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.
WARNING: Non-graphic references to canon non-con/marital rape.

Major beta gratitude to helenhighwater7 and ariestess.

TIMELINE: This was meant to be a post-ep to "Mother", but before I finished it "Operation Mongoose" aired and sent my timeline AU. So, just assume, please, that this is a slightly different universe in which these poor people actually got a chance to go home and sleep a little between the events of "Mother" and the start of "Operation Mongoose".:)

For annienau08, because I said I would, and I love her.:)

TO BELIEVE IT'S ALL BEEN WORTH THE FIGHT
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2015

Roland is asleep in his car seat when they pull up in front of Regina's mansion. Hours after their arrival in Storybrooke, and they still haven't had a chance to just go home. At least, Regina hasn't. Robin and Roland visited the Merry Men at their campsite while Regina ensconced Zelena in her makeshift dungeon. Robin retrieves their bags from the back of the rental van, so it is Regina who unbuckles Roland and slips him from the safety traps. Robin is rounding the back of the car just in time to see his son reach up and move eagerly into the safety of Regina's arms as she lifts the drowsy boy from the seat with one hand and slides the door closed with the other. How many times had she done this for Henry? The motion seems as natural as breathing.

Robin is struck by the simple trust and comfort in every aspect of his boy's body language. Robin has spent these past weeks-turned-months telling himself over and over that this woman in their home was his Marian and everything would be all right. But every day he watched Roland maintain a kind of distance that time and unfamiliarity should not have explained in one so young. The boy spent far less time with Regina, hasn't seen her now for weeks, yet he is still touching her with the blind trust Robin himself has felt all along. Roland's instincts are clearly less muddled than his father's in all of this.

Regina tosses Robin a soft, tired smile over Roland's shoulder as she starts up the path toward the door. The two have exchanged few words. Even talk on the lengthy drive was hampered by Roland's presence. So much has happened, there has been too much to process, Robin's brain has all but shut down for the night, and he suspects Regina has reached a similarly numb plateau. He has lost count of the last time she must have slept, but he suspects she is going on a good 48 hours. She probably should not have been behind the wheel. He needs to learn how to drive if they are to make their lives in this world.

Regina is hardly out of her coat when she has Roland set up at the kitchen table with a pile of cheese crackers. She rummages about for a quick, warm dinner for the three of them. Pausing in her work, she rifles through a wide drawer near the refrigerator. She emerges with an old, metal toy car which she places into Roland's small, curious hands as Robin takes a seat across from his son. "An old favorite of Henry's," Regina says with a smile especially for Roland, though it is Robin's heart it truly warms. The boy takes only moments to become entranced with the small toy. He steers the vehicle around the table, humming the sound of the motor even as he munches the last of his crackers. Roland has absorbed this strange world with the lightning malleability of the very young. Robin feels a brief pang of guilt at the thought of taking this vast pool of knowledge from his boy's memory. But for now, the boy expects to be back in New York with his mother in a day or two. The situation is unsustainable. As though she has heard the path of his thoughts, Regina says softly over Roland's busy head, "Food will keep it from bothering his stomach." She doesn't use the word "potion". She doesn't need to.

They eat something with pasta and a white sauce with vegetables in it. Robin has yet to learn this realm's names for all their dishes. He knows the food is good. He has rarely seen Regina being so domestic and he is fascinated by her eternally shifting sides. He wonders if she can sew leathers or bake apple pie.

They are still clearing the dinner dishes when the front door opens and Henry's voice rings out from the foyer. "Mom? I'm home."

Mother and son meet halfway, a dishtowel tossed over Regina's shoulder, and Robin can't help but drift a bit nearer to watch their initial embrace. Regina is seldom more real, more true than she is with Henry in her arms. Robin treasures these moments.

