Hello! Thank you so much if you've left me feedback and followed/favorited. I was pleasantly surprised by the response to my first two chapters, and it motivated me to continue writing! I have outlined the entire story, and I do hope you will enjoy where it goes for Regina and Robin.
My goal is to update at least once a week.
As I mentioned in my note in chapter one, I don't claim any ownership over the characters. All events and characters in this story are modified quite a bit from their original OUAT inspirations to fit into this modern-day AU, though I think you'll find a few familiar things along the way.
Happy reading.
- Ana aka. FadedSeptember
That night, she dreamed of Daniel.
It was about that time they had been at his parent's home in Connecticut, their sprawling Victorian-era estate that his mother had spent two decades meticulously restoring, from the parlour that looked like something out of an Austen novel, to her perfectly-manicured gardens with topiaries and primly pruned hydrangeas.
Daniel's parents had been away that weekend, the weekend between Christmas and New Year's, the year Henry had been born. Daniel had invited a few of his old prep school friends over. They'd all had a little too much scotch that one of his rowdier friends from the old days had brought as a gift. Neither Daniel nor Regina had been drunk per se, but they had been blissfully tipsy. They finally retired to a room in the wee hours of the night, feeling deliriously happy. They'd kissed for a while, laughing and talking and then not laughing and talking, but then the kisses deepened, and the talking stopped, and soon they were making love on the settee, then on the bed, and Regina felt like she was liquid, riding wave after wave of pure bliss in the smooth, expensive Egyptian cotton sheets and the soft down feather bed and comforters while the snow fell outside, blanketing the tall, quiet spruces and boxwood hedges that surrounded the property.
She remembers waking the next morning and feeling truly safe, and content, and happy, like it would be that way forever… just the two of them, and Henry, baby Henry at the time, tucked soundly asleep in the room next to theirs.
Regina awoke suddenly and it took her a moment to sort out where she was.
Her new apartment. Paris. France. Henry, in the other room, asleep. He was 10 years old now.
It was still dark, though outside her window she could hear early morning birds singing a spring song. She glanced at her phone. It was 4:34 in the morning.
She rolled over and her mouth felt dry. As soon as she could muster the strength, she pulled herself out of bed, her bare feet hitting the soft wool rug beneath her. Then, as quietly as she could - the old wood floors in the apartment seemed impossibly loud and creaky at night - she padded into the kitchen.
When she saw the two new glasses, cleaned and innocently sitting on the shelf above the sink, the events of the previous afternoon flooded back to her. She poured herself a glass of water from her pitcher and took a sip then closed her eyes and allowed the events of the previous day to wash over her mind, hoping to erase the still-painful recollection from the dream.
..•..
Robin had followed her upstairs after she'd invited him in. The mood had dramatically shifted since a few days prior, when all she could do was snap at him.
She'd set down the bottle of whiskey on the table and unwrapped the two tumblers, pretty crystal things that actually matched her taste.
"These are Irish as well," he'd explained to her.
"You must not have grown up in Ireland, though?" she'd asked as she moved into the kitchen to rinse the whisky glasses. She felt her eyes on her as she walked, and deep down couldn't help but being pleased that she was wearing a tight black pencil skirt and the ridiculously expensive, almost-too-high heels that she knew made herself look especially good from the back side.
"Your accent sounds a little more English to me," she specified.
"Good catch. You're right, I didn't grow up in Ireland. My mother was Irish, but my father, he comes from an old family in Southwest England. I grew up there. Then, went to private school for a bit, so they tried to clear up the way I speak. I also lived in Canada for a while, for work, so that kind of… smoothed things out, I suppose."
"I see." She moved back to the table and studied the whisky label. "I'm interested in trying this. Normally, hard alcohol isn't really my thing, but whiskey is one that I can tolerate."
"Well, you can take some ice with it if you must - and if you have any. But I like mine neat," he explained, unscrewing the bottle.
"Fix mine neat then, too," she said, the tone of her voice suggesting that she was up for a challenge.
He poured some in the bottom of the glasses, and they clinked their glasses softly, their eyes meeting just before taking a small sip. A warm feeling bloomed in Regina's chest as soon as she took the first sip, feathering out slowly through her body to the tips of her fingers and toes.
