focused on her, sparked so many feelings inside her that she didn't register Emma frantically telling her they had to go. She didn't register when the portal closed. And she didn't even register the bow's string being pulled farther back or the arrow coming towards her as he aimed straight at her heart.

All Regina saw were those familiar blue eyes shining with life when the taut string slipped from his fingertips.

"Wait," David said, both hands gripping the edge of the table as if to brace himself.

"He shot you?" Snow gasped at the same time. "Robin shot you? Robin?"

Regina and Emma sighed in unison at the umpteenth interruption. The blonde's parents were so wrapped up in the story they wanted to know the ending before they had even heard the beginning. They were impatient listeners, unlike Henry, who was listening in silence and only spoke when he wanted to know more, more, more, always more. He sat at the very edge of his seat, as if getting physically closer to them would somehow make more information reach his eager ears. He couldn't get enough. Like a true author he soaked in their stories.

The food left from their just consumed Christmas dinner had gone cold on the serving plates quite a while ago, but they had yet to start clearing the table. Emma had agreed to tell her family about their adventures under the condition that she got to eat first. Her already healthy appetite had been all but tripled by the fact that she could barely remember having eating anything store bought, even though admittedly it hadn't been that long. So, after helping herself to 3 generous plates of every food on the table, they launched into the story, starting at Emma's fake birthday party.

Regina, had technically never actually agreed to recounting the past few days, but seeing the twinkle in her son's eyes as they talked was more than worth fighting the ever growing fatigue that was making her head ache. She had forced down half a plate of food before giving up on eating but she was holding herself together pretty well otherwise. For Henry. He always lit up when a good story was involved and apparently he considered theirs to be fantastic. And perhaps it was, to an imaginative adolescent's ears and without the firsthand experience of sleeping, eating and living in the outdoors without this world's luxuries.

Henry's enthusiasm combined with the fact that Emma was leaving out all the actual good parts, made Regina pitch in. Emma spoke about the ball thrown for her birthday, about seeing Henry looking handsome in a suit of armor and about how Regina had shown up out of nowhere. The blonde kept shooting her some looks every now and then, wordlessly asking her to help tell the story. Regina took those cues as an opportunity to helpfully add how she had found Emma singing in the forest, which earned her an exasperated eye roll and then some faint blushing from the blonde. The blonde's mother however looked thrilled at that piece of information. She then mentioned how she had had to visit Rumpelstiltskin in his cell and how she had been forced to strike up a deal with him in order to get her hands on a magic bean.

She also couldn't resist mentioning how old Snow had looked.

Twice.

Emma moved at the same time the arrow did. But arrows were fast and the distance was short.

Too short.

Unlike when she had stopped Henry from piercing Regina with his sword, she wasn't successful this time. The arrow sank into Regina's abdomen and all Emma's magic managed to do was stop it before it came out on the other side.

The impact made her stumble back a few steps. Regina's brow furrowed, her eyes falling from Robin's to the arrow in her abdomen and then back to Robin. She couldn't quite understand what had just happened as her knees began to give under the searing pain.

When she fell, Emma's hands were there to help her down. As smoothly as she could, she guided Regina onto her back.

Meanwhile Robin hadn't moved at all. One arm holding the bow up while the other was raised as if the string was still hooked around his fingers. His eyes were wide, shocked that he had actually let that arrow fly.

"What the hell!" Emma shouted at him, and the words acted as a wakeup call. His bow lowered as he looked around helplessly.

"I- I'm sorry," he stammered, shuffling from one foot to the other. "I didn't mean to, but she wasn't listening, and she was approaching and I didn't-"

"Yeah that's great and all," Emma cut him off. "But sorry isn't really gonna get this arrow out of her stomach, is it?"

She looked down at Regina, who had almost managed to wrap her fingers around the arrow by now. Was she going to pull it out just like that? Had she gone mad? Or was that how you were supposed to act? No that couldn't be. Wasn't it basic knowledge that you shouldn't just pull an arrow out?" Oh man, Emma thought, I am so way out of my depth here.