The boy looks past his mother, sees Robin, and gives him a fleeting but genuine smile. "Hey, Robin," he says. Robin steps forward and reaches out to shake the boy's hand. "Henry. Good to see you, again, my boy." He pats his shoulder, grips firmly. He has come to think of this child as family, he is a part of Regina, and he wants to build on what they have.

Regina is fussing over Henry's hair and stripping him of his backpack like he's ten instead of thirteen, but the boy seems content to let her fuss. "Did David drop you off?"

"Mary Margaret."

"Have you eaten?"

"Yeah, we all had dinner, I'm fine."

"Well, come have some dessert with Roland. Do you have homework?"

Robin blinks and it's all just so bizarre, memory potions and wicked witches and a town you can enter or leave but never both, but this is still a school night and Regina is checking on Henry's homework. Arithmetic and history reports. Life persists.

Henry shrugs. "I did some of it, already. Just a little math left."

"All right. Bring it with you to the kitchen, it's getting late."

Henry nods and moves past Robin, and Robin is fascinated by the easy interactions. He knows how much these two have been through in recent years, but it is clear their love has never been in question. As angry as he knows Henry has been at Regina in the past, it is as plain as the nose on his face that the boy trusts Regina with his life and his heart. Robin knows the feeling.

Regina takes a pound cake from the freezer, warms it a bit in the microwave (a contraption of this world that still mystifies Robin - he will heat his food over a good old-fashioned visible fire, thank you very much), and tops it with ice cream and strawberries. Robin sees her slip the small purple vial from her pocket, the one she had stopped to make in her vault on their way home. She glances ever so briefly in his direction, a kind of apology and question in her chocolate eyes as her fingers hesitate. Robin checks that Roland is absorbed in showing Henry the finer points of his own toy car, then moves casually and deliberately to Regina's side. He places a hand to the small of her back and they hold eye contact for a long beat, saying all that needs to be said without a word. He places a hand over hers, and together they uncap the vial, together they turn the substance out onto Roland's dessert plate. Regina's free hand lingers a moment longer, waves with a controlled elegant motion, and he sees and feels a hot wave of purple wash from her hand over the plate and a faint glow flickers between ice cream and strawberry. She is directing the magic, tasking the potion. He trusts her with his son's life. Yet she still doubts her own rights in his life. His trust is a confusing curiosity to her tortured soul.

Robin sees her draw a deliberate breath, and when she turns with the two boys' dessert plates in her hands, there is nothing but a confident and motherly smile on her lips.

"All right, toys and homework away from the sticky dessert while you boys eat."

"What's the red stuff?" Roland asks with wrinkled nose and probing finger.

"It's just strawberry juice," Henry supplies. "Don't worry, it's really good."

Roland has barely finished his last bite of cake when his eyelids start to droop and he is propping his head on his hand. It is Regina who catches him before he faceplants into his ice cream-smeared plate, even as Robin reaches out a protective hand. Henry is clearly startled by Roland's sudden drop, and if he is honest, Robin is a little worried as well, but Regina calmly scoops the sleeping boy onto her lap, coaxing the spoon from his fingers before it can slip to the floor.

"It's a side effect of the potion," Regina says softly, glancing first to Robin, then to Henry with a hint of a reassuring smile. "His brain is resetting itself."

"Potion?" Henry asks, the last of his own dessert hovering on a now forgotten spoon.

Regina nods. "A memory potion. It will take away the last couple of months for him, but he won't remember Zelena, or who he thought was his mother."

Robin is impressed by the sober expression on the older boy's face as he takes in the weight of the choice his mother has made. After a beat, he gives a decisive nod. "That's good," he says. "He's too young."

Regina's gentle smile is both grateful and proud. "We should take Roland up to bed," she says, fingers absently playing in tousled curls. Robin can't help but think his boy looks perfectly content right where he is.

Robin offers to take Roland for the haul up the grand staircase, but Regina says easily, "I've got him," so Robin snatches up the duffle of Roland's things and contents himself with shadowing the two a bare step behind, his steadying hand at Regina's back.

