Breaking In

by SomewhereApart

Robin Locksley has hit rock bottom. A rash decision to help his family has lead to him nearly losing them instead, and now he's woken up to discover he accidentally broke into in the home of a stranger - single mom and ad executive Regina Mills - while stumbling home drunk last night. Can these neighbors overcome their rocky start to find something they need in each other?

36. Chapter 36

Author's Note: Trigger warnings for anxiety, mentions of disordered eating, and blood. And once again, a big thank you to LillieGrey for her mad skills.

---

Liam Colter arrives on her doorstep with a pickup loaded with camping gear, an excuse for why he is two hours late, and a clean-shaven smile.

She doesn't like it.

Doesn't like the lateness and doesn't like the lack of scruffy beard on his jaw. It makes him look too much like Daniel – they'd always clearly been brothers, but clean-shaven like this, Liam could be his twin. It makes her heart ache painfully, squeezing even harder when Henry bounds down the steps and Liam greets him with Daniel's easy smile.

She kisses the top of Henry's head and has him promise to call when they arrive safely, and then she sends them off with orders to bring him back on time, at least.

And then she tries to figure out what to do with herself for two whole days alone.

She loses time. Digs in the dirt of her garden in the early afternoon, and chases Tuck away from her flowers. Scrubs the grout in the tub, then sits for a while in the den, fingers plucking at Henry's guitar, then strumming out the cords to "Unlove You."

And then suddenly the sun is low in the sky.

Henry doesn't call.

They should have arrived hours ago, but her phone hasn't rung. She's checked. She tells herself they're having too much fun and he forgot, tells herself that that's good. He should be having fun.

When her phone finally rings, she reaches for it eagerly, but it's a number she doesn't know.

"Hello?" she answers with a frown, and then the bottom falls out of her world.

She hears "Ma'am" and "Maryland Highway Patrol," "your son," and "accident," and she is on her feet and out the door.

She doesn't dress, just grabs her keys and her shoes, her heart beating so hard she can hear it, a quick and horrific THUD THUD, THUD THUD, THUD THUD in her ears, in her limbs.

She drives west, the steering wheel slipping under her sweaty palms, oncoming headlights blinding her every time they pass, and when did it start to rain?

The roads are wet, slippery, her tires skid around a curve and she realizes she's crying. Crying and praying, Not Henry, please not Henry, not my baby, please not my baby, over and over again, she can't breathe, not her baby.

She should never have agreed to this, should never have let Liam take him, he could have been home, safe and sound in his bed, and instead she's here on this road in the rain, and she can hear sirens now over the drum of the downpour on her rooftop. Distant and blaring and she swears she can hear Henry wailing right along with them.

She takes another turn, a little too fast, her tires screeching and then the headlights go from white to red and blue, flashing lights and too many ambulances, and a car crumpled against a light pole, spotlighted by the bright highbeams of a cop car.

She skids to a stop and throws her door open, runs toward the wreck with a scream of his name, and then there are hands on her, strong hands holding her back, and she hears his voice: "Mom."

Relief floods through her as she turns her head toward the nearest ambulance, and there he is, her baby, her baby boy, sitting in the light of the open doors, in his I DON'T WANNA TACO 'BOUT IT t-shirt and covered in blood.

She lets out a cry and runs to him, wraps him up in her arms, kisses his hair and tastes copper. He's bleeding, there's blood, and she runs her hands through his hair, tries to find the source of it, why hasn't anybody bandaged him up, he is bleeding.

She breathes, "Oh, my baby, my baby, you're okay, my baby, you're bleeding, where are you—"

But he shakes his head and says, "I'm not. It's not mine." Regina blinks and really looks at him, and as he says, "It's not my blood," she realizes that it's not. It's streaky, not dripping; there's blood on him, but it's not his.

Regina turns toward the car with a sick sort of dread, her heart banging loudly in her chest again as her feet move her numbly toward the twisted metal, the glittering glass.

She knows, somehow she just knows what she will find there. She never saw Daniel in the wreckage; she identified his body in a cold morgue under sickly, blue-tinged fluorescents, all his life drained out, pale and cold and still.

But she'd seen it in her dreams a hundred times, a thousand times, and it's like the commotion, the people, they all fall away, the sirens go silent, she can hear the crunch of glass under her feet as she walks toward the car and thinks No, no, no, no, not again, not again, please, God, not again…

The driver's side door is missing, the whole front end an accordioned, steaming, hissing mess, and she walks, walks, walks, every step bringing her closer to her nightmare.

She can see the body in the car, a denim-coated thigh, a slumped-shouldered man draped against the steering wheel, and she takes two more steps before the light reaches his face. Regina lets out a sound like something wounded, and wraps her arms tight around her middle to keep herself upright.

Robin's face, Robin's beautiful, beautiful face is turned toward her, blood running down it in deep red paths, his eyes open and staring at her, blue and still and dead.

She hears the sirens again, they rip up from inside her, red lights and blue lights swirling across red blood and blue eyes, and the spray of glass around him glitters, and—

Regina wakes with a gasp, panting and sweat-slicked, legs and arms straightjacketed in tangled sheets.

She can't breathe, she can't breathe, and she kicks and twists, and fights herself free, rises on shaky legs and stumbles into the bathroom, slaps the light on and slams her eyes shut against the brightness.

She fumbles for the tap and twists it on cold, as far as it will go, her hands shaking as she shoves them under the stream, her stomach rolling in threatening, nauseous waves.

She blinks, blinks, blinks, until she can stand the light, and then she cups that icy water in her palms and splashes it on her face, wets her hands again and runs them on the back of her neck.

She's still shaking, and when she closes her eyes, she sees him again, the blood, and his eyes, and her heart lurches, her stomach lurches, a dry heave she manages to quell as she tells herself silently, Do not vomit, do not vomit.

Eyes open (she may never close them again), she shoves her hands under the water to cup a mouthful of water in her palm and slurp it up, swallowing down the bile that threatens to rise. Then she splashes her still-flushed face again, runs chilly, damp hands over her chest, her hammering heart.

And then she grips the edge of the sink, finally meets her own terrified eyes in the mirror, and mutters, "Fuck."

.::.

She doesn't sleep well after the nightmare. Lies in bed for a good long while staring at the ceiling, her chest tight, her throat thick, anxiety pushing tears up against her lashes. She tosses, and she turns, flips her pillow, and kicks her covers off, then pulls them back up to her waist.

Nothing really helps.

So when Regina arrives at therapy at twelve-thirty on Saturday afternoon, she is overtired and irritated – not a great start to a session, that's for sure.

And more than that, she's pissed. At herself, at Archie, at Daniel for dying, at Robin for holding so tightly to a piece of her heart that she has to be afraid of him dying. She can't let go of the sight—the blood, the glass, his lifeless eyes.

Dr. Hopper beckons her into his office as usual, and her rear has barely touched the worn leather surface of his couch before the words are spilling out of her:

"Maybe I am afraid of losing Robin. Maybe I am afraid that after finally finding someone who fits, someone who makes me feel safe, and cared for, that it will all…" Glass. Blood. All that lifeless blue. She swallows heavily and finishes, "That it will end badly. That I'll lose again. Maybe you're right."

She hates when he's right, but he's not right entirely, goddamnit—she is right, too.

"But that doesn't change the very real threat of my mother finding out what he did, it doesn't change the fact that we have no romantic future. So maybe you're right, you might be right, but it makes no difference."

She runs out of steam, and realizes she's breathing heavily, sitting ramrod straight. She's worked herself up into a nice little snit, the sort of tantrum her mother would have cut her down to size for. Pongo is still slinking somewhere near the edge of the coffee table, having halted his usual approach to stand there and watch her pensively.

"And that's not what we're here to talk about today, I just needed to say it. So. Let's start," Regina mutters as embarrassment flushes through her, and she lifts a nervous hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

She holds out the treat that had been gripped tightly in her other fist, and Pongo takes the peace offering for what it is. He hops up onto the sofa next to her, nabbing the treat from her hand and crunching happily at it as he curls his body against her side.

When she glances over to Dr. Hopper, he's just sitting there. Smirking at her.

Regina scowls. "What?"

"It's nice to see you again, Regina," he says calmly, and she rolls her eyes – God forbid she say what's on her mind instead of making pleasantries from the start. "As you know, we have fifty minutes to talk about whatever you like. Why don't we begin?"

The way he's drawn attention to her rudeness rubs her the wrong way, has her squinting a little and telling him, "Don't be cute."

Dr. Hopper just smiles at her.

"Now that we've gone over what you don't want to talk about today," he says, "what would you like to talk about?"

Regina takes a breath, tries to push her irritation down and focus.

"We're supposed to talk about Sidney," she says, because that had been the plan. She doesn't really want to talk about Sidney, but she should.

Her mixed feelings must be evident, because Archie tells her, "There aren't any rules; we can talk about whatever you need to talk about."

Whatever she needs to talk about.

That anxiety that had kept her up all night pinches in the middle of her chest, and she sighs again, sees Robin dead again. She should talk about Sidney, but she can't stop thinking about Robin, worrying about Robin… But does she want to talk about him for another fifty minutes?

(Yes. She does.)

Regina realizes two things at once: one, she's chewing on her thumbnail, a terrible habit that she immediately moves to quell, and two, Archie is still waiting for her to answer him.

"I, um…" she begins aimlessly.

Thankfully, Dr. Hopper takes pity on her, offering her a light nudge with, "How was your homework?"

