so I need to tell you up front so you're not worried, she is not gonna be raped, like I don't feel comfortable writing that in present sense, it's different when it's in the past in the story...somehow? and I don't think I'm at all graphic when it's brought up, I don't know, but just so you know.

Regina stands, lifts the girl in her arms, June wraps her legs around Regina's waist without hesitation, the girl is really too big to hold like this, a healthy tall six year old; she is too heavy to hold for long, but the girl smushes her face further into the crook of Regina's neck, and the sobbing starts, tears and snot and spit falling from the distressed girl onto Regina's skin and dress. Regina rubs a hand in circles on the girls back, the other arm under the girl's rear to keep her better in place, but even with her arm and the shelf of her hip Regina has to lean back absurdly to keep the weight of the girl up.

A hand lands softly on Regina's upper back, and Regina flinches and she steps away before looking whose hand it is. It's only after she's three steps away that she turns, sees it was one of the middle aged men (Sam, memories of Storybrooke seem so awfully far away in this awful castle, but she knows him, Sam worked for the Department of Motor vehicles, had renewed Regina's license years upon unending years and he had snapped the picture and said every time at her smile 'there's that ray of sunshine!') her reaction to his touch has him frowning, his hand slow to return by his side.

"Where's your mother?" Regina asks again, bounces the girl and pats the girls lovely halo of hair, "June, where is she?"

"Regina-"

Regina turns bodily away from David, shaking her head at him and the still befuddled confused expression he wears looking at the little girl like what has happened to her cannot be real.

Regina licks her lips desperately when the girl still does not answer and her eyes spin until she sees the man who'd guffawed at her taunt, he's looking at her, a neutral expression on his weather beaten face and Regina steps towards him, moves both her arms under the girls rear to hold her up, "Do you know her?" Regina asks, head jerking down to indicate the girl, "Her family? Where do they live?"

The man nods and he gestures to the bend June had walked around to approach them, "Aye, the third door, yer Majesty."

She walks, cradling the back of the girls head and trying to sooth her with soft words, Regina walks with hurried steps and the girl whimpers, Regina walks alone for eight steps before the sound of jogging feet has her spinning her head around in search of the threat, but it's David and the men who follow, they overtake her with long strides, David leads, his face finally reflecting the horror he has seen rained upon poor June, his usually amicable face is hard and drawn, his hand rests against the pommel of the sword he wears at his waist. The men are not subtle at looking at Regina and the child, there's a queer pinched expression on their faces, each of the three men wear it and Regina ignores them, side steps to put distance between herself and them, to walk further from them even now in case they seek ill will.

Sam watches her with a frown, concern in the lines around his eyes, and it's not all for June. Regina ignores him.

When they turn the bend and approach the third door it is half open, blood on the knob.

David pushes it open the rest of the way with splayed fingers against the hard wood, he stands blocking the way for long seconds before Regina raises a hand and shoves at his broad back, the brute finally enters.

"Adrienne," Regina cries, rushes over to the woman lying face down in a puddle of her own blood, Regina lands with a splat next to the women, her dress drenched in blood from knee to hem, and Regina must disentangle June before she can turn the fallen woman over in her puddle of blood.

June's brutal beating is nothing to her mother's, Adrienne's face hardly looks like a face at all, a mess of discoloration and swelling and nasty gauges, the thought that the woman cannot possibly be alive runs through Regina even as she fumbles to feel a pulse, June pulling on the sleeve of her dress and crying, awful cries that swallow every other sound in the room.

The pulse is there, fluttering and weak but Regina feels it, she casts desperate eyes to David, who has walked through the chambers and the adjoining room, "There's another girl! With red hair, is she here?" Regina asks.

David shakes his head, looks as if he'll be sick at the sight of Adrienne, but Regina has no time for his queasy stomach and one arm wraps around June, pressing the hysterical child to her side as the other hand grasps onto Adrienne at her neck. The woman has no time, she would not survive the journey through the inbetween to find Roland, but healing magic, Regina doesn't have the power to do it, not to save a life so close to death, a life seconds away from death, but with June, with June they should be able, they must. She glances uneasily up at David and Sam and the two other men she doesn't know, David wouldn't let harm come to the child, she reasons, he wouldn't, he's a good man, and it's with that thought that Regina closes her eyes and lets out a breath, her concentration on Adrienne, open to attack if one came but she shuts that thought away, David had punched Bobby in the mouth, had protected Regina, though she had not asked, and he'd do the same now, she thinks. Regina eases magic into the room, can see it, not with her eyes, but she can see it all the same, she can see (feel) it swirl around June, poking and testing, sniffing, like a dog nudging a puppy.

