She wasn't going to see him again, definitely wasn't going to kiss him again, yet here she is. She blames Snow for it, for encouraging her, and isn't that just typical, blaming Snow for something that is not at all her fault. At least this time she's not trying to kill her for it, though lord knows what will happen when they find Emma without Regina there to protect them. Emma's magic is out of control, but she's only a danger to her family because she sees herself as one. If they can convince Emma of that, they'll be fine, but if they can't…
She shouldn't have come to see Robin at the library, but it sounded urgent on the phone, and well, she couldn't resist seeing him. She should have kept the table between them because his touch is electric, and she also couldn't resist smiling at him, flirting with him, then kissing him, all things she definitely should not be doing.
She needs to work on her self-control. He is married and they said they weren't going to do this again. It hasn't even been a full day since their last slip up and not even twenty-four hours after saying goodbye "for good," she was kissing him. She's terrible and weak, got lost in those gorgeous blue eyes, couldn't resist leaning in and closing the distance between them.
She is the one who kissed him, she is the one who started this, and now she has to be the one to stop it. She shouldn't have kissed him, shouldn't be clutching his hand as she parts her lips. She shouldn't have let herself get caught up in the hope, in the moment, in the sight of him, scent of him, feel of him.
She's not sure who stepped in but their torsos are flush against each other and he's giving her lower lip a gentle bite, while his other hand rises to fist in her hair which makes her shiver. This feels amazing, she's been starved of this kind of intimacy and connection for so long and she wants to surrender to it, wants to kiss and kiss him, to never let go but she can't.
She started this, she has to stop it. Just one more second, a few more seconds, then she'll stop this capitulation. Juse one more, one more, and one more. Maybe thirty seconds more, thirty more seconds, then it's the end, this for real the last time. Twenty-eight, twenty-seven, twenty-six. He lets out a soft sigh as his lips open for her when there's about ten seconds left on her countdown. She wants him to do it again, hear it again, more, louder, but they are almost out of time. She can't do any of that no matter how much she wants it.
She wants more, wants all of him, wants this to be a hello and not a goodbye, but it's not and she needs to stop it. She lets their next kiss linger, chases his lips as they start to pull away because she's promised herself this is the actual last one and she's not quite ready to let go just yet. His soft lips press against hers, and god is she going to miss this, had forgotten how nice it is to just kiss without it needing to go anywhere—not that she wouldn't love if it went further, but it can't.
When he goes for another she regretfully pulls away, sliding her hand off of his, putting some much needed distance between them. He's so attractive, face flushed, eyes wide. She wants to draw herself back into those arms but she won't. They've managed to break apart, keep it chaste(ish), and she doesn't know where to go from here.
She should not have kissed him, that much is for sure, and she tries to apologize but he won't let her. He gives the same excuses she's been using, that they got caught up in the moment, it was just a moment, it won't happen again. It hurts to hear those same words she's been telling herself come from him, even though she knows it is what's right.
She nods her agreement because it's easier, despite the fact that she's dying to claim those lips again, that her heart is pounding from his proximity and her mind can't stop thinking about how good it would feel if they indulged again and he took her against the bookshelf.
But that is something that cannot happen. It's bad enough what has happened, yet another lapse in judgment. This is why she'll never find happiness because she's too damn selfish to do the right thing.
It's hard, it's so hard, it almost hurts to be in his presence, to feel that strong pull to him and know that she has to resist it. It doesn't matter that he is supposed to be hers, that the page showed her that possibility, because she made bad choices, is still making bad choices, and he is no longer hers. He was made for sweet, young, innocent and untouched by evil Regina. She will not drag him down with who she is now, the darkness that still lingers inside of her that she has to fight to keep buried. As much as he acts like he can handle her now, he cannot, no one can. He deserves a better her, which doesn't exist. He deserves a good and true soul, like his goddamn wife who she cannot figure out how to save.
A part of her worries she hasn't tried hard enough intentionally, that she sabotaged her own efforts so they could end up like this. Her life would be so much easier without Marian, and it's not as though she didn't contemplate it early on—albeit by much more difficult means.
She is that person, she cannot be trusted when she's grieving, she will pursue revenge on an innocent, be it a child or a lover's not-so-dead wife. She just cannot be trusted and it's why she needs to stay far far away from Robin.
To that end, she starts to make her way out of the library, doesn't even say goodbye, can't be trusted to do that without succumbing to his presence. She is still thinking of his lips, his skin, his everything and she is tempted, so tempted. She will do the wrong thing if given the chance, so she needs to take away the chance. She needs to stay far away from him, cannot be left alone in a room with him.
It's a thought that's only reaffirmed when she gets a call from Snow, telling her Emma's been saved but there's a weird bracelet tethered to her and a spell from the Snow Queen that needs to be analyzed. As always, there's a problem, and as always, she was too busy with other things to focus on what mattered.
She transports herself to the clock tower to get a better look. She could have gone back through the library, but she needs to stay the hell away from Robin. There's a disaster coming and she wasted precious moments kissing him when she should have been figuring out the Snow Queen's plan. She does not have the luxury to be this distracted, and now, if whatever this is harms Storybrooke, the blood will be as much on her hands as the Snow Queen's. She was whoring about when she should have been protecting the town. She is not a hero, all hope she had after seeing that page is gone, because she chose to sin, yet again.
She was selfish, again, and now look what's happened. There's some curse or magic that's about to hit, and she knows before seeing it that it will be bad. They can never catch a break, it's why she should have known it wouldn't work out with Robin.
But it is not time to think of that, and she focuses on the spell. She looks away for a moment to text Snow, letting her know where she is, knowing the whole charming softball team and their frozen friend are about to join, which is actually what she needs. She doesn't recognize this magic, but if it's from Arendelle as she expects, she's hoping Elsa will.
She stares and stares, trying to place the cloud, to figure out what those sparkling bits are. She wants to take a sample, but the risk of infecting herself with whatever it is is too high for that.
She's just enchanted magical binoculars when she hears a slight noise in the stairwell, which is odd because she expected more clamouring from the whole group, but gets her answer when Belle appears.
She doesn't bother to ask why the bookworm is here, just tells her everything she knows. By the time the Charming clan makes it, they have it narrowed down to a couple of options, none of which are good, and Belle is off to check a book about the Spell of Shattered Sight, the worst possibility of them all.
She doesn't know enough about it, apart from what it does. She'd never been interested in what dark magic looked like as the Evil Queen, had researched countless spells, all the ways to hurt someone with magic, but all she was interested in was what it did and how permanent it was. She refined that knowledge in Storybrooke to pass the time, but she'd tended to direct her curiosity to marvels of this world as opposed to magic, since there was never supposed to be magic again, what was the point of studying it?
If only she'd been a better student, had paid more attention to the nuances, she'd be able to identify whatever the hell this is with sight alone, without needing any frame of reference.
But she does need it, and when Belle brings back the book and she reads the description, she knows they are totally fucked. This is the Spell of Shattered Sight, and it's about to rip them all apart. She is a villian, she doesn't get a happy ending, but this is about to steal a happy ending from everyone, and there is nothing she can do.
Turns out she shouldn't have worried about Robin and his wife, or anything of her recent misdeeds, since they are all about to kill each other. She should have just taken him in the library, kept up all of her transgressions, basked in the pleasure of it all, because everything is about to end, and she hasn't spent nearly enough time enjoying the life she has, before being dragged to hell.
She was blaming Snow earlier for her misdeeds, and she'd thought at least Snow is safe from her this time, but now there's a fucking curse about to hit that makes her a danger to everyone, especially Snow. She is the biggest risk to Storybrooke right now, no one else.