A/N: Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed the Season 5 premiere last night! I haven't been able to watch yet since my laptop fell down onto the floor and broke. It's kinda hard to find a good repair man in Africa, so... I'll probably have to wait to get it fixed til I get back to Germany in two weeks. But you shouldn't be the ones to suffer. The people I live with have been so kind to let me use their computer for a while to upload the chapter. I'm afraid I'll have to wait with watching the episode until... well I don't know when :(
I'd like to thank the amazing ibreathenumbers for the cover she made for this fic! (I'll upload it once my laptop is fixed) Also a huge thank you goes to my beta waterbaby134!
Also I wanted to tell you that you're welcome to leave me prompts for this fic for the Regina pairings such as Evil Charming, mad Queen, Hunting Queen, Hooked Queen, etc. on twitter, tumblr, anywhere you like. I'll try and include them for you guys. My username is the same!
Now I don't want to keep you waiting. Enjoy!


(4)

Once Regina had met all the guys, someone yelled, "Cut!" so the cameramen would turn off the cameras and continue filming inside where the men were waiting. They were probably already drinking champagne and testing the waters as to who was real competition and who wouldn't make it through round one. She didn't want to go in there. Not now, not with him waiting for her. This was all a big, bad joke.

Ruby headed toward Regina, her make-up bag with brushes and other stuff ready to freshen up her make-up and powder her face so her skin wouldn't shine in the light. She was motionless, her eyes fixed in some point in the distance while Ruby worked her magic and her hands ghosted over her hair and face while she babbled on. "Oh my God, I've imagined some of these guys to be hot, but holy shit! You're such a lucky woman, Regina!"

Lucky? She didn't think so. The woman in question just gave her a tight smile, her thoughts still circling around Robin Locksley, the man who connected her past, her future and, well, everything else. This was a messy, complicated situation. She was here to find someone, to find love - even if she clearly doubted she could truly fall in love with one of these guys - not to have her past thrown back into her face.

"Regina? Hello, anyone at home?" Ruby laughed while waving a hand in front of her eyes. Regina blinked twice before she arched an eyebrow in question at Ruby, who had disturbed her. She couldn't concentrate, couldn't even remember the names of the last few guys she met, all because of him. This shouldn't be happening, this was not right.

"All right, Regina, I'm done here for the moment. Remember to go inside for a few short interviews and then make sure to meet the assistant casting director to get another look at the headshots and decide who will get the first impression rose from you. Regina, are you listening?" Ruby seemed a little annoyed with her, but right now Regina didn't care. She'd get the interviews over with and then she'd have a serious talk with Tink, her supposed to be 'best friend' who had lead her on. Tink must have known, she must have, Regina thought while she walked into the house. That was why she'd asked her to apply, that was why she'd pulled some strings and persuaded her boss she was the perfect choice for the Bachelorette. What was she aiming to achieve? Robin was a closed chapter for her, Tink knew as much. She'd been there herself when Regina had decided to let the past rest in the past...

"This is a bad idea," Regina mumbled while she drove up the street in her old dark blue Mercedes Benz limousine she'd purchased a while ago. It was a cloudy Sunday afternoon; the weather had been that way since they started their trip early in the morning from New York to Storybrooke, Maine. It hadn't rained one bit even though there'd been a loud rumbling from time to time.

Beside her, Tink sighed for the umpteenth time. "Bullshit. Mal has called in all her favors for this, you cannot waste this opportunity. It's your turn to set everything straight, to..." Tink argued like she had maybe ten times before but this time Regina's patience was so short, she cut her off.

"I haven't seen him in six years, Tink. I was the one who left. What is he supposed to do after what I did? Take me back like nothing happened? I abandoned him that night!" Her voice was shaking. "He was ready to start a new life for me and I let him down."

"Cora forced you. It wasn't your fault. He's met her, Regina, he knows. Don't you remember?"

"I do." She made a face.

The blonde smiled. " I'm sure if you explain to him what happened, how you couldn't stand a chance against the joined forces of your mother and him he'll understand. From what you told me, you two were in love - really, truly and unconditionally. This is not something you can just throw away. You admitted yourself..."

"I was drunk!" The brunette mumbled defensively which made Tink only smile harder.

"You know who speaks the truth and nothing but the truth? Children and drunks. What if he still feels the same way, Regina? What if he's been looking for you but hasn't been able to find you? You went into hiding for a while to not have to deal with all the crap and until the restraining order was through. What if, Regina, what if...?"

"Yeah, there are many what if's. I'll go there, I will apologize and hope he will forgive me. That's all I can do at the moment and I don't dare to hope for anything else."