June's magic shies back, "June, I need your help," Regina whispers into the girls lovely hair, her free hand coming up to cradle the girls head, "your Momma is hurt, dear, I need your help."

The little girl nods, tucks her head against Regina's chest, "brave girl, such a brave girl," Regina soothes, easy and gentle rhythm to her voice, June's magic reaches out and brushes against Regina's. The girl's magic is beautiful, graceful like a dancer, bleached yellow like Adrienne's hair, Regina clasps it in hers, gentle like she's cradling a baby bird, "think of your Momma, how much you love her, June," the girls magic thrums in response.

All magic is different, Roland's is warmth and love, what Regina's was before rage and despair she doesn't know, but June's, June's is beauty, it is shafts of sunlight through stained glass, it is the curve of a smile, and no wonder the flowers she grows in her palms are so breathtaking, they grow straight from beauty.

Regina gasps at the feeling of it, her hands shake and she protects the girl's precious magic against her own dark purple miasma even as she pushes the swirling mass into Adrienne, her only instruction is heal, specification would have been better, but the whole of Adrienne's body looks broken, so it's HEAL and it must heal it all.

Adrienne is slipping, and Regina gushes magic at her, heal, heal, stupid woman, HEAL

Searing pain lances through Regina's right shoulder, under the collarbone, she can feel it grind under the collarbone, an arrow shaft through her.

Regina's eyes spring open, she tears her hand free of Adrienne, rips her magic from the task and without her guiding hand June's magic goes swimming back to its shell. Her hand springs to her shoulder, groping and her eyes don't see the arrow, there is no arrow, no wound, confusion marks her face.

A blow to the ribs has her whooping out all her breath, tumbling back, away from the girl who's fallen atop her mother's chest weeping, a blow to the gut has Regina rolling to her side on the blood covered floor, but there's no attack, there isn't anyone, no one is, what, why is this happe-

"Regina!" David approaches, his knees in the blood, hands on her shoulder.

Another blow and Regina cries out, but there is no one but David who has wide eyes and Sam, who's hovering over David's shoulder, he looks like he's about ready to faint when Regina's neck snaps as a phantom blow to her face knocks her head straight back.

David takes her head in his hands, grip over her ears, "What's happening?" he asks, he's calm in the face of this, steady voice and in comparison Sam looks like a chicken with its head cut off.

Regina can only shake her head before another blow has her ears ringing, David grips her tighter, lowers his head to catch her eyes when her gaze spins, "Is it Robin?" he asks.

Robin.

Regina's eyes widen, a hand goes back to her shoulder, where there is no arrow, and she pales thinking of it, Robin, it's Robin, this pain is Robin's. An arrow, an arrow straight through him, that terrifying revelation has Regina pulling and struggling at David until the man gets the hint and hoists her up to her feet, he doesn't look happy doing it, "Protect the girl," Regina says, stumbles away from David, but he snakes a hand at her wrist and holds her.

David says her name, all his questions in those three syllables, Regina tries to shake his grip off but he sticks like glue, she'll need her magic for Robin so she refrains from setting David on fire, she pushes at his chest with her free hand, and it reminds her of Daniel and the stables and she'd lost him a second time over. "Get off, shepherd," she breathes, pushes at him, he's not letting her go, concern on his face, but she doesn't want it, especially now.

"please," Regina says, breathes it out, a plea, shame rubs her raw at having said it, it had slipped out, David's expression softens, his grip loosened, but it takes Sam hauling at David's arm for Regina to finally be set free. Regina's hands fly up, purple smoke surrounding her body and she is gone.

She appears before a stake in the center of a courtyard.

A millisecond is all it takes for the beast to emerge, there's July with fire at her feet, Robin with an arrow through him, blood leaking from his mouth, Regina is swamped out by the rage, overcome with it.