Roland hardly stirs as they settle him into the spacious bed in the spare room. Robin retrieves Roland's favorite stuffed bear from the bag and tucks it in beside him. He catches Regina's subtle but probing touch, checking Roland's forehead and cheek, making sure his temperature is normal. He kisses his boy goodnight as Regina flips on a softly glowing night lamp, and they slip out the door.

They are not two steps down the hall, when Robin catches both Regina's hands, stops her progress, and leans his forehead to hers. She sighs against him with a soft puff of breath. She smells like coffee and he thinks she must be running on caffeine.

"Thank you," he says, hoping to convey the great weight through simplicity.

Regina squeezes his hands. "I'm just sorry he got caught in all of this."

Robin lifts a hand to the back of Regina's neck and grips hard. "None of this is your fault."

Regina swallows stiffly. He thinks she is going to speak, then he catches the tension in her muscles, the haze of tears in her eyes as she pulls away. "Let's get back," she whispers.

"Regina?" he questions, clinging to her fingers as she moves away.

But she just shakes her head and leaves him behind.

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Regina helps Henry with the last of his math homework, and Robin makes an attempt at clearing up the dishes. Then Regina heads Henry off to his room with orders to turn off his phone and read for a while before bed. When she embraces her boy one last time for the night, Robin hears Henry say softly, "I'm glad you're home, Mom."

Regina smoothes his hair as he moves away and says, "Maybe someday we can go to New York together, and you can show me around under better circumstances."

Henry nods and says he'd like that. Robin has no desire to see New York again.

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"Is it strange for you...to be growing older, again?" Robin asks, as Regina stands before her bedroom mirror, unfastening the belt of her dress.

She lifts an eyebrow and deepens her voice. "Am I looking particularly old to you tonight?"

Robin gives a soft chuckle and touches her bare shoulder. "You're looking ridiculously fresh and ravishing for a woman who has been awake and road-tripping or on the run for nearly 48 hours."

She gives him a tolerant smirk, then considers his original question. "Hmmm...it's a little strange, yes. It's an adjustment. But...it's good. I think I've...stayed in one place for long enough in my life. Besides, I don't really want Henry to be older than I, one day."

"Indeed. I would never want to outlive Roland."

Regina sighs and closes her eyes; she tilts her neck to stretch tight muscles, and he sees her flinch in genuine pain.

His hands move without thought to work the tight muscles of her shoulders. She lets herself breathe through his ministrations and he is grateful for the small intimacy.

"How are you feeling?" he prompts, unzipping the short zipper at the neck of her dress, giving himself more room to work.

"Honestly?" she breathes, eyes still closed, "Completely exhausted."

He lifts one hand to smooth down the back of her hair. "It's all right. Tonight, you rest."

She leans her head into his hand, and Robin steps closer, wraps his arms around her. The scent of her penetrates his thoughts, rushes him with memory. He knew every day he was away that he missed her, but every moment in her presence drives home how very much. Life is profoundly different for him with Regina in his vicinity than it was before or after she entered his world.

Robin rests his chin on Regina's shoulder, then tucks his face into the curve of her neck and breathes deeply. Regina's body is no longer tensing at his touch, and she has tangled her fingers with his. "Do you realize I've never seen your bed chamber, before?" he mumbles into her hair.

She gives a gentle laugh. "I suppose that's true. Henry was always here."

Robin forces himself to lift his head from its comfortable nest. He squints at the brightness of what had previously seemed soft lights and realizes he, too, may be more fatigued than he thought.

"I can sleep with Roland, tonight. It's all right, I understand."

But Regina shakes her head, and for a flash of a moment in the mirror her eyes are more frightened girl than timeless queen. Her grip on his fingers betrays her quiet words. "No. No, you can stay. I don't mind that he knows. He wants us together. It's just that before...before, you were married."

Robin sucks his lower lip between his teeth and tugs her closer, the curve of her hips flush to his contours as he holds her reflected gaze. "Except...I wasn't, was I? We were all right, all along."