The blonde raised an eyebrow and shot her a glance. Regina shook her head, knowingly dismissing the topic her friend wanted to talk about. "No. Not a chance." This was something she hadn't even come close to considering.

Tink shrugged. "Your decision." And in just this moment Regina was glad she had to concentrate on the road otherwise she would have wiped that stupid smirk off Tink's face with a punch in a heartbeat.

Storybrooke was a small town and very clearly arranged. They drove up Sherewood Street, stopping in front of a small three level apartment complex with dark green doors built out of red bricks. It looked like it had seen better days - not shabby by all means, but old and in need of a few reparations on the outer facade. Regina parked the car on the other side of the street in a free parking spot. She took a deep breath. Here they were.

"So... that's it?" Tink asked, her lack of excitement showing in her voice.

"That's the address Mal gave me."

Her friend commented on everything with a meaningful "Mmmmh..." which made Regina roll her eyes. Seriously. What did she expect? That Robin lived in a castle with servants and subjects? She tried to lighten up the mood by saying: "If it's anything to go by, the shared flat he lived in before was much, much dirtier - which may not have been entirely his fault but his roommate's."

Tink rolled her eyes. "Well, we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, right? For all I know I was born in a house like this when my parents came to the U.S. Now let's go."

"What?" Regina's grip around the steering wheel tightened. Driving here was one thing, seeing where he lived now another. But... going in? Talking to him? She didn't feel like she was ready. Even though she'd pondered six years about what she would say to him if they ever met again, now was the wrong time. Whatever she'd thought of wasn't good enough to apologize for what happened. She... she needed more time. Oh this had been a bad idea, very, very bad.

"Not what. Do you want to stay sit here like a stalker watching if he eventually decides to leave the house today?"

"I can't. What if he's not home?"

"That's why they invented bells, Regina. If he's not home, we will wait for him to show up. Now get out or I will. But then you won't get the chance to talk to him first."

"I really hate you sometimes, Tink." Regina muttered, knowing it was better to take matters into her own hand than let her friend take the first step.

The blonde grinned. "The feeling is mutual. You'll thank me later."

She wouldn't. In case, it turned out Robin wasn't at home at all and the name on the door with the number 2128 tightened the displeasing feeling in her stomach. Locksley. The sign was written in a cursive script, which definitely did not belong to Robin. She couldn't put a finger on it, but something felt wrong. Very wrong. She'd learned the hard way to trust her gut feeling. Well now her gut was telling her to throw caution into the wind and leave.

"Tink, I think we should go."

"Why? We haven't even rung for a second time. It's Sunday and late afternoon, perhaps he is asleep..."

"Robin is an early riser and not one for naps. If he's not here, he's not here. Please, can we just go? It was a bad idea to come here in the first place."

"Regina..."

"No! I'm leaving and if you don't want to get stuck here and walk all the way back to New York; you'll come with me. Now." Regina told her firmly, stalking back down the stairs to her car. She'd just gotten inside when she saw two people rounding the corner, arms slung around each other in a tight embrace. Shit. Regina felt like someone had hit her with a baseball bat. She shouldn't have come here, no she shouldn't have. Robin was smiling, looking at the woman in his arms with a look she knew all too well because she'd been at the receiving end of it for quite a while. As if this wasn't enough, her gaze wandered to the beautiful light brown skinned brunette in his arms. An exotic beauty if she'd ever seen one. Her jacket was falling open to the sides, revealing a heavily pregnant belly. "Holy shit," Tink whispered next to her, "That's..."

"Yes."

"And she's..."

"Obviously." They watched the couple walk down the street until they reached the stairs which would lead them to the second floor. They stopped right in front of the staircase, Robin turning her toward him and softly brushing the woman's lips with his, his hands caressing her overly large belly. Well, apparently he'd gotten over her fast. Tears sprung into her eyes, tears for the love she'd lost and for the chances she'd missed.

"Regina..."

"No. No Tink, you don't get to talk right now." She started the engine, her hands quite shaking and drove off, never looking back.

If she had though, she might have seen Robin looking after the car with New York license plates, wondering if his mind had played a trick on him. He shook his head, kissing Marian who was watching him curiously for a second time and guided his very pregnant wife up the stairs to their home.

The moment she finished her short interviews and stepped into the small lounge area where a huge black board with twenty-five headshots of the candidates was build up, Tink was already waiting for her with a drink. Her smile seemed very insecure; one eyebrow raised in awaiting the thunderstorm Regina no doubt would let loose once the door was closed behind her.

