When they returned home, Roland ran into his father's arms and Regina gave them some space. She didn't want to intrude on their bonding session, and, honestly, she wasn't sure if she could look the man in the eye while she waited for their time to talk. Instead, she busied herself arranging their belongings upstairs. She wasn't about to kick the man and his child out tonight, but the house was hers and their belongings would need to be separated.

She paused.

If he wasn't leaving tonight, where would he sleep? Should she sleep elsewhere tonight? She couldn't imagine giving Ruby the pleasure of showing up at the inn, suitcase in hand. Nor could she fight the panic in the pit of her stomach at the idea of asking Emma Swan to allow her to sleep on her couch. The office was a distinct possibility, but she had purposely chosen uncomfortable furniture to discourage guests from staying longer than twenty minutes.

She mulled over all of her options as she rearranged her bedroom and ensuite bathroom. She didn't even realize Robin had joined her until his hand was on her back and his lips were on her cheek.

"Cleaning?" He took stock of the new division of belongings on either side of the sink and frowned.

"Is Roland asleep?" she asked.

He nodded, still frowning.

She took his hand and led him down the stairs into the lounge room.

The two of them took a seat and Robin chuckled nervously. "You're either about to break up with me, or you want to have another baby."

"Well, I don't want another child." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

Robin's lips parted for a moment as though he anticipated a witty joke about how she would never break up with him.

Regina suddenly wished she could soothe him with loving assurances, but she bit her tongue. His sad eyes were not worth sacrificing her future for. She rearranged her thoughts and spoke carefully. "Robin, I know you think you and I are meant to be together, but I don't think either of us is very happy."

"Speak for yourself," he uttered, his voice hoarse.

"You're not happy, Robin. How could you be happy with someone who doesn't love you?"

He looked away, and she wished simultaneously that she had a gentler soul and that he could stop being sad and pathetic long enough to see reason.

"Robin, I care for you and Roland, I do—"

He made a gurgling sound.

"—but I think there's been a mistake with the fairy dust. I think… I think it was looking for someone who didn't exist in our realm, and I think you were the closest match."

"You…" he sputtered and shook his head. "You never wanted it to be me." He got up and started pacing around the room, his voice getting louder as he vented his thoughts. "And now you think, what? The dust chose me because I had the same haircut as your real soulmate and it got confused? How fucking convenient! Or maybe the dust was lazy, and couldn't be bothered to travel to the next realm over to find my long lost twin, Slobin Shood!"

Regina had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. Slobin Shood? She couldn't wait to be rid of him.

"Robin, listen. I've recently begun to believe that we are all types. The queen with a dark past who needs to learn to love again, the warrior who seems to balance justice with their own personal penchant for thievery. We're types, and our types go well together in a lot of stories, but you and I don't in this one. All I'm saying is, I think it makes sense that the dust might choose you over another tattooed hero because you were the closest potential match at the time."

"You think I'm something you can just trade in for another one of my type?" he yelled. "You are abandoning me AGAIN. You rejected me before you even talked to me in that pub, and now you're dumping me before you even tried to make it work! It doesn't even bother you that you doomed me to years of misery because you were a coward that night at the pub!"

Regina clicked her tongue in scorn. "It was during that so-called misery that you met Marion and had Roland!" she spat. "How much of your life would you sacrifice just to follow the orders of a handful of dust?"

"I've never been good enough for you, have I?"

This time Regina did roll her eyes. "Work out your bitterness with Dr Hopper. You're not getting anything more from me. I'm telling you I'm done." She stood to leave.

Robin grabbed her arm. "So who is he, huh? This guy that's so interchangeable with me you can just replace me the second I'm gone?"

Regina glared at his hand, and he released her. "Let's not do this. Just let it go. You hate this relationship as much as I do."

"I don't, is the sad part." He sat down again, his rage exhausted. "But I'll pack up my shit and let you move on with your new tattooed hero."

Regina sneered. If he wanted to play the injured party, he could. His happy ending was no longer her concern.

"I need to go for a walk," he muttered, "and I'm not coming back tonight."

