The room is dim, cast in the gentlest of glows from the candle dying on the night stand. Everything she sees comes in highlights and shadow. But what she feels is very real.
Robin covers her with his body, his forearms supporting his weight as their mouths glide as one. He is tall and strong, his weight welcomed, his kisses warm.
Regina turns her face and smiles, seeking air, and Robin trails his lips across her jaw and down her neck, settling over her pulse point which has her groaning, both hands wrapping around his biceps.
She feels the muscles tense and roll under her touch.
"You are beautiful," he whispers against her neck, his warm words brushing her skin, sending hot shivers down her spine. The sensations collide and pool in her chest before sinking towards her lower stomach.
She rolls her hips, finding his deliciously close.
She wants this. Wants him. Likes the way his hands trail her thighs through her dress, slowly gathering the material between them, the anticipation of his hand on her bare thigh sending her mind whirring and her lips crashing into his with fervent, indescribable lust.
His hand finds a way beneath the layers of fabric from her skirt, his skin fire against hers.
She feels his fingers trace her thigh, moving higher beneath her dress and she moans. His other hand comes up to graze her face, knuckles falling over her cheeks bones in slow strokes.
"Beautiful," he says again, his forearm resting beside her head. And this is when she sees it, as his sleeve drags back, as the moon strikes the bed. And it almost chokes the breath from her.
How has she not noticed before?
The lion tattoo, as plain as day, and as dark as night, etched into his skin.
"Stop," she says suddenly, breathlessly, pulling away from him with urgency. It is the sheer panic in her eyes, a look he isn't prepared for now, that leaves him rigid and frozen beside her. His hand traces her cheek but she shivers against him, not in pleasure, but something else entirely, something that almost makes him sick.
"Milady?" he asks, gentle and unsure.
"Get out," she says, squirming beneath him. "Please."
Robin rolls to his side, freeing her. "Regina, I don't understand —"
"Just go." It is a request and a command and she wants to just disappear in a cloud of smoke but she fights the urge. She turns from him instead and holds her arms against her chest, holds them close to still the painful beating of her heart.
You have ruined his life as well. Tinkerbell's words echo in her head from so long ago, another lifetime it seems. She can't even look at him now. She stands and moves from the bed. "Go!" she begs.
She turns to the window, away from him and his pleas, her shoulders squared until she hears the door close and then she collapses, her hands gathering in the bed sheets that pool on the floor. For hours she remains there, under the moon, and cries, grieving the loss of something she should never have had, for he has no idea what she has done to him.
That first night is the longest she's endured in a long time, but her heart weighs nothing less with the coming of day.
She manages to avoid him the next morning by rising before the sun, which is good because her eyes are red and swollen and she does not think she can survive another bought of hot, itchy tears. She sits in the kitchen and helps Granny peel potatoes until dawn breaks and breakfast is laid out, if only to distract her. Granny glares, with one eyebrow hooked, but doesn't say a word. She leaves with a stack of trays, heading off the usual hoard of Merry Men that parade around her kitchen, stealing bread over her shoulder, and it is with a gentle smile that Regina thanks her, because she is not up to seeing any of them. She is not ready.
Once she had eaten she returns to her room, and locks the door, only leaving once the sun has set and all the servants have made their way to their rooms for the night.
The castle is big, but in these hours that follow the unsettling revelation she does not think it is big enough.
For Robin is a thief and he moves like shadow, and to see his face now, when she has waited so long to find him will only break her heart, because she had let him go once before, left him at the tavern because she was not ready to let go of the anger, and now that she has she can't be with him. Not him, because she has been responsible for shattering his world already before.
She ignored fates call and left him. Left him to love freely and to lose that love, to raise his son without a mother, to take to a life of shadow and crime, and if she had loved him then, when she should have, perhaps the misery he has lived would have never been. Perhaps the little boy that tugs Regina close at mealtimes would have be theirs together.
So kissing him is wrong and the image of the lion tattoo etched into his skin shatters her heart because she sees now that he has no choice in the matter. He can't help but love her.
Love the Evil Queen.