Now that she can talk about.

"Well, before I was worried that my mother was going to destroy Robin's life, and now I'm just worried that his life will be destroyed, period." She's dripping with sarcasm as she tells him, "So it was peachy. Really helped. I feel a lot better now."

Archie raises an eyebrow at her, thoroughly unfazed by her petulance.

"I dreamed last night that he died," she tells him, almost ashamed of the pain in her voice as she says it. "That he was dead. Car crash, just like Daniel, only I had to see him, bloody and lifeless, and…" She pushes at the image, tries to shove it down back where it came from and focus on what is now and real. "I'm supposed to be focusing on getting over him, on letting him go. Now I want to text him every five minutes just to make sure he's not dead on the side of the road somewhere. Things were already complicated enough."

"Are these rules you're imposing upon yourself—all these things you're supposed to be doing, or not supposed to be doing—helping with that complication?"

"They would if we could stick to them for more than five minutes," Regina grumbles, dropping her gaze to the top of Pongo's head, and running her fingers along his coat.

"Ah, so Robin is struggling with the rules as well," Archie says to her.

"He tries," she admits. "When I'm not sticking his hand down my pants or my tongue down his throat."

A glance in Dr. Hopper's direction finds both his brows lifting higher, higher.

"Was this before or after the decision to 'keep your distance'?" he asks.

"After. It was a month ago. The kissing was more recent—" God, this is stupid, she shouldn't be talking about this. She should be forgetting it and moving on. "Nevermind."

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Why, you want all the details?" Regina sasses him, her own brows lifting in challenge.

"I don't need all the details," Dr. Hopper assures. "But it sounds like this incident is still on your mind, for whatever reason."

Regina shrugs a shoulder and tells him quietly, "It shouldn't have happened."

"Why not? Did he pressure you in any way?"

"No, I kissed him," she tells him with a little sigh. In fact, "It's always me. He was just… trying to be a friend."

She's thinking of that thirty-second 'friendly' snog when Archie asks cheekily, "With benefits?"

Regina rolls her eyes.

"Before the kissing," she clarifies. "The other time – when we… did more." She really hates talking about sex with this man. She doesn't know why, he is her therapist, she has talked to him about nearly every vulnerable wound she has over the last ten years, but something about being frankly honest about her sex life makes her insides wriggle. "I was having a bad night; he was trying to be a friend. He hugged me, and I… did something I knew was stupid, and wouldn't make any of this any easier."

"Did it make you feel better at the time?"

"The first time, yes. It was after my last date with Sidney, after I realized that… I was stupid. What I'd done. And I just couldn't… calm down. I couldn't get the anxiety to go away, not entirely, and he gave me this hug, and things got out of hand. And it helped, at the time, but now…"

Now she doesn't know what the hell to think about it, aside from that it was almost certainly a mistake. A mistake not helped at all by John's knowing looks.

"I guess I'm still a little embarrassed," she tells Archie. "I jumped him with Henry asleep in the next room, I made out with him during my son's birthday party." Archie's brows lift a little – more curiosity than judgment – and she explains, "We were alone for a minute away from the kids, and it happened. We reined ourselves in, and then agreed we weren't going to do it again, but two nights ago, I made out with him in the back room of the bar where he works, while Henry was waiting for me. He had people to keep him occupied, but still— Who does that?"

"Someone under extreme amounts of pressure and stress," Archie tells her, perfectly calm and like he doesn't find her behavior abhorrent. "Someone who needs a bit of affection from someone they trust and care about? Sound familiar?"

She feels a tremble in her chin, and the hot prickle of tears as she nods. Yes, it sounds very, very familiar.

She hates how young and… weak… she sounds as she asks, "So it's okay?"

"Of course it's okay," Dr. Hopper tells her; Regina sucks in a shaky breath and blinks, tears spilling over. Relief, or shame, or just…. everything. She dosen't know what, she just knows they're there, and embarrassing.

Dr. Hopper is unbothered by them, though – just hands her a tissue from the box on the table between them and tells her, "You're human, Regina. It's natural to want care, and contact. And it sounds like you were both consenting adults. There is nothing wrong with that."

"I just…" She sniffles, wiping at her tears and wishing they would just stop. Her throat is tight as she says, "I screwed up my life so badly. And that first night, I couldn't stop feeling Sidney against me, and I wanted to feel anything else. I wanted to erase everything, and write over it. And at Henry's party, Sidney had just been there, he dropped off gifts for us, and I was rattled, and the other night I had asked Leo to help with the Sidney situation and he told me to deal with it myself, and I just…" Regina shakes her head, sniffles again and then blows her nose lightly, her words a little muffled in her Kleenex when she finishes, "I wanted the comfort."

"Maybe we should talk about Sidney for a minute," Archie suggests, and, well, yes. They should. Clearly. On the upside, maybe it'll give her a chance to get the waterworks under control. She nods as he shifts the notepad on his lap and coaxes, "It sounds like that date was an upsetting experience for you."

"It shouldn't have been," she mutters. "He kissed me goodnight after dinner. Plenty of guys do that. Robin did that."

"But?"

Regina shakes her head slightly, and takes a breath, wipes at one more traitorous tear and then blinks rapidly to clear the rest, balling up the Kleenex in her fist.

She's a bit more calm when she says, "It was like I'd been walking around in a cloud. I'd just… decided that Sidney was the right thing to do, and I knew, I knew in my gut—" She presses her fingers there. "—it just never felt right. But I was determined. And our first date ended in food poisoning, so when he asked for a do-over, I figured… y'know, of course. But then he was kissing me, and it was like… this fog had lifted."

She's been looking at the dog, tracing that snowman-shaped spot with her fingertips, but she looks up at Dr. Hopper now, insisting, "I've never liked Sidney. He's always made me uncomfortable. I have turned him down a dozen times in the last five years. I was so stupid," she declares, her fingers restlessly fiddling with Pongo's ears while Dr. Hopper takes notes on her terrible decisions. "The whole thing made my skin crawl, and I realized how much I had fucked everything up, and I had a panic attack on the way home, and it just kept… lingering. And then Robin was there. So." She laughs darkly. "That happened."

"Breathe," he urges her gently, and she realizes that she's not. Or rather, that she is, but quickly, a little jerkily. The way she does when she's working herself up to a good panic.

And they can't have that right now—it would waste precious minutes she could spend telling him about her failures.

So Regina takes a slow breath in, and exhales slowly out. Lets herself spend a moment rubbing the silky softness of Pongo's ears as she takes another measured breath.

"It's okay," Archie assures, in that calm, soothing therapist voice. "People make mistakes."

"Well, this one seems to be sticking around."

Archie smiles sympathetically, and then says, "You mentioned in our last session that you think Sidney is stalking you. Can you tell me a bit more about that?"

Where to begin?

Regina takes another deep breath, feeling steadier now, and tries to recount her concerns without working herself up again.

"I keep seeing him places," she explains. "I've run into him several times in the last couple of weeks, and in places I've never seen him before. After that coffee date with my mother a few weekends ago, and at the grocery store – he doesn't live near us, though; he doesn't have any reason to shop on our side of town."

Dr. Hopper frowns slightly, jotting down a few notes as she continues.

"He gave me a lift home from work a couple of weeks ago when I was having car trouble, and then sort of invited himself to dinner with me and Henry—and then tailed me most of the way home afterward."

He looks up at that, asking, "He followed you?"

"He said he was just making sure I got home okay," she says, "but the bar we were eating at was only five minutes away. And then he came to the house last weekend during Henry's party. He said he was just dropping the gifts off, but he wasn't invited; it was a kids' party. And he keeps leaving me little things – candy, or flowers, or a bag of my favorite granola, a gift box of coffee, or... just things. I've told him to stop, but he just changes the gifts. I say no flowers, he brings candy; I say no candy, I get coffee."

"Is this new behavior for him?"

"Showing up uninvited, yes. The gifts…" Her shoulders shift uncomfortably as she admits, "Yes and no. He's always done little things. Brought me something he knew I liked, now and then, or grabbed coffee for both of us from the break room before a meeting. Flowers on occasion. But it's never been this often, and never after I've asked him to keep things professional. And that gift for me he brought to Henry's party was a necklace, and not a cheap one; jewelry is new."

"Have you addressed it with him? Tried to make your feelings clear?"

"Yes. I told him that I don't date coworkers, that I liked our professional relationship the way it was, and that I don't want anything to jeopardize that. He thinks I should make an exception."

"Have you tried phrasing things more directly?"

"I've been as direct as I can be without being impolite, and I have specifically asked him to stop the gifts." Regina frowns, crumpling the tissue in her left hand even further as she laments, "As tempting as it is to break out the Mills family bluntness, I don't feel like that would be good for our working relationship – and I tried to talk to Leo about it, to ask him to step in and help, but he said to handle it on my own. I work closely with Sidney, and I have to keep working closely with him; I don't know how direct I can be and still preserve that."

"But do you think it would change his behavior?" Dr. Hopper asks her.

"Honestly, at this point, I don't even know," she tells him, exasperation and defeat coloring her voice. "Anyone else would have gotten the picture by now."

He gives her something resembling a nod, and points out, "Some men don't understand… nuance."

"Clearly."

Dr. Hopper smirks sympathetically at that, then sobers to ask her, "Do you feel like he is a threat? Has he made you feel concerned for your safety?"