"Regina stop." The blonde took Regina's hand in hers to drag it away from the arrow. They needed a game plan before they started ripping and pulling anything out of anything.

Regina looked up at her, focusing on her voice, on her words. She clutched at the hand that held hers because she didn't know what else to do. She squeezed in an attempt to squeeze the pain away, and though it really wasn't working it did seem to help a little.

"He shot me?" She eventually whispered as her hazy mind finally caught up with the situation.

"I'm sorry, my lady, I truly didn't mean any harm," Robin tried again.

"Yeah he shot you," Emma confirmed and then added, "and I need you to not try and pull that arrow out okay?"

Emma squeezed her hand and she got a small nod in return. Seconds were ticking away and the blood was starting to soak through the black fabric of Regina's coat. The brunette's breathing was growing heavier with the pain but other than that she didn't make any sound.

"Think, Emma. Think." She whispered, more to herself than to anyone else. The harder she tried, the less sensible thoughts she formed. Her free hand shook as it ghosted around the wound, not quite touching it. "What do I do? What do I do?"

With one look at Robin, who couldn't seem to decide what to do as he shuffled from one foot to the other, she decided against waiting for him. Perhaps, in theory, he ought to know what one should do after getting hit by an arrow but right now Emma wasn't sure he could. Or maybe he wasn't doing anything because he knew there was nothing to do.

"Magic," Regina said so softly that Emma didn't hear her.

Regina coughed a few times, causing her face to scrunch up and blood to rise to her mouth.

"Magic." She said again, louder this time.

"Magic," Emma repeated after her, not quite comprehending what she meant to say. She had trouble focusing on the words as she watched those normally pearly white teeth stain a horrible shade of red. "You think, you think you can use your magic to get it out?"

Regina shook her head, her body twitching in an effort not to cough and inflict the pain that would inevitably come with that again. "I can't."

There was no way she could perform such a spell in her condition. Healing had never been her strong suit, as Rumple never wasted much of their precious time on 'silly tricks she would never need'. Besides, healing was far too much on the 'light' side of magic to be of any interest to the Dark One. Over time, she had been able to learn how to heal by doing her own reading and practice, but conjuring a fireball was still far easier than treating the burns it could cause.

"But you can."

"Me? You want me to-, but I don't know how. I've never-, I can't. Regina, I can't."

"You can."

They stared at each other for a long moment. Emma was looking at her, trying to read her. Trying to find any sign that the brunette's confidence in her was nothing but a lie to get her to do it, but Regina firmly held her gaze as she repeated her words again. "You can, Emma."

Emma took in the spot where the arrow's shaft disappeared through the coat. She nodded once, still unsure and then once more. Determination blended into the fearful expression she wore as she locked gazes with Regina once more.

"Tell me how."

"To heal," Regina began, trying to keep the nausea of the blood in her mouth at bay, "Think of something good. Something really good. A time you felt whole. The feeling in your chest, the warmth, imagine it flowing through your arm and out of your palm.

"But first," Regina explained. "focus your magic on moving the arrow. Picture the place you want it to be and then will it to go there."

Emma closed her eyes in concentration like she always did before performing a new piece of magic she wasn't sure she could even pull off. Seconds passed and nothing happened. Regina squeezed her hand, trying to encourage her and to ground herself. To keep herself in that moment and not to drift away on the waves of pain that were impatiently demanding her attention. She couldn't give in to them. The coppery taste in her mouth, the sharp stabbing pain spreading from her abdomen out into every inch of her body, they were trying to drag her under. She was used to incredible amounts of pain, but she had little experience with the pain of flesh wounds. But her mind was strong. Hazy. But stronger for now.

Her fingers had only just tightened their grip when the arrow disappeared. At first, there was surprise, but then pain worse than before took over everything. If there was ever any doubt that there was certainly a reason they told you not to remove arrows, that doubt evaporated in the heat of the searing pain shooting through her body.