Relief washed over her at the dead look in his eyes. He was disengaging. She would soon be free.

"I'll pick up Roland in the morning, but that's it, Regina." The pleading look returned briefly. "You go through with this, I might not be there the next time you change your mind and decide I'm suddenly good enough for you. If I leave, I leave."

"As you wish," she said, and with a curt nod she excused herself from the room and headed upstairs.

####

Sprawled in the middle of her bed, Regina felt the world become exciting again. She didn't have to be with Robin Hood. Didn't have to talk to him or share a bed with him ever again.

Her mind turned to Emma Swan and her body went still.

No.

She wouldn't think about that tonight. She would never have to sleep with Emma because Emma wasn't actually her soulmate. These parallels between Robin and the saviour were just a convenient excuse, she reminded herself.

The thought of being sexual with Emma disgusted her. It really did. It would be laughable if it weren't so horrid. The thought of the woman cracking a wide smile—

No, gross.

Cracking a wide smile as she—

Stop, stop, stop.

As she took Regina's nipple in her mouth and—

"Absolutely not!" Regina snarled, scolding her own brain. She pressed her wrist to her breast, willing her nipple to soften so her entire body could forget the whole torturous dream sequence had ever happened.

She fell asleep quite a few minutes later with the still-hard tip nestled between her fingers.

Robin showed up late and bleary-eyed to the staff meeting. Emma could read the signs of stress well enough to know not to call him out in front of his peers, but after the meeting she had to take him into her office to have a word.

"Do you want to tell me why you think you should be exempt from showing up on time to team meetings?" she asked.

"I shouldn't be. I apologize." His eyes were less puffy than they had been an hour earlier and he seemed less harried, but she still got an agitated reading from him.

"Anything I absolutely need to know about?"

"No, Sheriff." He sighed, and Emma found her eye twitching at the familiar sound. "I suppose Regina didn't say anything this morning, but we're having some temporary difficulties. I might have to move out when I get home. I was up most of the night and I overslept."

The news came as a shock to Emma. Regina had been a bit quiet that morning, but she seemed well rested. Not like someone who was separating from her so-called true love. "Well, I'm sorry to hear about your relationship, but we all gotta leave our personal baggage at the door and do our jobs, okay?"

"So I guess you're not about to approve of my request to scan our databases for a thief with a tattoo?"

Emma frowned. "What am I missing here?"

"She said something about how she thinks the fairy dust had a mix-up, got me confused with another guy my 'type,' and she said he had a tattoo. I think she met someone else and just wants an excuse to run away from our fate together."

Emma felt for the man, she really did. It couldn't be easy to be given a happily-ever-after sentence with Regina. But this wasn't the enchanted forest, and she wasn't about to give a heartbroken dude access to confidential information just so he could enact some sort of jealous revenge fantasy. She decided to try to talk him down. "Look, even if there were a specific guy, it's not going to change anything to figure out who he is."

"I guess I just want to know if someone's trying to trick her." He looked down at the stapler on her desk. "We're meant to be together, so I don't understand how or why she would get it in her head that she should try to be with someone else. Fairy dust doesn't lie."

"Well, it might not lie, but maybe it's not the only truth out there. If there's someone else for her, there's someone else for you too."

"What if there's no one else for her and she's just dooming us both to misery?"

Emma's hope for a productive day was dwindling fast. Counseling her colleagues—counseling anyone, really—was not her forte.

"I hope that's not the case, Robin. Maybe she'll come around, or maybe she'll move on. It sucks when you're not in control, but you need to make peace with that. And if you can't, you need to at least pretend you have while you're wearing that uniform, okay?"

That oughtta do it.

He nodded and rose from his chair. Emma was just about to give herself a mental pat on the back when Robin stalled in the doorway, a question on his lips. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone with a lion tattoo, would you?"

Emma's stomach dropped. "What?"

"It's just, that's the part that sticks out for me. I wasn't just a thief-turned-justice-crusader, I was a tattooed hero with a thieving past. I can't think why she would mention the tattoo except that my lion was the one thing she knew about me from the night she learned we were meant to be together. I thought, maybe someone else with a lion tattoo has her convinced her soulmate is him instead of me. And if he's a thief, he might show up in our database. Maybe he's even dangerous. I'm just thinking of her own protection, not revenge."