She is poisoned and has done truly wretched things. She deserves the pain she gets.
She cannot be so selfish as to draw him down that path, the path of unforgiving retribution, for she will always walk that path alone, no matter how she tries to redeem herself.
There are things she has done that should not be forgiven, and for every good thing she has done since then, to try and rectify her wrongs, there will always be a list of wrongdoings lined up for her to see.
She will never be enough.
So he can't love her.
Shouldn't.
But he does.
Because fate writes it so.
And that is perhaps the cruelest part of their story.
He is forced to love her, never having known that she abandoned him once already.
She is the reason his life has worked out this way. It is not fate that brings them together with second chances, no, this is the fate that works cruelly, eliminating what should not be and forcing together what has been written.
She is the reason his wife is dead.
The reason Henry is lost.
Everything terrible thing that has ever happened in their lives is because she was not willing to give up the anger.
To free herself and be happy.
And now she can never be happy. It is true, for villains don't get happy endings.
Robin deserves more than that kind of life. He deserves more than her.
Regina walks a lonely path to the basement and finds a plate set out in the kitchens, left on the top of the stove to warm. It is from Granny and she sighs, pulling at the chicken, because fate has made fools of them all.
She leaves when her plate is cleared. Crying and fretting and analyzing every bad decision she has ever made has left her famished. Regina walks the empty halls to the tune of her own footsteps, holding the shadow and avoiding the moonlit patches of window that light the dusky castle corridors.
He moves from the shadows then, falling from his perch, and landing beside her with quite grace. His appearance is so sudden that it startles her speechless, knocks her against the wall with a hand curled over her mouth.
"Did you intend to hide from me forever?" he asks as he straightens, a sad smirk on his face. His eyes are silver in the moonlight and weary. He has never looked so torn, she thinks. But the hand that reaches for him is quickly returned to her side because every fleeting glance and touch is another wound to the gut, another reason for him to resent her when this all unravels, when he understands.
She cannot love him.
Cannot let herself want him.
She is the one who must pull away. For his sake.
For Roland's.
She turns away from him, her steps brisk, her mind set; ignoring the steady hum of her heart because the mindless organ is a traitor ad leaves her aching and longing. If she has any sense she will rip it from her chest and toss it off the tallest tower.
"Regina!" Robin implores, taking her hand, his fingers lacing between hers in a vice-like lock. "Please do not walk away from me."
She is turned towards him, her hand shooting out to brace the impact of their bodies as the speed catches her off guard. His hand drops to hold her waist, hold her to him and she cringes below the touch, pulls away from it, because she wants it so bad she thinks she might be insane.
"Let me go," she requests through tight lips. "I'd like to return to my room now."
"Not until you talk to me. What has happened? If I have done something to offend you or —"
"I owe no answers to a thief," she says, wrenching her hand from his. It is quiet and broken, but enough of the Queen has bled through and Robin is frozen in his boots as she marches away from him.
It isn't until she reaches the third staircase that she allows the tears to fall. She does not care at that point because no one is around to hear her cry. She falls against the top step and holds the railing, shuddering uneven breaths, for love is a terrible thing.
For days they exist like this, invisible shadows, because Regina wishes it so. She does not eat in the dining room. She does not turn to Roland when he calls after her. And she does not answer her door when the thief knocks.
The first time Snow tries to ask her about it Regina denies her assumptions. Granny knows, she thinks, that something is amiss, but never shuts Regina out of the kitchen, and continues to head off the Merry Men in the mornings.
Snow doesn't have the chance to ask again because before she can Regina has decided to leave.
It is two painfully long weeks, seconds and minutes and hours that tear at her soul. Everything reminds her of him. It stabs and needles and grates on her nerves until she snaps, unable to bear any more time trapped within the walls of the castle. That morning she finds a healthy steed in the stables, saddles the horse, and rides off, leaving behind the security of the grounds.
Leaving Robin.
Ack . . . I know. Gosh! Short and angsty, the worst kinds of chapters. I'm sorry, but it was necessary. Really, truly. The next chapter is 76. 12345% written, so if I can get my act together it might be posted tomorrow : )