The house is quiet, abandoned, but now that they know that there could be someone living inside it, it's easy to find the markers. Disturbed dust more recent than a month ago, a bathroom with a package of those white pads carefully hidden under the sink. A bottle of whiskey that Regina visibly flinches at on a counter when nothing else is out. Zelena had kept her house spotless, and the girl inside it- Elsa, as Emma keeps calling out- is neat but not nearly so.

"Hey! Elsa, we just want to help!" Emma shouts again. "Where the hell is she?"

"Where would you go if you saw intruders coming?" Regina asks, but she's gazing out the window toward a large block rectangle on the ground. There's a dusting of white fuzz on top of it, and Marian can see faint, darker grass along the ground from the house to it. Snow, melted to water in Elsa's path.

"Right." They traipse out there and wait by the entrance as Emma pulls the door to it open, Marian with her crossbow and Regina's hands in motion at once. It gives with a yank and reveals…

Ice-slicked walls and ceiling and stairs. Snow everywhere, floating through the air in delicate flakes, heavy as the ice on everything but the floor. "Elsa?" Emma ventures, carefully descending the stairs.

Regina follows, a warning hand brushing against Emma's shoulder, and Marian is behind them. She has a better view from above of how the snow radiates from one spot, how there's a huddled figure nearly covered in it like a human snowman, and she hisses out a warning as the girl springs to her feet. "No! You need to go!" she cries out, and Emma jerks and slides and takes Regina with her, slipping down the frozen stairs to land flat on the ground.

Magic shoots from Elsa's hands and there's fresh snow everywhere, pulling Marian into its undertow and sweeping her to the ground, too. She can't see the top of the cellar anymore, can't feel anything but snow all around her, and she topples forward, losing control of her feet. Regina pulls her close, one hand trapped under a mound of snow as the other flips around to shield them. "I can't control it!" Elsa says desperately, though they can't see her anymore. "Please, you need to leave me alone!"

"Oh, like hell," Regina grits out, and Marian feels sudden warmth behind her as Regina's hand lights on fire and she flings it into packed snow coated with ice. She turns just long enough to see it barely crack an inch of ice, something magical and glowing resisting it, and then another flash of ice shoots from Regina's hole to crash into Marian.

She cries out, the blow chilling her to the bone like an ice cube sliding through the center of her body, and Regina yanks and yanks until her arm is free, toppling the pile of snow beside them to reveal Emma curled up on the other side, her hand still extended and bent. Marian sits up, sliding off of Regina as her chest constricts with the effort. "We must get out of here."

But there's snow all around them, thick and heavy and blocking the way out of the cellar. Regina turns and hurls a dozen fireballs at the walls, but they only reflect against the ice, bouncing around until she waves a hand and they evaporate. "Elsa, you need to let us go. I can help you direct your magic," Regina calls, but there's silence. Elsa has run from them after her final attack, and Marian shivers at the chill that runs down her spine and never quite goes away.

"No service," Emma says, glancing at her phone. "Can't you teleport us out of here?"

"I'm trying," Regina grits out, her brow furrowed as she focuses. "This ice is like a magical echo chamber. Nothing can enter, nothing can leave. All I can do is light a fire."

"Please," Marian says, shivering again. She eyes the snow where Regina had cracked through it. "That's where…I think Elsa shot one last blast of ice through there before she escaped. So that's the exit. We'll need to use whatever we have to cut through it."

Whatever they have winds up being Marian's arrows to scrape at the ice and Regina's fire, slowly but steadily eating away at what they'd scratched away as they huddle around the warmth. It's not very warm, not when Marian can still feel something freezing in her chest, and she curls up on the ground at Regina's beckoning, head heavy against Regina's thigh.

Emma still sits beside Regina, a hand on her free one. "So you can use my magic, too," she'd explained, but she's still red-cheeked from more than the cold. Now she's fidgety and Regina isn't looking at her, and the air is stiff with tension anew.

"We're going to get out of here," Regina says finally, fingers threading through Marian's hair. It's a necessary warmth, and she sighs at what little coldness it can alleviate. "Mulan will see the snow here and make the connection."

"If we don't run out of air first," Emma points out. "Especially with the fire using up most of the oxygen in this cellar. Either we get free or we die."

"Nobody's dying, Emma." But Regina's voice is tired, worn out already from their fall into here and all the magic she's using, and Marian opens one eye to see her shoulders sagging in an uncharacteristic slouch.

"You sure you don't want me dead? You'd get Henry all to yourself again," Emma says it wryly, with undertones Marian doesn't completely understand. And then she murmurs, "You know, I thought you were angry about Marian."