Emma struggled to find words as her thoughts reeled. It couldn't be! Was this about yesterday? When Ruby mentioned the ville de lyon, Regina did get rather quiet. But there was no way Regina—REGINA—believed she was meant to be with her! As far as Emma knew, the mayor had never even been interested in women.

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Regina did stare at her chest quite a bit, for a heterosexual. "Why don't you leave it to me?" she finally said. "That way, we can make sure Regina is safe, and it isn't a conflict of interest."

She hoped.

####

She'd done a cursory search of Storybrooke's database for inked former criminals, but not one of their tattoos resembled a lion of any sort. And now she stood at the door to the diner with a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach, still at a loss as to what she might say to the woman once she had a moment alone with her.

Her anxiety spiked when she spotted the woman currently sitting alone at a booth, Henry nowhere to be seen.

"Miss Swan, there you are," Regina said, avoiding Emma's gaze as she sat down. "Henry's in the bathroom."

Regina was definitely acting strangely, but it wasn't necessarily about her, Emma reminded herself. "Hey, I heard about you and Robin," she said, trying to imagine what she might say if she wasn't afraid the woman was in love with her. "I hope you're doing okay."

Regina tsked, her eyes fixed on the door behind Emma's head, waiting for Henry. "You're just like your mother, trying to interfere in business that has nothing to do with you."

"It's condolences, Regina. That's what normal people do."

"And I'm not normal," Regina spat. "I'm going to do something evil because my tender heart is broken—is that what you think?"

"Jeez," Emma said with a sigh. "I'm sorry you're feeling defensive, Regina. I hope you'll remember that I know you're not evil soon."

Henry mercifully appeared at her side a moment later, and she made up an excuse for them to leave right away. Irritated as she was by Regina's behaviour, it was reassuring to be treated so poorly by the woman. Unless Regina was actually five years old, this was not the behaviour of someone who was in love with her.

It wasn't until she was trying to fall asleep that night that she tried to rearrange the clues to Regina's odd behaviour. Tossing and turning in bed, she reviewed everything she knew about the woman, and found one disturbing fact staring her in the face: in terms of emotional maturity, Regina was actually five years old.

####

The next few days were difficult. Regina was as prickly as she'd ever been over breakfast, and Emma knew her newfound wariness around the woman was only adding to the problem. They exchanged few words over breakfast, and fewer later at the diner. Even Henry spoke more than Regina did.

And if that wasn't enough, Robin was becoming increasingly erratic at work. The separation was definitely getting to him, and he was taking it out on his coworkers. With a growing sense of dread, Emma finally invited him in to her office for a meeting.

She hadn't expected it to go well, but it had. He was calm, he apologized for his unprofessional behaviour, and he even thanked her for dealing with his shit. And so, it was with a sense of peace that Emma felt inspired to resolve the other nagging conflict in her life. She called the mayor's office and told Regina she'd like to speak to her about Henry's schoolwork, and she would prefer to do so in private.

The lie earned her an invitation to Regina's house. She knew she'd have to play her cards right, or risk offending the woman further, but she was certain direct communication would eventually lead to a more peaceable relationship between them. It always had in the past.

Emma showed up at the mayor's mansion at 5:15 exactly. Regina opened the door and nodded towards the lounge. Emma followed her in and looked around the room.

It had hardly changed since the last time she saw it, the first night she came to Storybrooke. Should she sit? That way, Regina wouldn't think she was confronting her. She desperately wanted to stand, though, in case it went horribly and she had to make a quick getaway.

She gathered her courage and sat.

Regina followed suit. "If this is about a tutor, I have an education fund set up for just such a thing," she started. She still wasn't looking at Emma directly, opting to peer out the window at the birds hopping on the grass. "What subject is he having troubles in?"

"You don't think I'm your soulmate, do you?" Emma blurted out.

That got Regina looking at her. "Excuse me?"