She wasn't sure that feeling was solely from the whiskey.
They sat at the table for a while as they sipped the golden liquid, chatting a bit about where they'd grown up, the schools they'd gone to, how they'd learned French (both in school, then, to Regina's surprise, both motivated to deepen their French knowledge when they'd fallen in love with someone in France).
She'd given him a short tour of the apartment after that, showing him a few pictures she'd taken that were in the frames that she'd already hung on the wall, mostly of ordinary places in her old neighbourhood in New York, and a picture of her parents' farm back in Maine.
"You have a lovely eye for photography," he commended. "You could have easily done that as a career."
"Thank you. I did freelance for a while when I was still a student, and soon after Henry was born."
When she pointed out the study, which she'd converted to Henry's bedroom, Robin told her that he had a son.
"Oh?" This surprised Regina. She hadn't seen - or heard - anything about a son before, neither from him nor Emma.
"He's five. Great kid. His mum raised him - we never married - then I was out of his life for just a short while. Not by choice. As soon as I could see him again, I made sure that my job kept me as close as possible to Paris, where he and his mother have always lived."
"So that's why you're here."
He nodded. "It's convenient my company has an office here, and I have to travel so much for work it's not really a concern where I'm based anyways. Though I do some volunteer work back in London, so I get back there from time to time. But generally, I've been trying to settle down here."
"Do you have any other family or… friends… here?" Regina almost said significant others, but she stopped herself.
"No. Other than my son, and his mother - I suppose you could say we are friends, though we don't have much in common any more other than our son - and Emma, whom I met a while back when she was working in London at that organization I volunteer for."
They returned to the table in the center of the apartment and set their glasses down. Robin glanced at them, then up at her. "Another nip?"
She acquiesced. "Well, I have sent in all of my assignments for the day. I suppose I can manage a tiny splash more. But you really should know I don't make a habit of this."
He nodded, then pushed up his sleeves and they returned to the table. He added a bit more of the amber liquid to her glass before he topped up his own. As he poured, the tattoo that Regina had noticed on his forearm the first morning she'd met him was visible. It was dark and detailed, and looked a bit like a lion.
She had been debating asking him about it when she noticed the time. It was a few minutes past 4, the time she usually left to pick up Henry from school.
She apologized, but as soon as she told him why she needed to go, Robin jumped into action, cleaning the glasses and putting away the liquor while she got her purse. He walked with her outside and down the sidewalk for a few blocks towards the school. Before Regina knew it, they'd nearly reached the school. They stopped at a corner a half a block away.
"Thank you. Again." Regina said. "For everything."
She hadn't managed to convince him to take back the money, though she'd tried to insist several times during their conversation earlier.
"Including the whiskey, which was delicious. Thank you for being Irish, so we could sample it."
He smiled. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."
With that, he leaned forward, and for a brief, wild moment, Regina thought he was leaning in for a kiss. Before she could consider whether or not that was a good thing, he gave her a delicate, light peck on the cheek, as was custom in Europe, pulled back, and nodded his head.
"Hope you and your son have a good evening. And I hope to see you soon again. You know. Perhaps at Emma's."
"At Emma's," Regina repeated, smiling. Then, tidying her skirt and hair, she walked towards Henry's school.
..•..
In the wee hours of the morning, her mind was awash with memories of the previous afternoon and the memories evoked by the dream, swirling and combining in a disorienting haze, both comforting and scaring her. Regina simply stood in the kitchen and looked out of the window, staring across the dark rooftops of the city. Gripping the edge of the wood countertop, she wasn't sure whether she felt like crying or smiling at the memories that the dream had evoked.
Eight years after his death, her memories with Daniel still felt fresh, raw. Real. Would they ever fade? Would they ever go away? Did she even want them to fade or go away?
"Daniel," she whispered in the darkness of her kitchen.
The sky, she noted, outside of the square window in her kitchen, was starting to turn the rich royal blue color that came right before the break of dawn.
She looked at the two glasses sitting on the shelf, and she imagined Daniel with her, standing behind her in that kitchen - the kitchen that might have been their kitchen - and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her close to him.
..•..
For the rest of the week, she resolved to forget about Robin, as he was a distraction that she most definitely did not need right now. Or perhaps ever.