She takes that in in silence.

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She wants to talk. She needs to talk. This is all so confusing and on some level it's wonderful and intoxicating and on another level it feels tainted and achy and like the walls that were crushing them have evaporated and they are in danger of falling from the lack of resistance. But she knows they are right, they just are, he's her Robin and he loves her, and somehow, they will figure this out. She believes in him, if not quite with the same level of innocent trust they once enjoyed.

But try as she might, she can't talk, she can't make sense, she can barely keep her eyes open. She is tucked between Robin's legs, curled into his chest and hugging his arm across her shoulder, pillowing her cheek on his bicep as he leans against her headboard and strokes her hair. "Rest, milady," he whispers. "I shall be right here." And before she knows it, she has fallen asleep.

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Regina startles awake in inky darkness from dreams she can't quite remember. The sudden motion rouses Robin as well. For half a second, she is fuzzy on time and place. She was sleeping so deeply, and this is all so confused and stirred up and new. But her body is quick to realize this is Robin, Robin's warmth against her, around her, breathing with her, and it is real this time, not the lingering traces of a tortured or wanton dream. Robin moans softly, mouth moving into her hair, and pressing a soft kiss to her temple, and Regina closes her eyes again and starts to breathe, slowing her pulse and her racing thoughts.

"You all right?" he murmurs, words blurred with sleep.

"Mmm-hmm," is all she can manage.

They have sunk down on the pillows until they are tangled and spooned deep in the cushion of her luxurious mattress. Robin sighs against her ear, and his hands roam lazily over her curves. She cannot help but respond, a subtle rippling motion the length of her body as she purrs and melts into his petting attentions.

Her hip slides against his in her silk gown, and she can feel his firm heat rising against her thigh. The warmth and silken caresses mix on her flesh and soothe her like a liquid moonlight and more and more she wants to stop thinking, just stop thinking as he has told her on more than one occasion, and sink into pure sensation. Her mind has asked her to go slow, but her body is screaming for Robin's touch, his scent, his textures and curves and lines. She wants to be lost, to be cherished, to be explored, riled up, and loved.

She rolls in his arms and his hungry mouth instantly finds hers in the dark.

His kisses taste like spring water - wet and bright and clear and sweet. Her skin quivers and warms at his touch, and the rush of feeling is near overwhelming. She had been in an excruciating kind of withdrawal when he left, chemicals firing night and day, body aching for an unattainable release. Time and pain dulled the sensations, but now, now it is as though he has broken a damn and months' worth of need has flooded her senses.

Regina starts to kiss back. Hard. She opens her mouth and pulls at him, drinking him, hooking her leg over his thigh, pushing her hands beneath his shirt to reach every bit of skin she can find.

Robin's hand skims up her side, fingers splayed and reverent. He caresses the back of her shoulder, then moves around to cradle her breast through the silk.

She actually whimpers, and it would probably be embarrassing if it didn't feel so good it hurt.

They move so beautifully together, read each other's shifts and directions and intents, as though they have been together far longer than they have. She told her mother once that she had not known much love in her life, but "that is not what a soulmate feels like." This...this right here, this seamless dance, this wordless communication and acceptance, this is what it feels like, what she always believed it would.

His hand is in her hair, cradling her head as he has done since that first fire-lit kiss, conveying the unique combination of shelter and possession that is so Robin. One eager hand has moved to cradle her ass, and the throbbing between her legs is pulling at her right up into the pit of her stomach. She wants nothing more than to devour him without reserve, to lose herself in this still novel sea of safety and intimacy and desire and love, but...but she just...she keeps seeing...ahh...fuck...

Regina pushes away from him, breaks off the suction of their kiss, falls back breathless and trembling. "Wait. I can't...I'm sorry..." She drops her weight onto the pillows, hand to her heated brow, covers her eyes. Their limbs remain entangled, she can't pull away cold, she would fall too far. But she also can't...she just...