"Not really," she winces, then drawls, "Not unless you count that time he had me pinned to the side of my car."

That must be a red flag, because Dr. Hopper's brows draw together, and he barely shifts, but his posture is suddenly more attentive.

"Did you ask him to stop?" he questions.

"No."

"But you wanted him to?"

Regina nods. God, yes, how badly she had wanted him to.

"Did he try to force himself on you?" Dr. Hopper asks her, and, ah, there's the concern. Right. She should have realized, should have clarified from the start.

"No, I told him I needed to get home to Henry," she dismisses.

"How did he respond to that?"

"He seemed a little disappointed, but he didn't argue." Regina shrugs. "We said goodnight, and I went home."

Dr. Hopper nods absently, scribbles something quickly, and then asks, "Has he been physically forceful since then? Made you feel uncomfortable in any way?"

She feels the phantom grip of Sidney's hand around her forearm in the dairy case, vice-like and clammy, and has to admit quietly, "Yes."

"Can you say a bit more about that?"

"He grabbed me. When we ran into each other at the grocery store, there was this woman, she was rude – we were in the way of what she wanted and she made some snide remarks about it. Sidney wanted her to apologize to me." The memory makes her skin itch, makes her scowl and shift a little in her seat. "I told him it wasn't a big deal and started to walk away, and he grabbed my arm. He didn't want to leave until she said she was sorry."

Dr. Hopper watches her for a moment, concern plain as day on his face, and Regina feels the usual twisting nerves pick up in her gut again, presses a hand there to steady herself.

"But I told him to let go of me, and he did, and I made it very clear that if he ever touched me like that again, I wouldn't be so polite about it. He practically tripped over himself in his rush to apologize."

"I see," Dr. Hopper murmurs, taking pen to paper again. It's more than he usually writes, which concerns her. Usually that means she's given him something particularly meaty to sink his teeth into.

"You're writing a lot."

"I want a record of his behavior with you," he explains. "You clearly have concerns, and not without reason. I want to ensure that we have a record of incidents that have bothered you, and when we discussed them."

"Oh. Okay." That's reasonable. "That day is the only time he's been physical. He makes me... uncomfortable. Uneasy. But I don't think... He doesn't seem... dangerous, per se. Just... overly persistent and with a clear lack of boundaries. He showed up to my son's birthday party, uninvited," she reiterates. "He didn't try to stay, just gave me the gifts and left, but... I worry. The last week or two, I've worried."

"Has he ever been to your house before?"

Regina nods, and tells him, "For our first date – he drove, he picked me up."

Archie jots that down, too, then asks, "What do you worry about?"

Regina sighs, and says, "That he'll keep showing up, keep giving me gifts that I have to politely turn down. That I can't stop him from doing that. That if I am more blunt, there will be consequences."

Archie's head tilts slightly at that. "What sort of consequences?"

"We work together on several accounts. He's always favored me – Sidney – he brought me onto this huge account he bagged a few months ago. It's lucrative." It's currently padding Henry's college fund, and keeping Regina in facials and pedicures. "I'm afraid if I obliterate him, it'll affect my work. And Leo was pretty blunt – I am not to jeopardize the business relationship, no matter how I have to deal with the personal."

It's a mess she doesn't know how she'll get out of – she's already been kind and tactful, she's already been firm and professional. All that's left is risking heartless honesty, but what if that jeopardizes all the things she's worked so hard to build?

She lifts a hand to rake through the hair at her crown, and berates herself, "I never should have gone out with him, I never should have risked all this. I am so stupid."

For a moment Archie frowns at her, then he makes a little mark on his notepad with his pen, and poses a question: "In the time that I've known you, you've always been calculated in your decisions, especially when your love life is involved. What was different about this time?"

It pains her a little to admit, "I was hungover. And sad. I wasn't thinking clearly."

"Sad? About what?"

"Robin. I'd gone to see him play the night before, had too much to drink. I told him I needed to start moving on." She scoffs a little, and mutters, "Made out with him that night, too."

Archie's attentive frown blossoms into a grin that's far too amused for her liking, and she glares at him.

"What?" she asks sharply.

"Nothing," Dr. Hopper insists, forcing that grin down with a light clearing of his throat, and urging, "Go ahead."

"I answered your question."

"I suppose you did," he concedes. "So you were sad about Robin and that pushed you into making the decision to go out with Sidney?"

She nods, and says softly, "I just wanted to stop feeling like this."

"Like what?"

"Like there's a vise in my chest." Her voice squeezes along with that hard fist around her heart, and her eyes water again for a second. "Lonely. Pathetic. Take your pick."

"You're not pathetic, Regina," he tells her kindly. "It's an incredibly brave thing to love someone—"

"I do not love him," she interrupts emphatically, sitting a little straighter in her seat. Pongo lifts his head up, and swings it around to look at her.

"Okay." Archie raises his hands in defense. "But you obviously care about this man, there is nothing pathetic about that."

"I need to get over him," Regina insists, frustration bleeding through as she questions, "Why can't I just get over him? We went on one date!"

"Are you sure you want to?" Dr. Hopper asks her, and she deflates a little, because, no, of course she doesn't want to. What she wants is for Robin to never have put them in this position in the first place.

"What I want doesn't matter," she tells him. "I have to."

"Because of your mother?" he wonders. "Or because you're afraid?"

Regina's jaw clenches and releases. "Because of my mother."

"Maybe we should start with Cora next week then?" Dr. Hopper suggests, and Regina lets out a breath of relief. If he's talking about next week, that means their time is almost up, and she doesn't have to go five rounds with him about whether or not her mother is actually the problem Regina knows she is. "We haven't had a chance to talk about her yet and it seems like she's very involved in this, even if it is indirectly."

She nods a little, tucks her hair behind her ear, and tries to push away the itchy feeling under her skin.

"Okay," she agrees. "I'm having brunch with them tomorrow, so we should have plenty to talk about."

She glances at the clock, then – they're down to their last five minutes, so she asks, "Do I have homework?"

"You've been very anxious today," Dr. Hopper observes. "Would you say you've been anxious a lot lately?"

"I don't know," Regina murmurs, amending to, "I guess," and then admitting, "Yes."

"Journaling," Dr. Hopper tells her, and Regina blows out a breath. Journaling is a pain, but it could be worse, she supposes. "I want you to keep track of the times the anxiety is worse, and think about what might have triggered it. And I'd like you to record at least one positive experience per day."

"Okay." She gives Pongo a little scratch behind his ears as Dr. Hopper reaches into the pocket of his slacks, but when he pulls out a rubber band, she sits straighter, and immediately protests, "No. Not the rubber band."

"Regina, do you realize you called yourself stupid four times in the last fifty minutes?" he asks her, and she feels the hot prickling shame up the back of her neck, down the backs of her arms. "Not to mention pathetic. You've been incredibly self-critical."

"Well, I was stupid," she tells him.

He looks at her pointedly, the little torture device still hanging loosely from his outstretched hand as he says simply, "Five."

"Ugh," she groans, and then she's insisting, "I won't use it. I can tell you right now, even if I leave with that stupid thing on my wrist, I will not snap it once."

"I can't force you, Regina; you have to want to help yourself. You have to want to get better."

"I do want to—" She takes a deep breath, her fingers fiddling restlessly with Pongo's collar. "It makes me feel like a child. It's embarrassing." For good measure, she adds a tart, "And it doesn't go with any of my outfits."

Archie reaches back into his pocket and pulls out a second rubber band. This one is black instead of the usual tan.

Regina stares at it, anger climbing her vertebrae one by one. She practically growls when she tells him, "I say this with the utmost respect for your profession: fuck you."

"Always a pleasure to see you as well, Ms. Mills," he tells her without a hint of bother.

That anger morphs into sweaty-palmed sort of anxiety, and she resorts to begging.

"Please, not the rubber band," she pleads. "Not this week, not right now. Please." It's too much, she already feels… no. No. Anything but that this week. Anything but that when she has to sit down for brunch with her mother. "I will write it down," she bargains. "I will write down every terrible thing I say about myself, and read it to you next week like a book report if you want, but please."

"The rubber band isn't meant to help with the things you say, it's supposed to change the way you think about yourself," Dr. Hopper tells her calmly. He's always so fucking calm, and right now she hates it. "If you are vocalising this many things, I can't even imagine how many you're thinking about and not saying aloud. This is not meant as a punishment, Regina."

"It feels like punishment," she insists. "It feels like— it feels like Mother. Constant correction; I hate it. I can't do it right now. I can't spend the next week thinking about how terrible I am on top of everything else."

"It sounds like you're already thinking that way. That's what the rubber band is intended to help you stop doing."

"But I can't snap it in front of other people," she argues. "In front of Henry. They'll ask and then what will I say?" She shakes her head, and gives him a clipped and stumbling, "It's embarrassing; I hate it. I'm fine, I don't need it, I'm fine."

But it doesn't work, he is not listening. He's too busy telling her, "You tell them the truth. I'm sure Henry would be supportive. He loves you."

The laugh she offers up is rough around the edges.

"I can't do that."

"Yes," he says to her. "You can."

"I don't want him to know I'm like this. You know that."

"Like what? Human?"

"Damaged," she bites off. "I'm his mother. He's supposed to grow up in a happy, healthy home."

The opposite of her home. It is supposed to be the opposite of her home. The opposite of a home with a lunatic mother and a weak father. Henry's home is supposed to be safe, and steady, and happy and healthy. Not rubber bands and journaling and that hot feeling behind her ears.