Screaming

It's all screaming

It's all fire (fire at people, and she can hear the crinkle crinkle pop of their skin boiling, boiling from the delicious heat)

ROBIN, a voice is screaming in her mind

she can feel last breaths, screamed out in agony, she has missed this, the power. The fire licks up and down her frame, wraps around her limbs.

ROBIN, Regina blinks, almost awakens.

The beast drags her back down, air comes hot in her lungs, blistering, burning she burns them all, and one tries to run and she flings a rope of fire around his ankle, drags him back, he loses all his fingernails as he claws and claws at the ground, screaming and it's music like no other, a cackle rips through the air, and his ankle is blackened to the bone before he comes before her, she has the fire roll him onto his back and she raises a heel and stomps against his nose and it's hot gushing blood squirting everywhere but not as much as Adrienne's puddle of blood and this man will bleed like she did, he will bleed and drown in his own blood, he will

ROBIN, and Regina stumbles back from the bleeding, burned man she'd been about to kill, she's freed herself from the haze, she's never done that in the middle of a blood lust before, but the man at her feet still lives and her mind clears, "Robin," she says, shaky voice and shaky legs as she stumbles back, trips over her feet, lands on her ass in the dirt, mind reeling, "Robin," world spinning, her gaze spins, looking for more enemies, she finds none.

Robin's face is pressed into the dirt, he's not moving.

"Robin," Regina stands, falls, and stands again, pelts at Robin and lands next to him, sprawling there with bits of rocks biting into her palms.

She hears July screaming, still tied to the stake, but she doesn't look, has eyes only for Robin, the blood on him, she turns him, huffing until he's in her lap, her eyes close, hand splayed over the wound, the arrow shaft sticking up between her middle and ring fingers, she'll heal him, she has to heal him.

A blow lands on the back of her head, a sharp jagged thing that somewhere in her she recognizes as a rock, the pain makes her scream sharply, blood gushes, she can feel it warm running down through her hair, down the back of her neck. She's dragged back kicking by a grip on her hair, she flails her arms behind her, catches the hand that holds her hair and a current shoots from the center of her, electro shock to the man, he snarls and drops his grip, his hand convulsing.

She takes the time to turn, crouched on the ground, panting with a hand raised, her world tilting, the man comes at her, his hands his only weapons, when she tries to throw fire the flame won't come, and she throws herself to the side to avoid the blow he'd swiped at her face.

He follows after her, she twists and lands a strike against his kidney, he roars, swipes out his arm in a backhand that she catches on the temple, she falls and rolls.

He catches her ankle, won't let go of the flailing limb and he drags her back by it, the hem of her dress riding up her legs until she's close enough to kick him in the face with her other foot. His cheekbone breaks under her heel, she can feel it, but all he does is hold her ankle tighter, drags her closer, he lunges at her, gripping at her legs, grappling at her and forcing them apart, putting himself between them as he's trying to restrain her flailing fists with little success. The scream she lets out is rage, it's rage when she feels him excited and hard, pressing against her, grinding himself between her legs while snarling at her, he spits in her face, her dress is pushed to her hips, the flame that grows in her hand is born of panic, pure panic that draws out the last of the magic she can possible spare, and she lands it on his face, the smell of burning skin filling her nose, he screams, she fights her way out from him.

Even with half his face burned off he chases after her, his own rage powering him beyond reason, he smacks at the wound at the back of her head, the open, bleeding wound and it feels like her head will split in two, she lands heavy on the ground, on her front, breathing in dirt.

She can't rise from where she's landed, he flips her over, she sees double before he straddles her, heavy on her middle. He doesn't bother avoiding her clawing hands trying to dig out his eyes, he lets her, she digs furrows into his face, the burned flesh ripping away under her nails as he snares his hands on either side of her head, he looks completely mad, "Disgusting," he hisses, lifts her head and slams it back down onto the ground, "dirty," he does it again, Regina can't see, it's all pain, "WITCH," he slams her skull back down and Regina is going to pass out, she's going to vomit, and he lifts her head again, her hands have fallen limp to her sides, and his face is ripped into ribbons.

A sword blade erupts out the middle his chest, the gleaming blade red with his blood and his eyes move from the blade, to Regina's face, his last expression is deep, unfathomable hate, and then he is dead, slumping forward down the blade and landing all on top of her.

He's pushed off her quickly, everything is blurry, blurry and in doubles, it's the voices she recognizes and relief spreads through her, George's voice, Walter's.

