Well it's been an interesting week for sure. I needed to escape this unfortunate reality for a bit. Sandpiper, thank you for the prompt. I hope you like it and I'm sorry it took so long to get out. Sometimes life kills your muse…

The Battle Unknown

Regina is alone on the rooftop terrace. Snow, the person she had spent most of her life trying to destroy, had just given her the opportunity to change her life. Her way out. Her chance at freedom. Snow would be back any moment with Jekyll's serum and Regina was ready. She hadn't thought about it long at all before she'd readily agreed. They were coming up the stairs, Snow and Emma (she wanted the savior's magic at hand just in case), but they weren't alone. The door opened with enough force that it slammed into the wall. Robin was in front of her before her brain could process that he had come through the door. His hands were tight around her biceps, forehead pressed intimately to hers. She feels his breath warming her face.

"You don't have to do this," he tells her. "You're fine the way you are, Regina, please. You can't know what this will do. I don't want to lose you." Robin cries freely against her, not caring about their audience in the slightest. He has no shame in fighting for the woman he loves.

"I have to." She snakes her arms through his so they rest against his chest. His heart is racing underneath her palm. "Robin, I can't live like this anymore. I can't live with this. Please understand."

He can't. He loves her as she is, fell in love with her while she fought against the darkness. "I love you, Regina. I love all of you. What you've made of your life, what you've overcome…"

"I'm exhausted, Robin," she interrupts, her own tears mixing with his. She doesn't want to tell him her weakness, doesn't want him to know that the person he fell in love with is waging a constant war she hides from the world, but she needs him to understand. She needs him to be next to her when she comes away from this, so she pulls him closer and lets it out. "I fight it every day, every second. I want to feel like the person you see when you look at me."

He looks in her eyes then, really looks, stares into her as she pleads with him to understand this, to accept it. She's raw, open in a way he's never seen her (and he thought he'd seen it all). But he's with her, however ill-advised he thinks this may be. "I'm staying," he kisses into her hair before he gently urges her toward a waiting Snow. He steps back as the needle goes into her arm, forces his eyes to stay on her as the serum is forced into her veins.

It's horrifying to watch, but he won't look away. She's in pain that much is clear, clawing at her skin, growling out, morphing from the woman he loves to the one that so many feared. Then with one final push what was one is two; the Evil Queen stands before them in full regalia, Regina slumps forward, looking at her alter in shocked horror.

"Look at what you've become," the queen mocks her, looking down in disgust at the woman that set her free.

"Regina, destroy her," Snow urges.

Robin lets his eyes flit to the pair that incited this. Emma has queen frozen in place and thank the gods for it because he's not sure he could protect Regina from this division of herself. Could he harm this villain who shares a soul with the mate of his own?

He's moved behind her, knows she doesn't notice because she hasn't looked away from her other self. Even as the queen taunts and bates her, Regina moves towards her. He remains a half of a step behind, knowing she must do this on her own, but he's as close as he can be without interfering. There's a moment where he lets himself hope that she gone back on her decision to do this, that somehow she'll set herself whole again. But the queen pushes too far, calls her weak, tells her that she needs her darkness and Robin knows seconds before Regina's hand plunges into the queen's chest that there is no going back.

"No. I don't," Regina tells her darker self. He hears her whispered "I'm sorry" and isn't sure if it's meant for the queen or for herself as the heart of her alter ego is crushed to dust that falls from her shaking fingers.

They all watch the queen dissolve to ash, jump at the thud of empty chains hitting the floor. Robin closes the space between himself and Regina. He can feel her shaking against his chest. She leans into him, but hasn't said a word. No one has. There don't seem to be words to quantify what they've just witnessed.

The silence weighs on Robin; with every labored breath from the woman in front of him he grows more and more concerned. It's barely been a minute, but it feels like years since he's heard her voice. He circles her so that they're face to face, runs his arms down hers, squeezes her hands then goes back up to cup her face. "Regina, say something," he urges, forcing her head up to meet his eyes as he searches hers for that spark he fears is lost. "Look at me love."

Her eyes dart frantically before finally settling on the ones that bore into her; terrified blue wells that ask a thousand questions between each blink. "It's gone," she whispers and he mustn't have heard her because he's still pulling at her hands, still squeezing the back of her neck. So she says it again with more confidence, but it comes out in a breathy laugh that only seems to confuse him more. She can't stop laughing, can't contain the feeling of not having to feel that oppressive darkness holding her back.

She brings his hand from her cheeks to her lips, kissing his palm before pulling him closer and wrapping her arms around his neck. "You're okay?" he nuzzles against her neck, his hold around her still hesitant.