"You broke up with Robin after you found out my tattoo was some lion flower, and he came into work ranting about how you've left him for a former thief turned hero with a lion tattoo."

She had never seen the former Evil Queen look so horrified.

"I don't care about the decisions you make with your love life," Emma clarified. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I played any part in it. We're on the same page with that, right?"

"Miss Swan," Regina began, "frankly I'm not sure where to start. Do I think you're my soulmate?" She glared into her eyes. "No."

Emma relaxed.

"I'm sorry Robin gave you that impression," Regina continued, "as it could not be further from the truth."

Emma nodded, but something in Regina's voice rang untrue this time. She needed more information. "What's this about then, if you don't mind me asking?"

Regina seemed to make a decision before she spoke. "It is true that your similarities to Robin made me start to wonder if the fairy dust might have confused him with someone else of his type, particularly someone who wasn't around when Tinker Bell cast the spell that revealed him to be my soulmate. But I hope to hell it isn't you."

Emma was shocked, less by Regina's offensive words than the sense that they were not quite true. She struggled to find an appropriate response, eventually settling on, "Good. Because Henry would probably find that pretty confusing." Henry would. Henry. Her mind was reeling. Was her superpower failing her again? Regina didn't hope to hell her soulmate wasn't Emma?

It did not help the situation one bit when Regina mused aloud, "To Henry it would make perfect sense."

"Huh?"

"Well, Henry always wants everything to have a meaning," Regina said, shaking her head. "Imagine: one lonely, untrusting woman gives birth to him, and ends up being the soulmate of the other lonely, unloving woman who raised him. You and me learning to love and trust each other would be the ultimate fairytale turnaround for Henry." Regina went quiet for a moment, a look of enlightenment ominously dawning on her features. "You and I are always stronger together. The saviour and the evil queen, soulmates…."

The panic rising in Emma's throat was almost at the point where she knew she would start screaming soon. Horror movie screaming. "Regina! You can't just script out our lives together because it would make a good story for Henry!"

Regina snapped out of her trance and smiled. "I know that, dear. I'm simply stating that it does make an unreasonable amount of sense, thematically."

Emma shuddered. "Look, you said it yourself: you don't want to be with me. What is with this fixation on themes and magic fairy dust? Can't anyone in this town just do something because they want to? I mean, are you even into women?"

"I never considered women. Perhaps that was an oversight." Regina squinted at her. "Have you ever been with a woman?"

Emma blanched. "Regina, I'm not your soulmate."

"You didn't answer the question, dear."

Emma stood. Regina smiled brightly at her as she passed through the door of the lounge, as though she'd won the exchange. All Emma could do was level a glare at her and call out, "Henry, we're going."

Regina balled her hands into fists, trying to dispel the tension she felt throughout her body. It was all well and good to tease Emma Swan about the possibility of being soulmates, but she hadn't meant to convince herself in the process. It had all started to make far too much sense.

Looking back, even when she'd hated the saviour, she'd reveled in every single moment they'd spent with each other. Emma was basically the female version of Robin, if every annoying thing he did had also been compelling. If every fault of his had also made her want to expose a fault of her own until they were both stripped of their defenses, breathing heavily in one another's personal space.

She shook her head. She didn't want it to be Emma. There was so much about the woman that still got on her nerves—never mind the fact that she was a woman—but, she reasoned, this reticence would subside if they were really meant to be together.

"Out of the frying pan, into the fire," she muttered.

There was no stopping it now. She'd found the flaw in the fate she'd been prescribed and she had to follow it to its conclusion. All she needed now was for Emma to play along.

####

She showed up at Emma's apartment the next morning with what she hoped was a congenial smile on her face. A smile that faded when Mulan answered the door in Emma's stead.

"What are you doing here?" Regina asked, angrier than she'd intended.

Without flinching, Mulan answered, "Emma's not here. Something came up at the station." She gestured to the kitchen. "I was told you would make breakfast when you arrived."

Regina took in the woman's messy hair and pajama pants and was surprised to find a burning hatred radiating from her heart. "That is not what I asked," she seethed.