Emma opened her eyes only to see Regina had closed hers. Regina was losing this battle faster than she was losing blood. There was no time to celebrating having successfully moved the arrow because blood was now visibly gushing from the hole in the brunette's belly. Emma quickly cupped both of her trembling hands over the hole applying as much pressure as she could. Warmth. Think of warmth. The blood under her palms was warm. So warm. And so much of it. Too much of it.

No. Warmth. Think.

She conjured up the first memory that boiled to the surface and through some miracle, it seemed to be doing the trick. She felt that warmth Regina had told her to find stirring inside of her and she mentally gathered it as best she could. It was kind of like gathering snow to make a snowball. She pressed it together until it felt like it was a ball that could indeed be moved. She willed it to spread from her chest through her arms. It felt like hot chocolate traveling from her mouth down her throat to her stomach only this time it started in her chest and spread through both her arms.

At first she mistook the warmth for more blood when it reached her hands and for a second her concentration slipped as she worried she wouldn't be faster than the gushing stream of blood.

She should've tackled Regina into that green hole when she had the chance, she scolded herself as she pressed down harder. None of this would be happening if she had just gotten Regina home through that portal. Then again, Regina would never have forgiven her if she had done that.

She willed the good memory to the front of her brain again. She remembered how good it had felt. She could still hear the laughter like it was yesterday. She never knew this memory was so dear to her. She had never even realized she could remember that evening so vividly until this moment. The moment where she needed to remember. She hadn't even thought about it. this particular moment just floated to the surface and she had rolled with it. It didn't matter.

What mattered, was that it was working.

It was working!

Clear white sort of light radiated onto the bleeding mess beneath her palms and seeped through the spaces between her bloodstained fingers.

A moment passed before Regina slowly regained consciousness, her eyes opening.

It felt as if the heat of the light was evaporating the pain. The pain was losing territory in her body, crawling out of her head, her arms, her legs, her chest, as it retreated back into the initial wound before disappearing completely. It felt much like a wave rolling off the shore after having crashing onto it.

She watched the blonde's face, illuminated by the bright light of her magic as her vision stopped swimming and it became less impossible to think.

The hole in her abdomen was shrinking as tissue recovered itself by magic.

There was no telling how long it took for the wound to heal fully, because time seemed to have slowed and sped up at the same time, but when Emma removed her hands, all that was left as proof of any violence was the damage to Regina's jacket and the bloody arrow that was laying on the sand a few feet away. In her haste to get it away, the blonde had sent it to the first place she could think of, which had been the place they should've disappeared through when it was still an angry whirling portal.

At first, no one spoke or moved. Then, a tentative arm raised and gloved fingers covered the pale hands that still rested upon her stomach. They exchanged a long look before Emma pulled her hands away, sitting back on her heels. Regina then traced the ripped fabric of her coat before dipping into the hole to check the newly healed flesh beneath for any leftover harm.

"It worked," She murmured, half to make herself and believe it and half to reassure Emma.

The sight of Regina moving and the observation that her face wasn't contorted with pain while doing so, Emma let out a huge sigh of relief.

"Is she okay now? What did you do to her?"

Both women snapped their heads to the man still standing in the same spot, his bow dangling from an arm that hung limply down from his body. He was frowning in a mix of concern and incomprehension. He looked deflated compared to how he looked when he had his bow ready just a few minutes ago. He was no longer threatening or even looking like he could ever be of any threat to either women, let alone the two of them together.

Usually, Robin was always quick to act. In robberies and the fleeing after, he had always been required to be able to think, respond and improvise on the spot. The big difference was that the people he usually threatened to shoot willingly parted with their belongings. The fact that this woman had not shown any fear, that she had looked at him with an expression he couldn't quite describe combined with her calling him by his name and approaching him rather than stepping back, had made him react irrationally. He hadn't been thinking. He hadn't been thinking when he let that string slip and even now he had trouble getting his head together.

"Yeah," Emma breathed as she got to her feet. "She's fine. And not thanks to you."