"And he is," Archie assures. "Part of that health is your appointments with me, when they are needed."

"And that's all well and good; I don't mind him knowing I have therapy every now and then." She does, but it's a necessary evil. Perfectly normal people go to therapy, that's what she tells herself when she has to explain it to Henry. "But I don't want him to know that I have to snap a rubber band on my wrist every time my brain sounds suspiciously like my mother."

"You don't have to word it exactly that way; you can just tell him it's an exercise to encourage positive thinking and self-assessment."

"That sounds stupid."

For a moment he looks mildly offended, telling her, "I thought it sounded rather articulate."

The idea that she may actually have managed to hit him in a soft spot has Regina looking maybe a touch contrite, but doesn't quite manage an apology. Instead she hedges with, "He's eleven. Those are some big words for eleven."

Archie doesn't miss a beat in pointing out, "I thought you said they were stupid," and Regina rolls her eyes, then catches herself chewing her thumbnail again and forces herself to stop. "He's a very smart boy. You've told me that many times."

She squeezes her thumbs in her palms; they're shaking, she feels shaky. She feels shaky and her breath is quickening, there's spiders under her skin again, shit, shit, no.

Her voice is tense and tight as she tells her therapist, "I feel very agitated right now."

"Okay," he tells her calmly, urging, "Just breathe for a minute."

She tries. Pulls in a breath that's a little too quick to count as deep, but pushes it out slowly. Tries again, but her skin still feels hot.

"I want you to tell me five things you can hear," Archie instructs, and Regina blows out another breath, shutting her eyes for a moment and trying to listen. To just breathe and listen.

At first all she can hear is the whooshing sound of her own inhales and exhales, but that counts, right? So she starts the list with "My breathing…" and then tries to hear past it. Keep breathing, and listen. Keep breathing, and listen. Fortune smiles on her in the form of a traffic snare, someone's horn blaring from two stories below them. "That horn on the street…" becomes number two.

And then it's just… nothing. Her breathing (still too quick), and the hum of, "The air conditioner…"

Her brow knits as she tries to focus, but there's nothing else, how is she supposed to get to five when it's just them sitting in this room?

She squirms a little, and then looks to Archie for help with a crestfallen, "It's quiet in here."

"Just keep your eyes closed and focus," he urges. "You can do this. Five things."

Regina nods and squeezes her eyes shut again, running down the list. "My breathing, the horn on the street, the air conditioner…" Focus, focus, just breathe and focus. The air conditioner hums, her breaths sound in, and sound out. Pongo nudges his nose against her thigh, and his collar clinks slightly, a soft swishing thump following it.

"Pongo wagging his tail against the couch…" she says, and then she listens for something else. Anything else.

God, this is stupid. Useless. She is stupid. Useless.

The thought makes her want to cry, makes her think of that stupid rubber band, and every time her stupid mother has called her a stupid girl, and she cannot focus with that woman in her head.

"My mother in my head every minute of the damn day," she rants, opening her eyes again, and exhaling heavily, frustrated. This isn't working.

Archie shocks her by telling her, "Okay, I'll let that last one slide, but just for today."

She blinks at him, and asks, "Really?"

"You're a bit tense, even for you," he says. "And I'm not in the habit of being unnecessarily cruel to my patients."

She wants to snark at that, but she doesn't, because she knows it's true. Acute anxiety sharpens her tongue, she knows that, and he's trying to help. So she keeps her mouth shut, and shifts a little, leather creaking beneath her as she does.

As soon as she hears it, she gives him a proper answer: "The couch squeaks."

"Good," he praises, with a proud smile that warms his whole face. It loosens some of the tension in her chest. She can do this; this isn't that hard. "That's good, Regina. Now, four things you can touch."

She runs her fingers along Pongo's head, and he tips his head up to lick at them, his tongue warm and soft and damp against her fingertips. She smiles a little, and lists, "Pongo," and then, "The couch." Because why overlook the obvious?

For a moment, she frowns, her fingers anxiously kneading the balled up Kleenex he'd offered her earlier, as she tries to come up with something.

And then she realizes she has the answer literally in the palm of her hand, and supplies, "The tissue."

Stupid. It was obvious, and she was so stupid, getting in her own way, not letting herself just relax, and focus, and not be… stupid.

She takes a moment to think that it's a really good thing Dr. Hopper cannot hear what she's thinking, because she's pretty sure that was about five 'stupid's in the past five minutes. He may be onto something with her self-destructive thought patterns. He usually is; it's not the first time he's given her this particular assignment. She gets it every few years or so, when she's hitting a rough patch and takes it out on herself.

Henry never notices. Nobody ever notices. (Mother would notice, but she flat out refuses to wear it when Mother is around, so that solves that.)

She looks at Dr. Hopper for a moment, indecision making her pensive and tense. And then she sighs, and holds out her hand and completes her list of four things she can touch with, "That goddamn rubber band."

"Good, Regina – good," he praises again, and she wishes it wasn't so fucking comforting. Wishes that she wasn't so starved for praise that she'll take it from her therapist or from the man she is Not Dating, because who else besides Daddy is ever going to make her feel worthwhile?

Her eyes water a little as she slips the rubber band onto her right wrist, fidgeting with it as she rolls her neck and takes a deep breath. It's fine, it's just a little ring of elastic. It's fine.

"This isn't punishment, this is part of your self-care. Accepting it is a healthy step," Archie reminds her, and she nods. Not punishment. Self-care. Self-correction. Healthy step. "I know you've been frustrated today, but you should be proud of yourself for making your emotional wellbeing a priority – even when that feels overwhelming. Now, you're doing great with this exercise."

Regina scoffs. She's slowed her breathing mostly, but her skin still feels too tight, and her armpits are itchy with sweat.

"It may not feel that way, but you are," Dr. Hopper encourages. "You know what comes next: Tell me three things you can see."

Regina takes another breath, and looks around the room. This is always the easy one.

"My purse," she says. She'd left it on the coffee table today. Across the room, she sees, "The bookshelf," and a quick sweep offers up, "Your umbrella by the door, even though it's not supposed to rain today."

Dry as a bone outside, but that black umbrella is always there next to the door. Rain or shine.

Archie smiles slightly, and says, "Okay. Now two things you can smell?"

Smell is harder. She focuses again, but it's easier this time, easier to breathe in deeply through her nose, and come up with, "Coconut – that candle you always have burning that makes this place smell like a Tommy Bahama." She's gone a little noseblind to it, to be honest, but she knows it's there. "And…"

She's been running her fingers up and down Pongo's neck, lets them run up to scratch that spot between his eyes that he likes. His head tilts up at her and she catches the faint hint of doggy breath. Regina looks down at him and frowns. She always answers Pongo; it feels a bit like cheating.

But she catches of whiff of lavender as she drops her head, and answers, "My shampoo."

"Good. And finally, one thing you can taste."

Regina presses her lips together, licks them and tastes passionfruit.

Her shoulders have loosened. Her skin doesn't feel so tight. She's calmer now.

"Lip balm," she answers.

"Good." Mission accomplished. "Speaking of taste, what are your plans for dinner?"

Tension roars up her spine again, twists in her belly, and Regina scrunches her eyes shut, brow pinching.

"What is this, Pour Salt In All Regina's Wounds Day?" she complains. "Why are you asking me about food right now?"

"Your anxiety levels are fairly high at the moment, that can usually trigger some of your other problems," Archie tells her, and, well, no shit. "I just wanted to check in."

Her thumb is at her mouth again before she can stop it, but the second it touches her lip she pulls it away and balls it in a fist again. She will not do this; she just got herself calmed down.

Which means they can talk about food. Fine. Fine. She will talk about food.

"It's Saturday night; Henry will probably try to talk me into pizza."

"And what do you feel like having?"

It goes without saying, but she says it anyway: "Not pizza."

"So what is your alternative?" Dr. Hopper asks.

The anxiety is rising again; she doesn't want to talk about this, she just wants to go home. She doesn't want to talk about this, because the honest answer is ugly and unkind to herself. Right now she'd rather starve than choke down a single bite of pizza, but that is irrational, she knows it is, that is just the anxiety talking. That is just the disorder talking, and she is stronger than it.

She is anxious, she is struggling, she is officially having a Bad Day. But she is stronger than it.

But Dr. Hopper is still waiting for an answer, and all she manages is a darkly muttered, "Lock myself in the bathroom and snap this stupid rubber band until my wrist bleeds."

"And when you leave the bathroom?" he asks, undeterred. "What do you plan on eating, Regina?"

Regina sits there and tries to come up with something, but it's like her mind has gone blank. The answer is Nothing, she is planning on Nothing, she wants Nothing. But she can't answer 'nothing,' because that is not an acceptable answer. It's not an acceptable dinner, and she knows that, and just this morning she had been perfectly fine combing the fridge for dinner options, but right now she is two minutes out of a mild anxiety attack, and she cannot think about food.

This is stupid. She is stupid. She is recovered, and this is ridiculous, this is just a moment of bad anxiety, and she is being childish and stubborn and obstinate and stupid—

It takes her a moment to hear herself, caught up as she is in hating herself, but she does finally recognize her own critical inner monologue for what it is. Critical. Hateful. Mother-ish.

Unhealthy.

She's angry – at herself, at him, at her mother for making her this way.

And she's owed a good snap, so Regina says nothing, does not give him an answer aside from looking him dead in the eyes, drawing that rubber band taut and letting it snap back hard.

