Day Four - 130. Them having a conversation about her cutting her hair, why did she do it, him running his fingers through it.
Sighing Regina shifts on the hospital couch until she's somewhat comfortable, then pulls the cover closer to her chest and lets her heavy eyelids drop. She really needs to get some sleep, she's looking like a zombie already.
But sleep doesn't come. It's not a surprise, though. It's been a few very tiring weeks, she's spent most of her time in the vault, reading the new spell she'd found, trying to figure out what ingredients she still needs and is it possible for this kind of thing to work. And sometimes, when things get like this and she's too stressed about something, she cannot find rest.
Despite the fact that sleep is out of possibilities, she stays with her eyes closed, lets her thoughts wander back to the things that happened in the last weeks. She had some very hard days – she fought with Mr. Hyde and tried to stop the Queen, on top of that she spent some nights crying over her lost soulmate.
The most important thing that happened is that she finally found something that worked and she brought him, her Robin, back.
If felt like a dream come true. If not the awful pain that was barely tolerable, she wouldn't even have believed that it actually happened, that Robin actually opened his eyes and gasped for air.
It was a huge shock for Emma who was helping Regina all this time. She'd gasped in shock when Robin's lifeless body jerked and with a sharp breath he opened his eyes. He was confused and disoriented at first, he looked like a scared animal but he kept calling Regina and Roland's name.
It was her voice that brought him back to reality; she kept talking to him no matter how hurt she was, how much her insides ached or how fast the blood was running from her nose. She kept holding his hand and sobbing that she was there and everything was going to be fine.
There was an old rule that you cannot bring back the dead. Regina changed it. She paid a lot for it – it hurt her, for a few moments she felt like dying herself because breaking your heart into two is painful enough but separating your soul is unbearable.
Not only she split her heart and soul in two, she gave up all of her magic for him. She is powerless now, her body is covered in blues, all her muscles are still sore and cramping from the loss of magic. She can barely keep herself upright.
But it was all worth it, Regina doesn't regret it a single bit because Robin is breathing again.
He's with her now.
"Regina," his tired voice snaps her out of her thoughts and she jumps from the uncomfortable couch immediately and runs to his bed, wincing at the pain in her muscles.
"I'm here," she tells him, her voice soothing, and when she's close enough, she takes his hand, smiles when she sees him looking at her tiredly, his face still pale.
Regina runs her hand over his hair, moving a strand away from him sweaty forehead.
The spell did bring Robin back but he ended up in the hospital. The crystal's power that killed him left a huge open and bleeding wound in his chest and he was taken to the hospital and into the surgery room immediately and then Dr. Whale was fighting for his life.
Thankfully, after hours of surgery, they succeeded, stopped the bleeding and now he is healing. Honestly, Regina cannot wait until she'll be able to take him back home.
Robin's warm hand squeezes hers, bringing her back to reality. She blinks a few times and looks at him, looks straight into his eyes, smiling sadly as her eyes shine with tears from the memory of what happened to them, to him.
"I'm fine," he tells her as if reading Regina's thoughts.
She only hums as a tear rolls down her cheek. Robin squeezes her hand more tightly.
Regina shakes her head to herself, there's no time for crying. She has to be the strong one right now and support him, make sure that he heals as fast as possible.
"You cut your hair!" Robin gasps out suddenly when she pushes a wild strand of hair out of her face. He's looking at her with wide eyes as if not believing his eyes.
"You didn't notice it before?" she chuckles.
"Why?" he asks ignoring her question as he struggles to sit up in a hospital bed. He loved her hair, loved running his fingers through them, loved stroking it until Regina had to fight against the urge to purr like a cat.
She helps him to sit up and once he's sitting against the pile of pillows, she sits down on the chair beside the hospital bed, takes his hand in hers again, "Robin, when I lost you-" as soon as she starts talking her voice breaks, her lower lip trembling as she remembers these dark days. Regina curses under her breath. "I thought I lost you forever, thought I will never ever be as happy as I was with you. I wanted no reminders of our life together. I had to change myself."
Robin squeezes Regina's hand, encouraging her to continue.
"The only way to change something without hurting anyone was cutting my hair," she tells him and remembers how she looked at herself in the mirror after cutting her hair and felt as if the old Regina was back, Regina of the first curse, the one without feelings.
"I had to open a new page in my life," she whispers, tears rolling down her cheeks, "without you."
"Oh, love," he tries to sit up more and pull her into his arms but the wound on his chest is huge and it hurts him to move even a little bit, so he only grimaces in pain, watching the woman he loves with all his heart cry in front of him.
He grits his teeth in pain and anger and takes a deep breath, then another, and one more until he finally relaxes, until the pain becomes only a sting. He lifts his hand and touches her now short hair, making her look up at him again.
"You look lovely, Regina," he tells her, running his fingers through her silky hair, enjoying the way the locks wrap around his fingers. "Oh, love, you've no idea how much I missed you."
She blinks her eyes over and over again, trying to will the tears away but ends up crying nonetheless. Robin's eyes are also full of tears as he stares at her, his fingers gently scratching her scalp, making her even more emotional.
Very carefully, she sits on the edge of hospital bed so she can be closer to him and rests her forehead against his shoulder, sighing.
"I love you, Regina Mills," he whispers into her ear.
Regina pulls away immediately, searching his eyes. They've never told one another the 'L' word, she basically forbid it and then he was dead and she was left to express her feelings to a tombstone. And now he's alive and he's saying those words to her.
"I love you too," she returns because she's not afraid anymore. She repeats it over and over again and kisses him and cries and kisses him again until finally she presses her forehead against his, her hand still squeezing his.
Regina doesn't cut her hair anymore. She lets them grow and enjoys the way Robin chooses to appreciate it, enjoys the way it shows that she's opening yet another new page of her life.