"If this is a peace offering, you can stick it up your ass," Regina said dryly, taking the glass of Whiskey. She would probably need the whole bottle to get through this evening. Oh that would make a great first episode. The Bachelorette, drunk off her ass.

"It's not a peace offering, but I know you, Regina..." That was rich. That was rich coming from her supposed to be best friend. Once she got back to her mansion, she'd call Mal and ask whether it was possible to sue your best friend for betraying you. She was living in the U.S after all; you could sue people when your coffee was too hot.

Regina took a sip from her whiskey before letting Tink be on the receiving end of one of her most potent glares. "If you did know me, we wouldn't be having this conversation Katinka!" Tink flinched at the use of her full name. Regina was mad. "If you really knew me, I'd be out there enjoying my time with twenty five awesome guys and not him! What the... What the hell were you thinking?! No, wait, you didn't think at all, because if you had, you would have warned me or not let this happen in the first place!" Her hands were shaking, making the ice cubes in her glass clink together.

"Regina," the blonde started, but Regina wasn't finished, not yet.

"You know when you came to me with this whole Bachelorette shit, I thought you were totally crazy. Then, for one short moment I really thought you wanted to help me..."

"I wanted to help you, why the hell do you think I did this in the first place?!" Tink stepped closer, hands on her hips. "Listen, I know you hate me for it right now and you won't believe me if I told you Robin wasn't my choice anyway, but think about it. This is your chance to set things straight!"

Regina let out a dry laugh. "My chance to set things straight? Whatever you ought to achieve with this, I'm not going to go through with this shit in front of running cameras! I won't have my life drama laid out in public for the whole country to see and gloat over. I'm not a freaking Kardashian! I'll call production and stop this right now." She drowned the rest of her drink in one swift dramatic gulp before she put the glass down on the tiny wooden table next to her.

"Regina, no!" The blonde grabbed her friend's wrist, hindering her from running off. "You can't do this. If they find out you two know each other and that I signed this off, I'm gonna get fired and all my chances for a career in television are over!" Tink's eyes were pleading; suddenly she seemed more than concerned with the turn of events.

Regina's mouth fell open, her rage with her friend growing even more serious. Of all things she could have said, Tink decided this was her strongest argument to stop her from calling production?!

"So this is all about you?! About your career?! What the hell..."

"Of course it's not," she groaned, realizing what she said had been a mistake. "You got this the wrong way. Regina, please listen to me. Let me explain, I swear..." The brunette took a deep breath, pinching her nose with two of her fingers. She felt one of these headaches coming, the kind that would knock you out for the rest of the evening and the day after. This couldn't be happening. God.

"You've got three minutes, Tink. Then I'm going to call Gold Television Cooperation and blow this whole thing up." From what she could see, Regina was dead serious. The blonde groaned but she knew her friend would go through with her threat to call the head of production, Mr. Gold, who was the one pulling the strings behind most reality TV productions these days.

"Your time's running," Regina reminded her with an icy voice and Tink sighed in surrender.

"Fine. First of all, opposite of what you might think, I'm just the casting assistant and not actually in charge of who gets cast. I can tell my preferences to the casting director, yes, but I'm not the one calling the shots. That's Blue. She gave me a stack of application videos to watch and asked me for my opinion. It was a coincidence Robin's was with them. I didn't even check the list for names, I just put the first DVD in the player and that's it. When I watched Robin's, I was in total shock, you have to believe me. I mean, I saw him just this one time when we drove up to Storybrooke, but I knew it was him before he even opened his mouth. The video - Regina, if you'd seen the video, the way he spoke of you... I couldn't tell Blue the Regina he was talking about in his video was you, but I knew..."

Regina's head shot up in disbelief. "He... he was actually talking about me? What about his wife?"

Tink's eyes dropped to the floor, her hands nestling with the zipper of her production jacket. "Yes, he was. He talked about how in love he was with you and that he'd given you the stars and the moon; how heartbroken he was when you left without an explanation. Hearing the story from his point of view was so heartbreaking, Regina, especially because I know what happened. You told me how your mother forced you to marry that asshole."

"What about the wife? She... she was pregnant. He must have a child," Regina whispered.

"He does. A son, Roland - adorable little guy. His wife Marian died a few years ago, Regina. He didn't say much and made sure in his contract he doesn't have to talk about her or what happened. But from what I could see... I think a part of him still loves you and I know deep down you still have feelings for him. Please don't throw it all away. Give him a chance, give both of you a chance!"