"See. I knew you could do it," Archie tells her, all kindness and pride and she could just spit in his face for it.

"God, I hate you sometimes," she bites through grit teeth.

"You still haven't answered my question, Regina."

He is not letting her get out of this one. They're over time already—her little episode had ensured that—but her tongue is glued to the roof of her mouth over a very simple question, and she knows better than to think he'll let her leave without an answer.

She attempts to buy time with, "I'm trying to think of what I have in the fridge," and it goes over like a lead balloon.

He just says, "Odd. You usually know everything you have in the fridge, and the cabinets, and your purse, and the car…"

Bastard.

"Aren't we over time?" she tries, because she doesn't want to talk about this right now. She wants to go home. She will eat a proper fucking dinner, but right now, she wants to go home.

"We started late last week, and I have a few minutes to spare," Archie tells her easily.

Right. Not getting out of here.

Fine. Let's just get this over with.

She knows the answer to this, she does, she has been in far too much therapy not to know. So she takes what she hopes looks like a steadying breath and tells him very deliberately: "I should get pizza for Henry, because food isn't bad, or good, it's just food."

"Just because you can parrot that back at me doesn't mean you will follow through," Archie tells her and she grits her teeth again. "Just because you feel like you should get pizza for Henry doesn't mean you're actually going to eat any of it if you do. Or that it will stay in your stomach."

Her gaze snaps to his at that, hot and accusatory, as she argues, "You know I don't like to purge. I don't like vomiting, you know that. I haven't purged in years."

Because, yes, this is a bad day now, fine, okay. But she won't be accused of things she does not do. She will not.

"I do know that," he answers calmly. "We both know that. So, before I let you leave, what do you plan on eating tonight?"

She needs to have an answer. And it needs to be a real one; he's not accepting cagey.

And he shouldn't. It's his job not to, and she knows that.

So she will answer this. It's just a meal, and she is recovered, this is just anxiety, she is just anxious and tired, and she needs to get out of here, so she can think, and so she can eat, so she can think about eating and not about everything she is feeling…

For a minute, she sits quietly, plays with Pongo's ears and breathes in and out on four-counts until she feels less pent up. And then she thinks back to this morning, and what was in the fridge, and she makes herself a plan. A healthy plan, that will get her to dinner. Sanely.

"I will go home," she begins carefully, because she really, really needs to go home right now. "And I will send Henry to Robin's for a little while," because she would rather die than have him see her in the grips of anxiety she cannot shake. "And I will read a book, or play piano, or lay on my bed and count backward from 400," until she is calm. And rational. And relaxed. "And then if he wants pizza, we will order pizza, and I will eat a slice, because I won't feel the way I feel right now anymore. And if he doesn't want pizza, I will make veggie stir fry with brown rice."

She's said the whole thing while staring very hard at her purse on the table in front of her, but she glances at Archie for approval then, and he gives her a little nod.

Then screws the whole thing again by questioning, "A slice? Or two? One slice of pizza isn't much to have for dinner."

Regina rolls her eyes so hard her whole head rolls heavenward, the tentative peace she'd scraped together for herself hanging on tenterhooks.

"Can you text me this question at about five o'clock tonight?" she asks Archie, exasperated now. She needs to go home. "I feel like my answers will be much more to your satisfaction when I've been out of this fucking office for a few hours."

"You have the number for my work phone, you can check in any time," he says. "But I would like you to have a plan before you leave this 'fucking office.'"

"I told you my plan. You took issue with it."

"I have concerns with it and asked for clarification," he rephrases, in that way he does that she hates. "It is ultimately your choice, I just want to make sure you are thinking clearly about the choices you are making."

But she can't think clearly right now. She just… she can't. She recognizes it, but she can't. Regina rubs a hand over her mouth, then back into her hair, shakes her head, and tells him, "I think I'll feel better in a little while. This has been a hard day; I need some time to decompress."

"That's understandable. You had a pretty intense session today." Understatement. "You should take a little time when you get home, have some dedicated self-care and relaxation."

She needs it, she knows she does. It was part of the plan she'd just laid out, because she knows that this level of anxiety is a trigger. She has to manage it, it has to be the first thing she does when she leaves here, or it will tank the rest of her day.

But there's Henry to think about, and right now thinking about him just hurts. She feels… inadequate. Broken. Like he deserves a mother who isn't so twisted up and damaged.

Her eyes well up, but she blinks the tears away, giving the rubber band a light snap before she swallows thickly and confesses softly, "This is one of those times I don't love being a mom."

Archie looks at her with sympathy, but no judgement, offering more reassurances: "And, as we've talked about before, that's completely normal. But, it sounds like you have a bit more of a support system now—complicated, but supportive."

She makes a face, eyes widening in a silent expression of You can say that again.

And then she asks him a question that's been nagging at her: "But is it – and I know we're way over time, so we don't need to get into it – but is it counterproductive to keep calling him for things like this? He'll do it in a heartbeat – hell, he'd come over and cook, it wouldn't be the first time – but… I keep telling him I want space, and then calling him anyway."

"Why don't you worry about one thing at a time?" Archie suggests. "Right now, it seems more important that you have the support – that you have someone you can trust, that you feel safe around, who can help you with Henry and afford you the necessary time you need to look after yourself as well."

Okay. That makes sense. It makes sense, and it makes some of that tightly-wound tension unspool inside of her.

Archie continues, "Thievery and dishonesty aside, Robin seems like a good man who cares a great deal for you and your son. It's okay to let someone care about you, Regina. It's okay to want that and to take that sometimes."

Her shoulders finally sag then – relief, she thinks. It's okay to call Robin. It's okay to lean on him today. It's okay to allow herself to take care of herself, even if it means calling Robin. She's allowed to… do that, to feel that. To lean a little.

And thank God, because maybe that means she can stop feeling so guilty all the time. Maybe she can stop feeling bad for trying to feel better.

"Taking that feels really good, when it isn't breaking my heart," she admits, fiddling with the rubber band around her wrist.

Robin will see this, she realizes. He notices everything, he will notice this. Maybe he won't know what it means, maybe it won't stand out to him. But then again, maybe it will. And then she'll have to explain it to him.

She waits for the niggling climb of anxiety to resurface at the prospect, but somehow it doesn't. She twists the strip of rubber around her fingertip, and thinks of eggs in her kitchen, and warm fingers scratching at the back of her neck, and the way his beard tickles the bridge of her nose when he kisses her brow.

And then she smiles a little, and says, "You know, if he asked about this, I wouldn't be ashamed to tell him. I think he and my father may be the only two people in the world I wouldn't be ashamed to tell."

The corner of Archie's mouth curves up slightly, and his brows rise just a hair behind his glasses.

"I think that answers a lot of your questions right there," he tells her, and maybe it does. "But that's something we can save for next week."

"Right," she sighs. "Next week. How long do you think it's going to be until you stop ending sessions by telling me I'll see you next week?"

"I think that depends on you."

Regina exhales heavily and admits, "I'm exhausted. And I'm keeping you."

Archie just shrugs, like he doesn't mind that she's dragged him in here on a weekend and then kept him long because she is a basketcase. Like he doesn't have better things to do.

But they both do, and they are done here (she needs to be done here), so she gives Pongo a few final pats to his shoulder, and then scoots forward and reaches for her purse.

She pauses when Archie speaks again, offering her one last bit of reassurance: "It's going to be okay, Regina."

She nods a little, but it isn't terribly genuine.

"I'll take your word for it," she says, shouldering her purse, and standing before she tells him, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go call the man I'm not seeing."

Dr. Hopper just smiles and says, "I'll see you next week. Drive safely."

.::.

The solitude of her car has never been more welcome, and for a few minutes after Regina shuts the driver's side door, she just sits there. Tips her head back against the headrest, closes her eyes and simply takes in the silence.

She feels like shit.

Therapy is like this sometimes – draining. Leaves her feeling scraped out instead of simply unburdened. Usually, she can predict when days like this are coming – she likes to think she's relatively self-aware, at least enough to know when something she wants to unpack in therapy is going to leave her with a dire need for a drink, a bubble bath and a good cry. Those are the days she usually asks Mary Margaret to stay an extra hour and takes herself out for a glass of wine before she heads home, or even better, gives her enough money to cover two movie tickets and popcorn and gets the house to herself for a while.

But she hadn't called Mary Margaret today. Henry is eleven now, he's getting older – old enough to mind himself for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. He has all the emergency numbers, and she knows Robin is expecting Roland today, so he should be home. And Granny Lucas is just down the block if Henry needs another adult.

So she'd left him home alone.

It was a stupid idea; she should have known after the night she'd had that today's session would be rough. That she'd want a buffer when she left therapy, and that she would feel too guilty to leave Henry alone for too long.

And she's paying for that stupidity now – sitting here in her car like an idiot, trying to soak in a few minutes of silence before she has to go home and pretend she doesn't feel the way she feels right now.

It occurs to her that she's engaging in negative self-talk. That rubber band should be getting a snap.

Regina opens her eyes and lifts her head, then stares at the menacing little thing.

There's nobody here. Nobody will know.

She takes a breath, gives the elastic a slow pull and then lets it snap back for a biting little sting. It doesn't hurt much, but her eyes water anyway. It's shame, not pain, and she tells herself one more time what Dr. Hopper had told her: it's not punishment, it's self-care. It's encouraging positive thought and self-assessment. (That really does sound stupid – at least when it comes from her.)