"Regina, what's wrong? What is it, love?" Robin rises onto his elbow, hovering above her with a concern she can feel like his breath on her skin, and she feels the guilt like an insect sting; she never wants to hurt him.

"I'm sorry," she stammers. She can barely sort her own thoughts, much less convey them clearly to someone else.

"Are you all right?" His hands are looking for what's wrong as much as his gaze.

She tries to steady her breath, can't quite look at him, even in the dim trails of moonlight. "Yes, I'm...I'm sorry, it's not you. It's all right. I just...I can't."

"Sssshh..." His hand strokes her hair, thumb along her cheekbone. He coaxes her arm away from her eyes. "Easy. You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

"I do want to. Of course, I do, I..." She reaches down and catches his crooked elbow in her palm, squeezes her reassurance and maybe a hint of quiet desperation into his flesh. "I'm with you. We're here, I just...I need to take it...a little slow. Is that all right?"

She has surrendered her gaze just enough to catch the deepening of Robin's frown. "Of course, it's all right." He seems almost disappointed that she feels she has to ask. His hand strokes her cheek and her throat feels tight. "As long as you talk to me. I just want to be with you. In any way you wish. Just here."

She falls silent, but she lets him soothe her, gentle her. Her body leads, she lets her mind follow, and her panting breath slows.

Robin won't let her hide in silence for long. "Come on. You were nearly in tears earlier, when I touched you in the hall. Talk to me."

After a long beat, Regina reaches out a clumsy hand and slaps at the switch for the pale nightlight at the base of her bedside lamp. The one she used time and again when Henry would come running into her room in the middle of the night. Even this tiny illumination feels blinding after the mid-night dark. But, if they're going to do this, she's going to look him in the eye, fuck all.

Robin rests a steadying hand on her ribcage, his palm wide and warm at her narrow waist. "Let's start with the hallway. What were you thinking?" he leads, maddeningly practical and patient when she just wants to crawl out of her skin.

"I was thinking...you were being kind to me. Taking care of me. And..."

"And it's been a long time," he finishes.

She nods, but does not speak, and he knows there is more to it than that.

"You don't trust me like you did. I left you. Twice."

He is always so honest, so open, it pains her to listen to it, and she doesn't know how to face the world in anything but extremes. "No, it's...no. I do. I trust you." She takes his hand, looks him solidly in the eyes and tries to soothe the pain behind the gallantry. "Robin, I trust you. You were protecting Roland, keeping your vow to your family, it's...I get it. It's all right."

Robin's eyes narrow and he releases a heavy breath. It's clear he hears the unspoken continuation of her thought. "But...the part that bothers you is..." He leans in a bit, eyes softening, thumb caressing the outside of her hand, and damn it, she is so absurdly incapable of hiding anything from him. How was she ever a successful queen?

Her silence holds one blessed moment more as she clings to his gaze and wishes for this all to just go away. And then everything she is feeling tumbles over her lips. She tells him how she knows, she knows, none of this is his fault, but she just keeps seeing him with her...both her Marian in his head and her Zelena, because there are messy connotations to both, and yes, she gets he had to go to New York, he really did, but he didn't have to love Marian, he didn't have to sleep with her, couldn't he have lived nearby and watched over her? Been a friend? If he loved her, Regina, why did he have to...

Robin grabs her by a fistful of hair at the back of her neck. "Stop," he says, tone startlingly firm, but never unkind. She has stopped flinching at physical restraint with him, something rare in her bruising history. "Stop, Regina. Hear me. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for all of this. I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry this hurt you, hurt us. But I love you. You know that. And we will find our way forward. We will take our time, and we will rebuild. One day, one hour at a time. We won't let Zelena take this from us. I will not."