"I was angry about Marian." Regina looks down and Emma shifts and slides instead on the frosted floor, closer to her. "I'm not anymore."

"Yeah. She's kind of great. I like her much more than Robin," Emma stage whispers, catching Marian's open eye. "Good trade."

Regina lets out a breath somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "It was," she admits, and Marian's heart would have turned to fire if she hadn't been so cold. "It was less so to discover what you were…"

"Yeah."

"You were going to take him and run."

"Yeah."

"After what I'd given you, you were going to…"

Emma's hand slides around Regina's waist before the other woman can pull away. "For what it's worth, I think I was mostly talk. I didn't even think I'd do it."

"For what it's worth?" Regina echoes, and Marian is trying to think past the cold to understand what their conversation is about. Henry, most likely, and a nuance she'd missed between them. "It's worth nothing. You were going to take him away just after I'd gotten him back and you didn't even deign to tell me." She yanks her hand out of Emma's and presses two fingers to her forehead. "Emma, I can't trust you and your family when you keep trying to take away everyone I hold dear."

"I know," Emma whispers. "I'm sorry."

"Whatever I've done in the past, if you're deciding to accept me despite it, you can't pick and choose how you treat me like a person. Like a mother." Regina's voice is getting thicker, huskier, like tears about to be shed. "So tell me now what this is. What I am to you. Because I can't take this back-and-forth anymore. I can't…"

"You're Regina." Emma says it with simple certainty, and Marian blinks up at them to see them staring at each other, Emma's arm still with Regina captured within it and their faces very close. "That's who you've always been to me. Even when you were a sociopath bent on killing me. Regina. Henry's mom."

Regina lets out a strangled sob when she inhales and Emma doesn't look away, doesn't change her expression at all from the warmth of understanding. "I don't want to be alone again. I don't want to keep sacrificing and sacrificing and still have a hole in my heart." It's raw and more personal than what she might have shared with Marian, and Marian closes her eyes, feeling out of place even as Regina's fingers continue an unconscious journey through her hair.

"You won't," Emma promises, and there's a strained pitch to her voice, as though she's holding back a sob of her own. "You'll have Henry. I swear, you'll always have Henry. And…" She inhales. "And me. If you want me. I'm here. Not going anywhere."

Regina's hand lifts from her hair and Marian blinks up to watch her stroke along the fine bone above Emma's cheek, achingly slowly. Emma is gazing at her and Regina is gazing back and Marian is so cold even as their eyes heat up the space between them and she's outside of it.

She can feel something cracking within her into a yawning chasm, an emptiness like the hole Regina says is in her heart. You'll always have Henry. And me. And she thinks of Roland and Robin and Regina's knuckles brushing back Emma's hair as Emma shudders under her touch and she doesn't have what they have. She doesn't have family, fully formed and dependent on her like Emma and Henry and Regina all are on each other. She's still only an intruder.

Bitter longing washes over her, settling into the canyon in her heart, and she can hear every sound magnified in their underground prison, the chilled air pounding in her ears and the intake of Emma's breath and the soft sigh Regina lets out like a whisper in the room. "I wouldn't be able to get rid of you, anyway," Regina murmurs with wry amusement, and her fingers return to Marian, brushing against her back. And Marian doesn't know what she's longing for anymore, if it's her husband and her family or just Regina like this, gentle and affectionate with all her barriers gone.

She wonders if she matters to Regina. Not in the same way as Emma does. But perhaps. Perhaps.

"I promise not to bring back the dead wife of your next boyfriend," Emma says brightly. "Even though you've been doing a great job at not killing her. I thought for sure you would have torched Marian with one of those fireballs."

Regina laughs. Then breaks off mid-snicker. "Wait." She stiffens and Marian struggles to sit up. Her feet feel heavy, too weighted to move, and she slumps down again. "Why haven't I torched Marian yet? I was throwing fireballs around the cellar and not a single one touched her. And now this." She twists abruptly and Marian blinks and comes face-to-face with a fireball, inches from her face. "Marian. Wake up."

"I'm awake. You can take that away." The heat is overwhelming, the air around her suddenly thin and painful to breathe. And yet her hands are still freezing, her legs like blocks of ice, and her lungs feel like they're underwater in a chilled pool of water. "Is this it? Is the cellar keeping you from killing me?"

"No, that can't be. Destiny isn't magic or I'd be able to find a way to defeat it." Regina's eyes narrow as she reaches out to help Marian up, an arm supporting her as she pulls her closer. "I don't- what happened to you?"