She doesn't know how she let herself get here. To this place of constant anxiety and tension. She knows the reasons, but she has been through worse. She's been through break-ups before – ones that came after actual relationships. Her mother has been this bad, or worse. She's dealt with Sidney and the way he wants her just a little too much. Hell, she made it through Daniel dying. (It had been hell, and there had been days like this – plenty of them – but at least they'd felt warranted then. Now she just feels….)

There's a word at the forefront of her mind, but she doesn't let herself think it.

If she does, she'll have to snap the rubber band again, and she is genuinely afraid that she is still orbiting the edges of an anxiety attack that will have her snapping again and again and again. It'll only make things worse.

There's self-care and then there's self-torture, and she just can't handle the goddamn rubber band right now.

There are other ways she can care for herself. Other things she can do.

Starting with lunch.

Her stomach twists, a pinching, sloshing sort of feeling, like everything is rising.

Regina amends her plan: Starting with relaxation.

Acute anxiety is a trigger for her, she knows that. And this is acute anxiety, this crawling, knotting, can't-catch-her-breath feeling. She has to manage the anxiety before she can manage the rest. She has to think, damnit.

Self-assess. Plan of action. Execute.

Regina forces herself to breathe slowly, and take stock of herself. She's tired, and there's a little pulsing throb at the base of her skull, a tension headache brewing that could blossom into a migraine if she doesn't let herself rest. She's thirsty, too, she realizes. Maybe she'll stop for an iced coffee (black, extra strong, no sugar – no, that'll keep her from napping if she needs to. No coffee. Iced tea.)

Iced tea, then home, and rest.

Which means she needs quiet, and no pressure. No Henry.

Her fingers are shaky as she fishes her cell phone out of her purse, and it annoys her. Weak. Weak, and stupid, and—

She glances at the rubber band at her wrist, and tells herself she'll snap the damn thing later. Right now she needs to make a call.

She takes another deep breath as the phone rings once, twice, and then Robin's voice comes over the line in a quick, "Hello?"

The sound of his voice rushes over her like a wave sweeping up onto a beach, and takes the sandy grit of her what-if-he's-dead-on-the-side-of-the-road-somewhere anxiety with it as it ebbs. Something between her shoulder blades loosens, finally.

"Hey, it's me," she greets him.

Her voice isn't as steady as she'd like it to be – it's a little breathy, there was a slight tremble to it. And he must have noticed, too, because he asks her, "You alright?"

"Not really," she admits. "I just got out of a... very exhausting therapy session. I could really use an hour to myself; I know it's your time with Roland, but could I send Henry over for a while when I get home?"

His answer is immediate and easy: "Of course, always."

Regina lets out a relieved breath, and offers a fervent, "Thank you."

"You sure you're alright?" he asks again, concern coating the lilt of his voice.

"I'm fighting an anxiety attack that doesn't want to go away," she tells him, barely more than a whisper. "I just need some peace and quiet, and… time alone. Until it passes."

"I could go grab Henry now if you want," he offers. "Take the boys out for ice cream, or a movie or something."

"You don't mind?"

"Not at all," Robin says, and she hears soft laugh before he teases, "It's that or walk the dog around the block for the third time this afternoon."

Regina chuckles a little, says, "Thank you. Again. He's at home, alone. Tell him I said it's okay."

"Will do," he answers, and she shuts her eyes again, just enjoying the sound of his voice, the way he is safe and sound and relaxed as he asks, "Is there anything else I can do to help?"

Her first thought is that she wants his arms wrapped around her. Wants to press her nose into his shoulder and breathe and have him scratch at the back of her neck the way he had the other night, the way that makes goosebumps rise up her back, and arms, and… other parts. But considering what had happened the last two times she's done that, it's probably unwise.

It'snatural to want care and contact, comes to her, Dr. Hopper's voice echoing and following up with, It's okay to want that and to take that sometimes.

And she wants to, but… Mother.

Plus, he has Roland and no matter how flippant her therapist had been about them necking with the kids nearby, Regina doesn't want that.

She can get through a weekend without Robin's lips on hers.

So she opts for a different kind of comfort instead, requesting, "Can you… tell me something good about me? I need something to focus on for a minute, and your voice is…" 'Soothing' is what she wants to say, but she's let herself be a little too raw already. So she simply says, "I like it. And I could use a… boost."

"Of course, love," he says to her, and there's something about his voice. A tone or timbre, something… sweet. Intimate, maybe? She lets herself focus on it, taking measured breaths to ease the last of her anxiety.

"I'm not really sure where to start," Robin admits. "So many options…"

Right now it doesn't feel like there could possibly be that many.

Regina swallows hard and asks, "Try…"

She needs words like a balm right now, something to soothe her scraped up, raw heart. She doesn't care what he picks, she just wants a bit of kindness.

"I'm thinking, love," Robin teases her; she can hear the smile in his voice (wishes she could see it on his face). And then he says, "Mm. I know," and makes her breath catch with, "You're very brave."

"Brave?" she questions, her voice breaking. She's half-crying on the phone with him; he's crazy if he thinks she's brave, of all things.

But he just hums and affirmative, and explains, "You were brave enough to leave home, try to start a new life away from your Mum."

Regina scoffs, mutters, "And look where it got me."

"Yes, let's look," he urges, and then he's listing out all the good things in her life. It's not a long list, but she tries to absorb them all anyway: "A lovely home, and a wonderful son. A good job, a comfortable life. I know it's hard right now, and I'm sorry for that. I know it's my fault—"

"It's not entirely your fault," she interrupts. She can't blame him for Mother, or really for Sidney. Maybe she wouldn't have ended up on a date with him if it hadn't been for Robin, but this must have been there all along. Deep down. Lurking.

Robin tells her, "I know that, but I also know I'm not helping matters any," and then pushes ahead before she can argue. "But we're not talking about that right now. We're talking about how brave you are."

Regina sighs softly and listens.

"Raising a boy all by yourself. Living alone, taking care of your whole life." The first one is an accomplishment – her proudest accomplishment – but the rest, that's just surviving. "Taking a chance on the idea that the man who broke into your home might be worth more than the gum on the bottom of a shoe, and giving him an opportunity to try to be better. That was brave." Robin pauses for a moment, and then he tells her gently, "And I have to imagine a person's got to be just a little bit brave any time they ask for help. Like you did right now. Calling and telling me how you feel, and what you need, that's brave. Not everyone can do it."

She'd been managing to keep the tears at bay up until now, but that last compliment has them welling up and spilling over before she can stop them. Her "It doesn't feel brave," is wet and thick.

"Maybe not, but it is," Robin assures her. "You're a brave woman, Regina. One of the bravest I've ever met. I'm sorry you're struggling today, but you're a hell of a woman. You'll be alright."

Dr. Hopper had told her the same thing, and she'd struggled to believe it. She struggles to believe it now, too, but she finds it still helps. Hearing it from someone who isn't paid to say it is comforting.

"Thank you," she sniffles.

His voice is penitent when he says, "I didn't mean to make you cry. I was trying to make you feel better."

"You did," she assures him, because he has. She may be wiping tears off her cheeks, but she can breathe now. The anxiety has ebbed away, for the most part. "I have a little bit of an anxiety hangover right now. The tears are close to the surface, it's easy to make me blubber."

"I wouldn't call this blubbering," he tells her, as she wipes at another tear and sniffles again. She needs to blow her nose – and sleep, before this crying jag combines with all her stress and triggers a migraine.

Robin seems to have the same idea, urging her, "At any rate, why don't you go home and have a bit of a lie down? Let me handle the boys. You can text when you're ready for Henry to come home."

"I will," she murmurs, taking a deep breath and blinking away what she hopes are the last of her tears. "Thank you."

"Anytime." She smiles at the sincerity in his voice, and then he's saying, "And Regina?"

"Hmm?"

"I didn't want to lead with this, because your looks aren't the only good thing about you," he begins, and her heart does a stuttering little knock at what could be coming. "Far from it. But just in case it's the kind of boost you need – I can't stop thinking about how gorgeous you were the other night, and I think I'm going to dream about your arse in that skirt for the rest of my natural life."

Regina can feel the way her cheeks have gone warm, and she laughs softly at him.

"But it's your eyes I can't stop thinking about. They're lovely up close. All of you is just… so bloody lovely up close."

She smiles, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip for a moment, and then she gives him another quiet, "Thank you. You, too. And you smell really, really good."

"Yeah?" he chuckles, apparently pleased by this news.

"Mmhmm. Like clean laundry and… Christmas trees. I like it."

She really, desperately hopes that it doesn't sound as silly to his ears as it does to hers, but she can't seem to stop the words from passing her lips, and he's been so complimentary of her during their conversation. He deserves a little boosting of his own.

They say their goodbyes, finally.

Regina takes another deep breath in, and then out, and starts the car. She stops for that iced tea, sucking it down as she drives and trying to make a point to savor the cool, refreshing taste of it.

Focus on the little things, enjoy the little things. Make it home, and then sleep.

The house is empty when she arrives. Blessedly silent. Peaceful.

That throbbing at the back of her skull has worked its way up to a dull ache, and she's determined to battle it with a nice long catnap (something she finally thinks she's worked her anxiety low enough to accomplish).