Mulan frowned, then flushed when she noticed Regina's eyes raking over her sleeping outfit. "Oh," she said. "You think I'm sleeping with Emma."

Regina almost started yelling, but she had been practicing keeping calm when confronted with great strain. It had come in handy in nearly all of her conversations with Robin over the last year. She took a moment to process not only the words Mulan had said, but how she had said them, and concluded that Mulan was not sleeping with Emma. She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding in.

"Of course I don't think you're sleeping together," she said, masking her jealousy by rooting through the fridge. "That would be ridiculous."

To her surprise, the warrior woman actually broke her stoic facade and shook her head. Judging from her pursed lips, she was… hurt?

Regina was taken aback. "Only because Emma doesn't seem like the type to mix business and pleasure," she clarified. A lie, she reminded herself: Emma had kissed Graham. She felt a shocking wave of satisfaction wash over her at the memory of crushing his heart.

Mulan didn't look appeased. "Don't bother. Everyone in this town seems to think I would make a ridiculous match with anyone."

Regina fiddled with the dials on the stove. "You and Emma aren't together, though, right?"

"How would you feel if we were?" Mulan asked. "Why is it any of your business anyway?"

Regina spun to face her, unsure of what lie she might yell at the woman to make her stop questioning her and give her some goddamned answers already. But when she stared into Mulan's eyes, the warrior's face softened.

"Oh," Mulan said, the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. "So that's why Robin was…." Her eyebrows raised. "So I'm not alone here, I guess."

Regina groaned and turned her attention back to the stove. "I have no idea what you could mean by that."

"You were jealous when you saw me here because you are in love with Emma and you worried that I might be your competition."

"That is not true."

"I'm not your competition. I'm your company."

The pitying tone rankled her, but she felt the relief all the same. She looked over at Mulan—her tousled hair and form-fitting shirt—and felt a jolt of confusion. Did Mulan have any sort of lion-related tattoo? No, don't be silly, she scolded herself. This warrior didn't make sense as part of her story.

"It's not that I'm in love with her," Regina finally confided, prodding at the eggs aimlessly. "It's that the fairy dust made a mistake—accidentally or intentionally I don't yet know. I've come to the conclusion that Emma is the one I'm meant to be with, but nobody seems ready to handle that fact but me."

Mulan smiled. "I know that feeling all too well. I felt the same way about Aurora, but she had other ideas."

"You were blinded by love for Aurora," Regina stated. "This is different. I have reason on my side."

"Reason has nothing to do with true love."

Regina raised an eyebrow at Mulan and smirked. "And how is blind devotion working out for you?"

Mulan scowled. "If you're not in love with her, why do you want to be with her? Why were you jealous of me?"

"I wasn't jealous," Regina insisted. "I was deciding how I might remove you if you turned out to be in my way."

"But you don't even want to be with her. What's the point?"

"If she's my soulmate, then I'm meant to be with her."

"You thought Robin was your soulmate, and I never saw you care this much about being with him."

Regina was saved from having to think too long about that by the appearance of Henry on the stairs. Mulan tsked in disappointment at the boy's timing, but filled him in on his other mother's whereabouts. He grunted and sidled up to the counter awaiting the breakfast Regina had spliced together.

Regina did her best to avoid Mulan's gaze until Henry was ready to leave for school. She almost made it out of the apartment without exchanging any further words with the warrior, but Mulan caught her arm before she could follow Henry out the door.

"It's not hopeless, you know," she whispered.

Regina gave her a blank stare and eyed the fingers on her arm.

Mulan removed her hand and added, "Emma. It's not hopeless. I got a vibe from her before that I wasn't, you know, alone. She's not my type, but if she's yours you should pursue her. Just don't do it if you're not actually interested in having an intimate relationship with a woman."

Stunned at the woman's forthrightness, Regina simply nodded and left.

Dammit, she cursed to herself as she descended the stairs. She'd never been interested in women before, but did that matter? She was interested now.

If she wanted to pursue Emma she would have to find a way to convince her that she was her soulmate, but how? Emma hadn't even believed in her own destiny until she'd already fulfilled it.

"What an idiot," she said to herself, smiling.