"Fuck," Walter says, "fuck, god," Walter's voice from somewhere above her, there's a hand against her cheek.

A noise comes out of her, a whine, the hand on her cheek presses harder, "Regina," George, its George's hand on her cheek.

"Cut the girl down!" another voice.

"Is he breathing?" another.

And Walter, "oh god, fuck, god."

"rrg," Regina says, swallows, and blinks and blinks trying to clear her pain away.

"Slow down," George says, "hey, hey!" he cries when she lurches up.

Sitting up was a terrible idea, vomit burns its way up her throat, spills out of her mouth, up in her nose, and George helps her stay sitting instead of falling in the puddle of her own sick, but she refuses to lay back, now that she's up the hardest part is over and she refuses to succumb to the weakness of her body.

Her hand grabs at George's jacket, she can't see still, it's blurry and she can't see Robin, she asks for him.

George's arm is wrapped around her shoulders, "We've got you," he's saying, maybe, and something about safe, your safe, and she'd snort if she didn't think her brain would leak out her skull, darkness comes all at once.

She regains consciousness to the heated sound of raised voices, she's being held against someone's chest, still on the ground of the courtyard, it's not Robin's arms around her and she pushes, trying to free their hold before Aniol's voice comes to her ear, "Safe now, you are safe," his deeply accented voice rumbles to her and he is one of Robin's Merry Men, one of his brothers, and her head still aches, so she stops fighting.

"-killed them!"

"They were going to burn the girl at the-"

"-a monst-"

"Don't fucking touch her, I'll-"

"Doc! Get your ass ove-"

"Robin?" Regina asks, and feels Aniol tighten his hold of her, her words were slurred, and darkness comes back.

"It's some poison, his wound is minor, but he won't wake," John's voice, the clatter of the hall, Regina is curled onto her side, propped up by pillows to keep her from rolling around.

She can't get her eyes to open.

"Roland," Friar Tuck sounds close to crying, "surely the boy can-"

"After what he did for her," John says, interrupts the Friar, "you saw him, Tuck, I feared for his life and she barely looked better at all."

"What are you saying to me," Tuck whispers.

"I'm saying," John sighs, "give him his last rites, Friar."

There's a dip in the bed next to Regina, she fights and fights to open her eyes, they don't open, her head aches, she hurts everywhere, she moves her hand over the sheets, the rustle of them seems to reverberate in her ears, she encounters warm flesh, a lean muscled arm, she clasps it desperately.

"Robin," she thinks she says, finally opens her eyes, only to shut them at the sunlight that blinds her.

"Your Majesty?" heavy boot falls and a large hand rests itself on Regina's shoulder.

She can't turn her head, can't move, but she blinks her eyes open again, squinting into sunlight, Robin's skin is tinted yellow, he's breathing shallowly, his sweating face is what greets her, a keening moan comes out of her, John's hand tightens on her shoulder.

Regina shuffles closer to Robin, dislodges the pillow by her stomach and lies against Robin, his body is burning up, she reaches a hand up against his cheek, his eyes flicker wildly under his eyelids.

"Robin," she pleads, he has always been strong, and to see him laid so low has fear gripping her throat as efficiently as any malicious hand, she can't breathe, and this is what he gets for loving her, this is what her love brings, a rational part of her knows this isn't her fault, but the part she's listening to at the moment, the part that is her aching skull and burning sorrow, screams 'your fault, your fault' and she has no defense against it.

She doesn't know she's crying, weeping, she's weeping, until John tells her to calm or she'll hurt herself, but the guilt runs through her, Daniel had died because of her, her first love, her father had died by her own hand, her sweet awful father, her mother too had died because of her, (Leopold, she'd murdered Leopold in his own bed), and now Robin.

She is a blight, and she weeps because she should have let him go while she could, and he'd have been safe and happy with his boy.

"Robin," she begs.

He doesn't move.

authors note, so obvs we haven't caught up to Robin's pov, but i just wanted to say it so it's clear

so my bro said this got 'intense' but he said it in a tone that made it not sound a good way, but idk that's just how I write? because let me tell you guys something, I have like no editing process, which is usually the cause of the repetitive 'ands' and probs other things that people don't like, but it's like word vomit onto the page and I just write fucked up shit, I can't help it

DISCLAIMER: not mine yo