But, funnily enough, many things started to remind her of him. During her long work days, she felt lonely, separated from her colleagues by a computer, and wondered if Robin worked on his own, too, in front of a computer. She haphazardly Googled him, but found only a LinkedIn page that didn't look terribly up-to-date.
In the evenings, as she listened to Henry practice his French or read aloud to him, she couldn't help but wonder what Robin was like as a father. What was his son like? Did he read to him?
Robin had wedged into a place in her mind, and she couldn't let the thought of him go.
It had been years since she'd felt like that about anyone. And here he was, getting under her skin. Of all people, the thief who had "stolen" her apartment and had surprised her half to death on that first Saturday morning in Paris.
It was ridiculous.
Who breaks into an apartment to live, anyways? And worse, who likes the person who breaks into said apartment?
She debated sending him a message, something, asking to see him again. To talk to him. Perhaps if she saw him again, she would realize that she didn't actually like him that much. Then she could move on, and not feel like she was missing out on anything.
But she decided against it.
..•..
"You've been living in Paris for nearly a month and have barely even seen the city. You really need to get out," said Emma as she and Regina climbed the flights of stairs in their building.
"I've been busy moving in, and getting my son settled, and working, you know," Regina grumbled, trailing behind her on the stairs as she carried two heavy bags filled with a few days' worth of groceries.
"Seriously? That's no excuse. I need to get you out of the house," said Emma, carrying one of her bags of groceries for her.
Regina grunted softly as she set her bags down outside of her door and fished for the keys.
"That's nice of you… but I really can't."
"Come on. I'll show you around the city, there are some places that Henry really needs to see. I should study for an exam this weekend, but I'll need a few hours of fresh air. How about Saturday morning?"
"It's really not necessary." Regina sighed, feeling herself lose this battle. "…But okay."
She kind of did want to get out. Her life here so far had become shockingly… well, routine. Some days, she nearly forgot what city she was in: a city that people travelled from all over the world to see once in their lives. And here she was, living and working here, and utterly taking it for granted.
"See you at two, then? Oh, and you need to leave the heels at home, Coco Chanel. And the skirts. Dress to walk… a lot, okay?" said Emma.
"Yeah, sure."
Emma nodded her approval and whirled away, back downstairs to her apartment.
"Emma?" Regina called before she disappeared down the stairwell.
"Yeah?" She turned.
"Looking forward to it."
..•..
On Saturday the weather was threatening rain, but the three of them set out of their apartment in Montmartre, umbrellas in hand, guided by Emma.
"You liking Paris so far, Henry?" asked Emma.
He nodded nonchalantly. "It's fine."
"Et apprends-toi le français, Henry?" Emma asked him, testing his French.
"Oui. Je le connais très bien."
She laughed. "Okay, not bad."
They rode the metro to the Champs-Elysees. As they walked past a Disney store filled with tourists, Regina commented that the area wasn't as upscale as she'd remembered from her first visit to the city.
"Yeah, it's not, like, the best area that the city offers. But it's a must-see, obviously. Next we're going to go to the Eiffel Tower, then the Garden of Tuileries. So we'll see some of the big downtown Paris spots in one afternoon.
They walked and rode the metro, seeing every place that Emma was anxious for them to explore, though decided to actually go up the Eiffel Tower another time once they saw the massive lines. Finally, they found themselves at the Garden of Tuileries, and Regina could see why Emma chose it for their final sightseeing spot.
"Hey, a horse!" Henry's face brightened as he looked over at a few white ponies standing off to the side.
"You want to ride one?' Regina asked her son.
He nodded.
Emma laughed. "I thought he might like that."
The pony came with a guide, who led the three of them around - Henry on the pony and Emma and Regina trailing behind on foot - and told stories of the gardens.
"It was created in 1564 by Catherine de Medici, and opened to the public after the French Revolution. For 200 years, it's where the elite visited every day to show off," the well-rehearsed guide said in his thickly-accented English.
Henry was more focused on the experience of riding a horse than the history, but Emma and Regina followed along, listening to the guide and chatting amongst themselves from time to time, admiring the tidily manicured historical gardens amidst the busy city setting.
"So, Robin texted me the other day." Emma said after they'd walked for a bit.