She hears him, she knows it's all true, and she feels like crap, feels like a selfish bitch for throwing all of this on him, and he is usually the one to call her out of her head. "I know," she insists. "I know. And I do understand, and I'm sorry, I don't want this to be all about me. It shouldn't be about me, right now. You're the one that she...she used, and...deceived into..." And that's where it clicks in her thick head, where it soaks in for the first time what this really constitutes for Robin, what this violation has meant for him. She seeks out his gaze with a fresh intensity. When she speaks, it is with uncharacteristic hesitation and a raw vulnerability she can see touches him. It is these moments, when her opinions, her words, her care seem to carry such weight, that tease her into believing he might truly love her somewhere near as much as she loves him. "Are you...," she clears her throat, stumbles over the language, "are you...all right?"

Robin watches her for a long moment, eyes soft and pale. She sees the depth, the beat it takes him to pull it together, and she feels even worse for her outburst and a little sick at the images pulsing through her mind. Robin draws a slow breath and simply nods. "I'm all right. A bit..." He lets a heavy exhale complete the thought.

A pained sound escapes the back of Regina's throat and she swallows. "I'm sorry. I can't...I can't imagine."

Robin's brief smile never reaches his eyes. He lets his gaze fall to her chest, draws the backs of his fingers down her cheekbone and along the line of her jaw. "Oh, I believe you can," he says softly. "I believe you can well imagine what it's like to share a bed with someone whom you did not choose, under the guise of marriage."

Regina takes that in, but does not react. They haven't really talked about Leopold. Haven't talked about Kings and young brides and conjugal rights in a primitive kingdom. But this is Robin telling her he understands.

There are rules in her head about accepting understanding for this one. "I also know what it's like to do the same to someone in return," she says. She is unyielding and dark.

She watches Robin's shoulders sag, recognizes the same sympathy and pain he always expresses when she talks of her past cruelties, sees how he frames these things only in the pain she endured and the self-hatred she continues to aim her own way. She can see where he's going with her little revelation.

He takes a breath and begins. "The difference is you w-"

But Regina stops him with two fingers firm to his lips. "Don't. Don't excuse it."

Robin eyes her for a long moment, weighing his choices. There is pain and deep contemplation in his gaze, but she will not back down, and she sees the moment he realizes the weight and necessity of her request. He draws up, drops his shoulders, and moves the subject back to her original question. She is grateful, because the conversation turned to her again, and she is starting to think it is a co-dependent avoidance tactic. "I thought I was with someone who loved me," Robin says, brutal in his truth as ever. "Turns out I was not. What I need...is to usurp those memories with something more recent. Something more beautiful. To be touched by someone who does love me. Someone I love."

Regina sags into her pillow, gaze warming with shared pain and regret and love. There is a moment between them of tender care and connection, and then she sees the shift in Robin's eyes and realizes he has taken her conflicted expression to mean she thought he was pushing for the sex she just said she wasn't ready for, and before she can fix the misunderstanding, he says, "In any way you wish, Regina. Just lying here with you, feeling you on my skin. That's all I require."

She nods. "I know. I want that."

The tears she's been fighting for hours blur her vision, and she leans forward, cradles Robin's face in her hands and kisses him with such feeling it's like a substitute for air.

For endless minutes they go on like that. Just kissing, touching, gentling. Reassuring and reaffirming. Rediscovering.

When they have grown far closer through touch than they ever could have with words, Robin cradles his hand to her face, seeks and captures her undivided attention. "Regina." He speaks with a calm that penetrates the last of her walls. "Listen to me. I was trying to be there for my family in the only way that my honor and my tradition and my culture have taught me. By being the real family that we once were. By trying to give Roland two parents in one house who cared for one another and treasured him. But that did not change how I felt about you. How I feel about you. Nothing could change that." His thumb plays across her kiss-swollen lips. "I want you to think about something for me."

She slides her leg between his, seeking more warmth, more entanglement. "What?"

"I want you to imagine if our roles had been reversed. If it had been Daniel who returned. And imagine that Henry was Daniel's boy. And they both needed you. What would you have done? Would you have gone with Daniel? Protected him in New York? Made certain he was an equal part of Henry's life?"