She climbs the stairs to her bedroom, already unbuckling the belt around her hips, toeing her shoes off as soon as she steps into her bedroom. She coils the belt up and sets it on her dresser – she'll put it away later – and then she turns a bit as she twists to unzip her dress, and freezes at what she's just seen.

On the end of her bed, there's a hoodie that absolutely does not belong to her and wasn't there this morning.

Regina frowns and pads over toward it, lifting the soft material from the bed. It's grey, with red along the zip and in the hood, and GUNNERS printed on one side of the chest above a little graphic of a cannon. Roland has a shirt with the same image on it, red with the word ARSENAL blazed across it.

This is Robin's, it must be, but why is he leaving her clothing?

She scowls, and then her breath catches with realization, fingers clenching a little more tightly into the material and bringing it to her nose. It smells like clean cotton and forest pine – he's worn this.

She should probably find it creepy that Robin is leaving her laundry, but she doesn't. She finds it sweet, far too touching for her own good. A little bit of him for her to bury her nose into and indulge without all that pesky touching that gets them into trouble.

It doesn't take Regina long to slip out of her dress, and into a tank top and shorts; she pulls the hoodie on over the tank top, shoving too-long sleeves up past her wrists long enough for her to draw the zipper up.

And then she crawls on top of her covers, wraps herself around a pillow, and buries her nose in the sleeve of Robin's shirt.

It's not quite the same as one of those hugs that makes her feel so safe and so anxious in turns, but it'll do just fine.

She's asleep in minutes.

.::.

Regina sleeps like a rock and wakes slowly, exactly where she fell asleep. Her torso is pleasantly warm, her bare legs a little cold, and she keeps her eyes closed as she rolls onto her back and stretches.

She relaxes back into her covers, her forearm landing on her brow with a faint whiff of forest, and for a brief, weak moment she turns her face into her arm and breathes him in again.

And then she unzips, and leaves the hoodie behind, trades shorts for leggings and a sports bra and heads down to the den to run for a while.

By evening, she feels better. Lighter.

Robin had texted while she was on the treadmill and told her he'd gotten last-minute cheap seats to an Orioles game, so they'd not be back until Roland absolutely needed to be in bed. (It's a 7:05 game, and he's three, so as far as Regina's concerned, he should last about an hour, but it's Robin's kid, not hers, and if he wants to deal with an overtired toddler in the morning, well, that's his problem.) As a result, she's had plenty of time to decompress.

She's slept, and exercised, and started a load of laundry. Showered, and put on another pair of leggings and that Arsenal hoodie, since nobody is home to see it. And then she'd paid a few bills, read half a chapter of a book, and spent some time in the kitchen.

But with a clearer head comes perspective, and her run had given her plenty of time to realize that this morning was not exactly a shining moment in her ten years of therapy with Dr. Hopper.

So somewhere during the first inning, after Robin has texted her a picture of all three of them in Orioles caps and big grins, Regina curls up in her favorite chair and pulls up Dr. Archie Hopper in her contacts.

She breaks off a small piece of warm, gooey brownie from the napkin on her knee and chews it as the phone rings.

Dr. Hopper picks up on ring number three. "Hello?"

"Hi, it's Regina Mills," she tells him, even though she's certain he has all of his patients' numbers in his work phone. "I'm not interrupting your dinner, am I?"

"No, no," he assures. "I'm free."

She smiles, and says, "Good. I wanted to tell you about my dinner. Since you were so interested earlier."

"I'm still interested now," he says kindly, and then he asks, "How was your dinner, Regina?"

"Robin took the boys to a baseball game, so I had dinner alone. I had a salad with some chicken breast, and goat cheese, and pecans, and then I made brownies for Henry and I'm having half of one right now while I talk to you."

Good choices. Healthy choices. And a treat. Crisis averted, bad day resolved.

"Good," Dr. Hopper praises. "That's good, Regina."

Her mouth is still sweet and chocolatey, and she tells herself that this will be a brief call, so she can get back to indulging. Back to her self-care. Maybe she'll finish that chapter of her book before the dryer buzzes.

She tells Dr. Hopper, "I just needed some time to calm down. When I'm keyed up, it's hard for me to think about food."

"That's also when you are at the most risk of making self-destructive decisions," he points out, and she frowns. He doesn't have to tell her that. "It's important to retrain your thinking patterns. If stress triggers your self-critical inner voices, you need to have ways of coping, ways of altering your thinking and pushing through."

"I know," she says, mildly annoyed and letting it creep through. "I've been doing this for twenty years; I know."

"I know, but a reminder never hurts," he tells her, and if he can hear her displeasure, he doesn't make a big deal out of it. There's a moment of dead air between them, and then he asks, "Was there something else you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes, actually," she says. "I wanted to… apologize. For earlier." She sets the brownie aside for now, and tells him, "I think I maybe made today's session more difficult than it needed to be. I was…" Bitchy. "Well, I suppose my mother would say something along the lines of 'obstinate and childish'. I've just had a lot on my mind, as you know."

Her phone buzzes lightly against her ear, another text coming through. Probably Robin; she doesn't check it. Instead, she fiddles absently with the zipper of his hoodie, admitting, "Some things that I thought were… straightforward… maybe aren't. And I took that out on you. And I know that's what I pay you for, but it's not really what I pay you for." It's not really his job to take her sass and abuse – it's his job to help her sort through her jumbled emotions. "So I'm apologizing. Like a mature adult."

"Thank you," he tells her, and, "Apology accepted."

Forgiveness granted, just like that. Although it always is with Archie, and she thinks maybe that's part of why she likes him so much. She can make mistakes, apologize, and move on, and know that they won't be used against her three months down the line when she's least expecting.

He says, "And thank you for the call," and then, "I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening, Regina. I'll see you on Wednesday."

She promises that yes, he will, and they say their goodbyes. And then Regina picks up the rest of that brownie, and savors it bite by delicious bite.

.::.

Robin brings Henry home around nine-thirty, having already deposited a sacked out Roland in his own bed next door.

Henry is tired, too, yawning as he toes out of his shoes and tells her all about how they saw a grand slam, and how he had a whole bunch of popcorn. Apparently, they had gotten a whole bucket of it. (She glances at Robin, who grins guiltily enough that she figures she doesn't need to remind him that popcorn does not a dinner make.)

She's just glad to see him – Robin – standing there in front of her, in a black Orioles t-shirt and shorts, a little sun-kissed and without a drop of blood anywhere on him. She's managed to calm herself since therapy, but that dream had walloped her hard.

The need to touch him, just to be sure of him, is acute, aching. She's fairly certain she interrupts Henry's retelling of something game-related when she says, "Why don't you go upstairs and brush your teeth." Another glance at him has her adding, "And take a shower. Your knees are dirty."

He's in shorts, too, smudgy grass stains on his bare knees – Robin had mentioned something about having been at the park when he'd called earlier about the game. At least Henry will sleep well tonight, after a day full of so much fresh air and sunshine.

But for now, he sulks slightly at the prospect of bed, thanking Robin for taking him to the game before he trudges past Regina and up the stairs.

She feels just a little bit bad for sending him off on his way, but the blood…

Regina wants Robin alone, just for a minute – just long enough to make sure he's okay. In the interest of privacy, they end up on the porch. The last thing she needs is Henry to come back downstairs and overhear them talking.

Not that they do much talking.

The minute they're alone, her hands are on him. Pressed to the warm cotton over his belly, swooping up his chest, his neck, into his hair. Dry as a bone, not a drop of blood on him, and those blue eyes are bright and lively as he smiles curiously at her.

"Not that I'm complaining, but is everything alright, babe?" he asks her.

Regina shakes her head, scratches her nails lightly against his scalp and watches him shiver.

"I dreamt that you died," she tells him, and then there are warm hands on her hips, solid and squeezing as he assures her that he's right here, very much alive. Her eyes water as she breathes, "It felt so real. It was just like Daniel."

"It didn't happen," he promises, and he draws her in just the way she loves, the way she's wanted all day. His fingers weave into her hair, trace soothing swirls and wandering patterns all over the base of her skull, the back of her neck, his chin resting against her brow. She can feel his chest expand with an easy breath in, and turns her head to the side, resting her cheek against it as he exhales. Her arms wind around his waist, pressing even closer, until she can hear it underneath her ear: his heartbeat.

Steady, and strong, and very much alive.

For a minute, they just stand there and rock, bodies swaying lazily in the porchlight as she absorbs the warmth of him, savors the breath in his lungs, memorizes the rhythm of his heart.

There are crickets chirping somewhere, and the air has gone a bit muggy. She's warm where they're pressed together, feels sweat start to bloom between her breasts. It should be uncomfortable, she thinks. But it's not. She's not. She is very, very comfortable.

The kissing was inevitable.

He'd asked her if she felt better now, and her head had tilted up as his tilted down, their lips meeting like gears rolling seamlessly together, an easy rhythm, rending and sewing slowly. No rush, and none of the pulsing tension of the last time they'd kissed. Just lazy reassurances found in the cheap-beer taste of his tongue, the hint of salt on his lips. The strength of his hands against her.

She's allowed this; her therapist has told her so.

She's allowed comfort, she's allowed to seek it and to accept it. And he'd been dead. Dead and bloody and surrounded by all that twisted metal and broken glass. Regina kisses him harder, harder, one arm wrapping up around his neck to anchor him to her. She wants heat and passion, not sweetness and comfort. She wants to feel him alive.