"Oh?"
"Look, the guy doesn't kiss and tell, but he mentioned he saw you again."
"Did he? Well, there's no kiss involved, so I doubt he had much more than that to tell you," said Regina.
"He said he'd come by to give something to me, and you two had ended up downing a bit of whisky in the afternoon."
"Well, it seems he does tell you quite a lot, then."
Emma laughed. "Not really. We're just old friends. We go back a ways, back to when we worked together in London. We have a similar group of friends, is all."
"That's all?"
"Of course. I mean, I haven't seen or heard from him this much in ages, especially not him on his own; we usually only see each other when we're hanging out with a group of people, when some old friends are in town or something. If you ask me, he's been really interested in texting me because of his interest in you."
"Oh."
"Hey mom, look at that!" Henry pointed out about a dozen or so toy boats floating on a large fountain.
"Very nice, my dear," Regina replied, wishing she'd had though to bring her camera with her.
Emma dropped the topic of Robin. She seemed to want to continue, but Regina's pursed lips must have suggested her lack of interest in discussing the matter further.
After the pony ride and walk around the massive park, they made their way to the nearby Louvre. Regina had visited it many times in the past, so they decided not to battle the Saturday crowds, but instead wandered around outside, while Henry enjoyed looking at the massive pyramid structure that was surrounded by the old, palatial museum.
"Like the DaVinci Code," he said, running around the massive glass pyramid, and Regina nodded.
"Yes, you did see it in the movie," Regina pointed out.
"Come on, Henry, we've got one more stop," Emma said after they had spent enough time meandering through the endless clusters of tourists that congregate outside of the museum. "I've saved the best for last. You like ice cream?"
He nodded.
"Okay, well, the best ice cream in the world is in this city."
They walked along the Seine for a bit, and as the afternoon turned to evening, Regina admired the incredible light of the city, how it seemed to shift and paint the city in different shades of beauty. No wonder so many artists had found the city inspiring. She was finding everything about the city alluring. It was good to get out: her mind now felt more rested and refreshed, and the upcoming week would surely be especially productive for her work.
She loved the way the women and men wore the clothes on the streets: she'd always been fascinated by the way the French never seemed to be trying too hard, and at the same time put so much thought into what they wore. She was getting plenty of ideas for her writing as they wandered through the streets that afternoon.
As her mind was focused on fashion and writing, she listened to Emma and Henry chat about, of all things, video games. It was an odd conflation of familiarity (she'd tried to carry many a conversation about video games with Henry in the past, to varying degrees of success) with the unfamiliarity of the surreal beauty of the city that was laid out before her eyes.
The famous ice cream place, Berthillon, was their destination. When they got there, it was busy, but they waited and their patience was indeed rewarded with some of the best ice cream any of them had ever had. Henry would have probably been satisfied with any kind of ice cream, but Emma and Regina, who both chose the salted caramel, savoured each exquisite bite.
"Thanks for the ice cream, Regina," Emma said.
"Please, the least I could do was buy you this after you played tour guide for a day. I really appreciate it."
She grinned. "You're welcome. It's sometimes healthy to be forced to get out, you know."
"Are you gonna have dinner with us, Emma?" Henry asked as he slurped his ice cream.
"Ah, no, I don't think I can," she glanced at Regina. "I - ah - have to study."
"Emma's been very generous with her time, but we have to let her do some other things this weekend," said Regina, grinning at Emma, knowing that the 20-something had indeed been very nice to show them around on a Saturday, but Regina would never impose on her Saturday night.
For a flit of a second, Regina was slightly jealous of Emma's freedom, and felt nostalgic for a time when she would have done something amazing with a Saturday night in Paris.
"We'll all ride the metro back home together, okay?" she said to Henry.
Henry shrugged. "All right."
..•..
Their Saturday outing did not have the effect that Regina had hoped for the following workweek.
Although work had gone relatively smoothly for Regina for a few weeks, she knew it was only a matter of time before problems would arise after the unusually quiet honeymoon period that she'd enjoyed following the move. They finally manifested themselves that week.