As hard as it is to let those images play through her mind, Regina takes the harsh truth with a hard swallow and a shifting of her hips. "Yes," she says.

"And would you have loved me any less for it?"

"No. Of course, not."

"And if you had known that you couldn't see me again, that you had to stay at least until Henry was grown, live as a family...would you have slept with Daniel?"

She doesn't want to do this. She had Daniel back, once, and she lived through a whole fresh version of her private hell, but Robin needs this from her, and she owes him this much and more. Owes him the weight of what he has suffered in flesh and blood. "I don't know," she replies, frankly. "Daniel and I...we never really...we hadn't...we were very young."

Robin is intrigued by her admission, drawn into a trace of a kind smile. He considers this information for long breaths.

Regina tries to break away from the subject and the whole conversation. She longs to return to the simple reassurances and touches. And the kissing. She has always discussed things better by kissing. "No, you're right," she says. "I understand. I...I'm sorry, I just...I'm sure you wouldn't have been too thrilled with watching me with Daniel. Even if you understood."

Robin dips his head in acquiescence. "Touche. Indeed, that is not an image I would relish." But his earlier thoughts are still holding him, she reads it in the lines around his eyes. "Regina...can I ask you something?"

"There's more?"

His hand is resting on her midriff, both soothing and assuring the continued intimacy between them. "I can certainly presume that my Queen, in her unusually long and youthful life, has had her share of men to pleasure her, and I would not ask you for a full recount..."

Regina lifts an eyebrow. She wasn't expecting this, but this is a question she can handle. "Well, the number probably isn't as high as a lot of people seem to presume. I was more of a serial loyalist, if not precisely a monogamist. I never cheated on Leopold. But...yes, I have not gone wanting for sexual experience since my late husband's demise. Except, perhaps, when Henry was young," she finishes with a smirk.

"Of course." Robin shares the parental humor for a moment, then he sobers and catches her gaze with hooded lids and shadowing lashes in the dim light. "My question is...in your rather extraordinary life... how many times have you made love?"

Oh. Regina looks down at where his hand rests upon stomach. She tangles her fingers in the eyelet border of her pillow sham and clenches. He deserves the truth in this if nothing else. "You should know..." she murmurs, voice barely a whisper, gaze refusing to lift to his. The intimacy and vulnerability in the moment send goosebumps down the run of her thighs, "...you were there every time."

Robin breathes with her for long counts. She can feel in his body that he is absorbing both the intimate gift and the weight of the pain. He cups her chin and coaxes her back to him. He waits until she can feel every ounce of love and trust and shelter shimmering between them. "I'm here," he breathes at last, so close and so warm it brings her to the edge of tears. "And my heart never left you. It never will. I intend to be there every time you make love for the rest of our lives, if you'll allow."

She starts to cry. He kisses her into peace and silence, reverant in every touch and firm in every reassurance. She loves him so much, and she has never known what to do with this kind of love, how to contain it, how to survive it. She loves him with all her heart and she is learning, day by day, how not to fall apart if he is gone. But she has so much more to learn about how to let herself take in the joy without surrendering her foundations. Tonight, Robin needs healing as much or more than she, and that is one task toward which she knows it is always right to channel her love. So she gives, she touches every inch of him, kisses every bit she can reach. She lays her scent and her taste and her adoration onto every inch of him that has been used or abused. She imprints her claim to his flesh and to the heart beating beneath.

She makes love to him. It is nearing dawn by the time they sleep, again. And she is still afraid he will vanish in the night. She will be afraid for years to come, she understands this. But Robin holds onto her like their moment is eternal. And for a glimpse and a fleeting moment, she believes perhaps it is. Perhaps they are a page in the story, captured for all time, to inspire love and trust in the darkest of times or the darkest of hearts.

He is the man with the lion tattoo. And she knows what a soulmate feels like.

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