Robin moans softly against her mouth, his hands gripping tighter at her hip, in her hair, and they stumble a few steps until they hit the railing. She gasps as she bumps into it, their lips parting with a soft smack. Regina's blinks her eyes open, and finds Robin looking at her like she's a banquet and he's a man starved.

When he reaches both hands down and scoops her up, she lets out a surprised "Mm!", then laughs softly as he settles her on the porch rail.

She's in that Arsenal hoodie that smells like him and soft cotton sleep shorts, and the rough brick of the porch rail snags a little against the thin material of her shorts, scrapes a little against the back of her thighs. She doesn't mind, parts her legs anyway, lets him step in between just like he had the other night, his hands coasting up her thighs just like they had the other night, too.

He murmurs, "You are so bloody gorgeous," as he looks at her.

"You're just saying that because I got all weepy on you earlier," Regina teases softly, her hands finding his arms, his biceps, his shoulders. She so enjoys the feel of him. The brush of denim against the sensitive insides of her thighs, the warmth of the hand at her spine that urges her in toward his mouth again.

He murmurs, "I'm saying it because it's true," just before their lips touch, and this time, the connection is electric. He's kissing her in earnest now, and she's kissing him back just the same, her ankles hooked around the backs of his thighs, one of his hands on her ass again, slipping beneath the hoodie to palm her through just her shorts.

And it is just her shorts. She's bare beneath them, and feels herself growing wetter, aching for more contact, more friction. But they shouldn't do that, they're not supposed to do that, so she doesn't tighten her legs around him, doesn't scoot closer.

She does indulge in running a hand up beneath the material of his t-shirt, feeling his skin smooth and warm beneath her palm. Her nails scratch gently across his spine and Robin shivers, sending a ripple of satisfaction through her. She wants to make him do that again. She tries and succeeds, a light scrape making him shudder again just before he groans and kisses his way down her neck.

She's not quite sure how, but they go from zero to sixty in short order – one minute he's sucking at a sensitive spot near her jaw, one hand on her ass, the other in her hair, the next she's begged a breathless, "Touch me," and he's drawn the zipper of that hoodie down, cupped her breasts in his palms, and is dragging his teeth across her pulse.

She's naked beneath the hoodie, too, his callused thumbs rubbing twin circles over her nipples before he grasps and tugs at them just the way she likes, and Regina lets out a not-so-quiet, "Oh!" – and then remembers they're outside.

Outside and on her porch, and what is she doing?

"We're going to get caught," she gasps, but Robin shakes his head, murmurs, No, and rolls her nipples again.

"Henry's in bed," he reminds, and she groans, and nods and pushes her chest greedily into his palms even as she protests, The neighbors… "Are asleep, babe," he assures, and oh, okay, well, if they're asleep…

She gasps, "Harder," and he pinches both nipples and holds until she's letting out a desperate "Ahhh!" and raking her nails across his lower back.

That ache between her thighs is sharper now, wetter, needier, and she grasps one of his wrists and squeezes, urges, "Touch me," again and guides his hand down lower.

Robin swallows thickly, asks, "You sure?" even as his hand lands on her thigh, fingertips pressing into her skin as he rakes his hand up, up, up. She nods, and he asks, "What about…?"

His thumb sneaks beneath the loose cotton at her crotch, skates across her clit as she gasps, "Doesn't matter… Touch me, please..."

And he does, oh, how he does, groaning and murmuring how wet she is, as his thumb circles and circles against her clit, riling her up, drawing gasps and soft moans from her. He kisses her while he does it, wet and a little sloppy, but good. Hungry.

Her hands have been fisted in the sides of his shirt, until it occurs to her that he's already got a devious hand stolen away inside her shorts and she's barely touched him. In fact, this whole encounter has been fairly one-sided so far, and that just won't do. So she reaches for his belt, unbuckles it and then works his button and fly, his shorts falling to the porch with a soft thunk. He's hard for her, warm and velvety in her hand, and she strokes him slowly, her grip snug as she relearns the feel of him.

It's been a while, after all.

Robin groans and drops his head to her shoulder, his thumb working her faster.

"Oh, babe, so good…" he murmurs into her skin, and this is good, so good, but she needs more.

He knows, somehow he knows, he must, because that hand is sliding away from her (she cries out; this is not at all what she wanted), before he grasps her hips and tugs her forward. It gives him better access, lets him slide his fingers up into her shorts again, but at an entirely new angle, one where he can slip two fingers into her soaked heat and fuck her steadily with them.

Regina moans and bites her lip (the neighbors can't possibly be asleep this early, she should be quiet), then hisses, "Yesss, like that…"

"Just like that?" he asks, and she nods, and nods, lets out another soft ah! and rubs her thumb over his tip to make him gasp.

"So beautiful," he breathes to her, "Could look at you for the rest of my natural life," and she feels it, feels beautiful.

The angle shifts somehow and Regina gasps, digs her nails into his biceps, tips her head back for a moment, and revels in the feel of him. In being touched, being stroked and pleased and soothed after such a long and miserable day. She needs this, needs it, needs the feel of him against her (kisses him again, because she needs that, too), needs the feel of him inside her. She wants to wrap herself around him and absorb him, take him inside her and—

Oh. Oh.

She wants to take him inside her. Wants him inside her, needs him inside her, warm and alive and vital, needs to feel him.

You're human, Regina, Archie Hopper's voice comes to her like he's standing right there beside her. ...both consenting adults, there's nothing wrong with that.

She sees him over Robin's shoulder when her eyes crack open, like a hologram, flickering and then gone.

It's okay to want that and to take it.

So she does.

She strokes down to the base of Robin's cock, then urges him forward. He lets loose a needy little groan and steps closer, reaching between them and tugging her shorts to the side before he lines up and sinks his cock into her.

Regina moans at the feel of him, then drags his mouth to hers. They kiss and they kiss, his arms wrapped around her, his hands groping her ass, his fingers in her hair as he pistons inside her, matching the pace of their suddenly heated making out. Tongues tangle breathlessly, moans and groans and gasps echoing between their lips, and it feels good, so good, she wants more of him, always more of him, wants him closer, presses her brow to his and cries, "Oh, Robin!" and "God, harder!"

And he does as she asks, fucks into her harder, quicker, groans her name and, "Oh, babe, yes, like that…" and "Unh, don't stop," or maybe that's her, maybe…

She squeezes her eyes shut on a particularly satisfying thrust and opens them to the dark.

She's disoriented, panting lightly, on her back, in her bed, alone.

Robin's not here. She'd been… dreaming. And dreaming well, apparently.

Damnit.

She's sweaty, and horny, rolls her head to look at the clock on her nightstand. Three AM.

At least this time it wasn't violence and death that woke her, she tells herself blearily, shifting slightly beneath her covers. The movement makes her acutely aware of what her dream self had been engaged in; she's slick and slippery, aching and full. But so empty, too, and she wants…

Well, she wants Robin, but that's absolutely not happening.

Her dream self may be willing to – oh, God, fuck him on her porch at nine-thirty on a Friday night, as if Granny Lucas wouldn't see every slutty moment of it (No matter what Archie says, that would not be perfectly okay behavior). But her waking self, even fuzzy-brained and half awake as she is, knows better.

But that wetness, it's not going away, and she wasn't exactly close to an orgasm, but she wasn't far either. So she licks her lips and lets her right hand creep down under the covers, slipping it into her pajama shorts, into her panties. She's absolutely soaked, sensitive and swollen, and she inhales sharply as her fingertips brush her hard clit.

Oh, yeah. This won't take long at all.

She rubs a few more slow circles against the little nub, her thighs already quaking from the little shocks of bliss that radiate out, but it's not what she really wants. She wants what she'd had in the dream, wants that feeling of fullness. So she reaches down and slips two fingers into herself just like Robin had. She sinks right in, hot and drenched, but it's not enough, not thick enough, she wants his cock inside her, and two slim fingers just won't do. Regina adds a third, and that's better, that'll satisfy her.

She pumps her fingers just the way he'd been inside her, matches the rhythm they'd set and closes her eyes, and imagines. They're back on that porch (because nobody is awake at three AM, and, hell, it's not real anyway), Robin's hands on her ass, his mouth on hers, his cock inside her in quick, firm thrusts. The heel of her hand rocks against her clit, and Regina moans deeply, feels her thighs shake again, twitching with every harsher burst of pleasure.

She's close now, needs just a little more, imagines his fingers on her nipples, squeezing and kneading like they had in the dream, imagines him sucking and nipping at them, imagines him licking between her thighs, his hair tangled in her fingers, his cock inside her faster, faster, harder, "Oh! Mmm! Robin!"

She comes hard, her belly clenching, her body curving in on itself just a little as she sweats and pants and rocks her hand in a stilted, staccato rhythm as she tries to draw the release out for herself.

And then she relaxes with a sigh, boneless on top of her sheets, her fingers lax but still tucked inside of her.

"Fuck..." she breathes into the dark.

That was… very good for an interrupted sex dream and a groggy hand job, that's for sure.

And maybe she should be embarrassed about it, and maybe tomorrow she will be, but right now… Right now, the rush of orgasm has settled into a low buzz in her limbs, sleepy and sated, and she thinks if she closed her eyes, she'd probably be able to sink back under.

She needs the sleep, desperately, if she's going to recover from today and make it through tomorrow. So she does just that: slips her fingers out, and wipes them clumsily on her belly, then rolls onto her side with an indulgent stretch and burrows into her pillow.

Her limbs are still tingling pleasantly when she falls asleep.