Regina swallowed hard. She had to sit down, perhaps have another drink. Oh God this was all too much to process for one evening. The big worn out but extremely comfortable looking brown leather couch to her right seemed like the perfect place to break down on. A dry sob escaped her throat when she sunk down on the couch, her face buried in her hands. It didn't take long to feel Tink's arm hesitantly wrapping around her shoulder. She accepted the comfort. Besides the fact Tink had betrayed her, deep down she knew her friend had only wanted to help in her own, crazy Tink kind of way.

"I'm sorry, Regina. I should have told you. Damn, I just want you to be happy."

They didn't say anything for a while. Regina didn't cry - Ruby would never forgive her for ruining her make-up - but she felt as if an invisible power was trying to crush her. "What am I supposed to do now?" the brunette whispered.

"You want my advice?" Tink didn't wait for her answer. "Don't be afraid of your feelings. Allow yourself to feel. Go out there and enjoy yourself. There are twenty-five incredibly good-looking guys waiting to meet you. Take some time to get to know a few of the men out there and if by the end of the evening you feel that you don't want Robin to stick around, so be it. If there's a part in you that wants to give this, wants to give whatever both of you still have a chance, listen to it and take it. You can always kick him out later."

Xxxxx

In the end, Regina had done as Tink had advised her. Her friend had been right in the feelings department. It'd been too long since she'd allowed herself to feel something, anything for a man that was not her son. Most of the men out there had been extremely nice. Conversation had flown easily and she'd been a little stunned at the boldness of a few of the men who'd taken every chance to get a moment alone with her. All except Robin. He'd never made an attempt to come and talk to her even if it was just polite small talk. Was he already regretting having come here? Was he already planning on going home to his son? Even though she'd been talking to the other men she'd still been able to feel his gaze upon her, which had made her shiver. Daniel had been so kind to offer her his jacket which she'd gladly accepted - one of the reasons why he'd gotten the first impression rose.

The evening went over in a rush and before she knew it, she was standing in the living room for her first rose ceremony, which had always looked easier on TV. Ten out of fifteen men would go home tonight. It'd been hard to choose who'd get the chance to stay and who would go home. If only she'd had more time but well, this was not the concept of the show. Regina knew she had to trust her gut feeling with the decision and in case she was wrong she could always kick someone out later.

Now that the cameras were on and filming, some of the guys actually started to look nervous. Regina scanned the crowd for Robin who was standing in the far back next to two guys named David and Killian who both had woken her interest in the short conversation they'd had. Through the little button in her ear she got the signal to start, which she reluctantly did.

The next few minutes were picked with relieved sighs, smiles and worried looks from the candidates who were still waiting for her to call their name. She hadn't given Robin a rose yet and with every other rose leaving the silver plate next to her, her decision didn't become easier. Would he accept it or would he decline? He wouldn't make a scene, no, he wasn't the type for making scenes, but... what if she'd gotten her hopes up for nothing? He hadn't even tried to talk to her, had just gazed at her with a look she couldn't quite fathom. This whole thing was turning into one huge mess.

There it was, her last rose. Regina reached for it, her hands once again shaking. Please let this be the right decision... "Robin." Of course her voice betrayed her when she called out his name and he didn't move. Shit. She should have known he would be still angry with her. Hell, she hadn't forgiven herself for what happened, so why should he?!

"Robin?" Her voice sounded almost helpless, like she was drowning. Just then he looked up, his eyes widened with astonishment. One of the other men pushed him forward and he made his way over to her slowly. Then he was there, standing in front of her, his eyes boring into hers. She couldn't be sure but it surely seemed like he was holding his breath, like he couldn't believe she'd called his name. Well to be fair, he was the last one.

All eyes were on them, so it was now or never. "Robin... Do you accept this rose?" Please say yes. Please, you have to give this a chance; you have to give me a chance. Her eyes were starting to water and if she wasn't careful a tear would drop from her lid if he didn't say yes. Had he given up on them? Of course, he must have after everything that happened otherwise he wouldn't have moved on with that woman. Regina wanted to apologize so badly. Perhaps... perhaps she would still get a chance to talk to him after he'd declined her rose and the ceremony was over.

"Yes."

For a moment the brunette felt as if she'd been hit by a bullet. Had he just...? She let out the breath she'd been holding, suddenly realizing how dry her mouth was. Robin had accepted, she could barely believe it. With shaking hands, she fastened the rose on his breast pocket and was about to bid him goodbye, when she changed her mind. By agreeing to take the rose he'd not only agreed to stay a part of this show but to give them both another chance.

Emotion overwhelmed her and she did the least thing either of them would have expected. She threw her arms around his neck, pressing her head close to his ear. He even still smelled the same. After all these years, after everything that happened... "Thank you," was all she managed to say.