It started with one of her web content writers not submitting some assignments on time, continued with a photographer not submitting the right photographs for something else she needed, and then was topped off with a massive headache and writer's block for her own column that was due shortly. She'd meant to go out on the streets of Paris and snap some photographs to use with her column, but all of the problems from her editorial work took up her time and she found it impossible to unhitch herself from the computer to go out and seek inspiration.
She sent several sharply-worded emails to her staff, attempting to maintain a facade of politeness but actually writing things she knew she may eventually regret.
So when a text appeared on her phone from Robin, she was in no mood to deal with it.
I'm going out this afternoon to shop for books. There's a bookstore you might enjoy if you want to join me, he wrote.
Too busy, she replied brusquely.
He didn't send anything else.
To make matters worse, Henry had chosen that week to have a bad attitude. He seemed unmotivated at night to do his homework, and he even began complaining about school and going on about missing his friends back in New York.
"I'm tired of learning French," he whined on Thursday, slamming down his pencil on the kitchen table where he had been working for an hour. "I want to play my Gameboy."
"No. Finish your last page," Regina said sternly.
Henry scowled, and sloppily rushed through the rest of the assignment.
"No Gameboy," Regina said when he finished. "You can read or go to sleep. But no more video games or television tonight."
He stormed into his room and shut the door. Regina didn't bother him again.
Henry had always enjoyed school, so Regina wondered what was going on. By Friday she decided to take a softer approach than she had on Thursday night. After she'd managed to sort out most of her work woes - all the ones that she could physically handle that week, anyways - she picked him up from school and took him out to a park, and then they went to an American-style restaurant for dinner. It seemed absurd to seek out "American" food in France, but the two of them enjoyed their burgers and fries immensely, finding such a meal to be a comforting, familiar taste of home.
When they returned to the apartment, Regina rented a movie online and let Henry watch it until he fell asleep, hoping that she'd manage to provide him some façade of familiarity. The truth was, she was feeling guilty. What right did she have to uproot him from his home and take him there? She decided to allow him to be a kid for a few hours and forget that he was facing the daunting task of trying to acclimate to another country.
..•..
On Saturday morning following her hellish week, Regina was sipping her coffee as Henry quietly ate some cereal at the table, still acting distant and out-of-sorts.
She wondered what Robin did with his son in this city on weekends. It was a beautiful city, but didn't seem like the best place for kids. Walking around with Emma last weekend had been interesting for them both, but she wasn't sure she could just take Henry out on cultural outings all of the time. She wondered if Henry might like to go out and shop for some books and comics. He'd always enjoyed browsing through bookstores with her back in New York on weekends. As she combed her favorite stores back in New York for fashion and design books to add to her collection, he would sift through the childrens' chapter books and comics, and she'd often find him curled up on one of the bookstore's cushy chairs reading away. Like New York, Paris had to have good bookstores. Perhaps she'd even get him interested in a French book that he could read to practice the language.
She thought about Robin's text earlier in the week… he'd mentioned books, hadn't he?
Her stomach sank as she recalled that she'd replied to him so curtly. Suddenly regretting that she'd brushed him off so quickly, she took a deep breath and composed a text message.
She then spent 30 minutes putting off actually hitting "send," because she was worried that perhaps she'd been a little too rude to the man a few too many times and that her text would (rightfully) go ignored. That would be understandable, but quite disappointing nonetheless.
Was it worth even trying?
She wasn't that nice of a person, really, she supposed. She was a woman who only thought about her son, herself, and work. Why would he like her… what was all that interesting about her, especially if he didn't like fashion? Or her son? Or maybe he didn't mind Henry.. he had a son of his own, after all. But her work was certainly nothing that he seemed to relate to. Why would he ever give her another chance after she'd been so rude?
Finally, she realized there was no loss in trying to reach out to him one last time.
She re-composed the text for what must have been the dozenth time and finally hit send.
Apologies for my reply earlier. Busy week. Henry and I want to go to a good bookstore. Do you have any recommendations?
Within two minutes, she heard her phone ping. It was a reply.
I'm with my son today. We're near a great children's bookstore. Could meet you 2 there.
Oh. He was with his son. She considered that for a moment, then replied.
All right. Could you text me an address?
A few metro stops later, Regina and Henry emerged and met Robin and his young son, waiting precisely at the corner that they'd agreed upon.