"I'm okay," she promises, kissing his cheek before pulling back. "I'm okay," Regina nods assuring him before she's being pulled into Snow's arms.

"I knew you could do it," the Princess tells her confidently. "I knew you were stronger than what she made you. You never needed the darkness." Snow holds her hands between them. "Fresh start?" she asks. "No curses, no vengeance, just family."

"I'd like that," Regina tells her through fresh tears. "I'd like to know that, to know you. Both of you." She looks to Emma who has otherwise been quietly observing. "Thank you," she tells the blonde.

"Don't mention it. I told you, happy endings are sort of my gig," she brushes off her part in all of this, but Emma knows Regina understands. There has always been something unspoken between them, filling in the parts that neither woman can bring herself to say. "Speaking of happy endings," she juts her chin to where Robin is making a poor attempt at casually leaning against the wall, "Tell him," she says simply, looping her arm with her mother's and leading the other woman back down the stairs. "We'll fill everyone in," she calls over her shoulder before shutting the door behind them and leaving Robin and Regina alone on the rooftop.

Regina leans beside him on the wall, hands brushing together naturally before he grabs hers and weaves their fingers together. They're both quiet, staring off at the lights in the distant, listening to the constant noise of the city. "You're okay?" he asks again, still looking ahead.

"I'm okay," she looks up at him and studies his face, the tight set of his jaw, the tears still glistening in his eyes. She begins to panic then. Has she lost him after just getting him back? Did he love the darkness more than her? He didn't want this, but can he forgive her for needing it? Her head is swimming with countless ways that this life between them could end.

He feels her doubt the minute it creeps in, feels her fingers tighten around his, hears her breath come faster. Robin does the first thing he can think of to silence her needles fears. He turns into her, traps her between his body and the brick and crashes his lips to hers, giving everything he has and taking all she'll allow.

It takes her only seconds to respond before she's pulling him closer, threading her hand through his hair and deepening the kiss. "I love you," she blurts out the moment their lips part. It stops him in his tracks, mouth poised to reclaim hers, but he hovers their instead. "I love you," she repeats, closing her eyes as his forehead drops to hers. "I know you knew that, at least I hope you knew that and I'm sorry I could never say it and I could never hear it…"

"Regina," he breathes against her. Of course he knew. Of course he understood. "I…"

"Please let me say this," she interrupts, pressing her thumb to his lips, waiting until she feels him nod against her. "I couldn't let it out because there was always something holding it back. A part of me that endlessly taunted that this was too good to last and if I said it than it was real and that part of me would push you away, would destroy this and I couldn't risk it winning. It's gone, Robin. I can't explain it, but I don't feel that…that prison anymore. It's gone. And I'm free. And I love you."

"May I speak now?" he asks, lips moving against the pad of her thumb.

"Yes," she swats at him, laughing. It feels so free to laugh.

"I love you too, Regina. Have loved every bit of you for quite some time. I've no intention of ever being anywhere else." He weaves his fingers through her hair and leans in to kiss her again.

"Mom?" the door to the terrace creaked as it cracked open. "Are you guys in the middle of something I don't want to see?"

"Not anymore," Robin answers, settling for kissing her forehead rather than her mouth. Regina giggled as she buried her face in his neck. She giggled and Robin realized that sound was definitely something he could get used to.

"Emma ordered pizza," Henry tells them as me makes his way over. "She said everyone had to have real pizza before we left for Storybrooke."

"Your mother is wise," Robin hugs Henry around the shoulders before making his way toward the stairwell. "Both of them," he adds with a wink to Regina before leaving mother and son alone.

Henry shifts from foot to foot, looking his mother up and down, looking for a visible difference. She's tear-streaked, but he's certainly seen her cry before. He studies her hands, her eyes, startling when she catches him staring. Regina moves to the table and taps the top for Henry to join her. They sit in silence for a while and she lets him stare, smiling softly when he grasps her hand across the tabletop.

"Ask me," Regina prompts when she sees her son trying to form the questions in his mind. "Henry, whatever it is you can always ask me." She squeezes his hand and waits the moment it takes for him to meet her eyes once more.

"Are you still you?" he ask quietly, rushing through the words.

"I'm still me," she smiles. "The me that you made me; the better me."

"Are you happy?" he asks, but it's been too often that she's not.

"Yes," she answers easily.

"Okay," he smiles approvingly. "We should get down there before Hook eats all the pizza."

"That, sounds like a fantastic idea. I'm starving." Regina rises holding her hand out to her son, pulling him into her arms when he stands. "I love you."

"Love you too."

They make their way back to apartment below, never looking back on the discarded ash that was the queen, never noticing as it glows and swirls and travels away.