"What?" But now she's glancing down and seeing her hands for the first time. There's a delicate latticework of ice under the skin, creeping up past her wrist and turning her dark skin a sickly shade of silver. She pulls herself up by painfully sore hands, her legs dragging along as she peels off her shoes and gapes at the blue ice under them. "Merlin," she breathes. "That bit of ice that came through when you threw that fireball. I think it hit me." Directly in the heart, and she struggles to breathe again as Regina supports her.

"She's dying," Emma says, eyes wide. "That's why you're not trying to kill her anymore. She's already dying."

She breathes through the sharpness in her lungs, struggles to keep it steady but shakes violently instead. Dying. Still the intruder, and it's time to depart at last. "I'm…" She can hear blood in her ears, a slowing rush that throbs against her temples as she trembles. "No," she tries to say, but it catches in her throat and she closes her eyes, feeling the faint trail of water against cheeks that can barely feel anything anymore.

And then a voice slicing through her haze of cold and death and blood. "That's unacceptable!" Regina snaps, grabbing Marian's hand. It stings like ice and they both gasp. "I'm going to try to warm you up." She presses their hands together anyway, defiance in her eyes even as their fingers ache, and Marian can barely feel the warmth beneath them.

"Be careful. What if you melt her?" Emma points out. She's stood up and she's pacing wildly, pressing against the small spot of thinning ice of the wall.

"Do you have a better idea?" Regina demands. And, in fact, the ice isn't crawling quite as quickly up her arms now, the warmth of the fire slowing it down to a stilted shuffle. She moves closer, her stiff hands falling in Regina's.

"No. No. Yes." Emma straightens. "True love's kiss. That works on this shit, right? We need to get Robin and we need to find Elsa and we're going to save you, Marian." She picks up Marian's crossbow and aims it at the wall, firing clumsily. The arrow hits the snow instead and drops, and she loads it up and aims again.

Regina sighs, dropping Marian's hands to go to Emma. "You're going to take someone's head off. Let me do it." Her fingers linger on Emma's for a moment and they share a significant glance, another Marian can't quite untangle its meaning from.

Determination. Emma and Regina have it written across their faces, as though they can somehow will her into living. But they don't feel the ice in her heart, crawling up from her limbs toward her chest. They don't see the white ends of her hair, threatening to rise higher every time she fumbles at them.

And that's it. More indirect than she'd imagined, but Regina had succeeded in killing her, after all. It had come unexpectedly, hit her when she'd been literally lying down, and she hates the injustice of it, of knowing that it's over and there's nothing she can do to save herself.

Regina is firing the crossbow now, closer than Emma but still missing the mark. "How far back do you need to be for it to have enough force?" Emma asks, and Regina grumbles something indistinct and takes aim again.

"Wait," Marian says. They turn to look at her and she drags herself toward them, one hand extended. "I've never missed a shot with it. Let me."

"From that angle?" Regina asks doubtfully. "With your hands like that?"

But it's something, something she can do about her own fate, and she pulls the bolt back and holds her hands as steady as she can. It's like being out in the woods with Mulan again on her first day back, looking to arm herself but out of practice after weeks in a prison cell. She can't force her hands to steady but she can compensate for them, so she times the shaking of her hands with the clumsiness of maneuvering and fires.

The arrow sinks up into the ice and carves a thin line across its other side. She fires again, matching the angle and the slice into the ice to do the same on their side, and when she thumps against the ice wall, it shatters like glass into the snow, a thousand pieces sticking out at them and flying toward them as they duck. Marian would be cut up and bruised, she thinks, except she can feel how swollen her face is and she knows that ice can't do much to ice.

As it is, Emma has a streak of red across her cheek when she charges forward. "I'm going in. Regina, you stay with Marian. See if…if Elsa comes back. If she can do anything." She bends to place a reassuring hand on Marian's shoulder, and turns halfway to glance back at Regina. "You're going to be fine."

"Emma, wait." Regina is hurrying forward, her own hand resting on Marian's shoulder too.

"The snow isn't as packed as the ice. I can break through it. And you need to stay here." Emma gestures to Marian. "Your fire was slowing down the freezing, and it's going to take some time to get to Robin."

"Yes, I know all that." Regina sounds impatient, frustrated, and there's a deeper emotion there that Marian can't quite name. "I just…"

"You just…?"

"Nothing. Go." She turns away and Emma sighs, crouching down beside Marian. Her eyes are lighter than Marian's ever seen them, fierce and determined and calming all at once, and Marian's beginning to understand how a touch from Emma is enough to soothe Regina in an instant.

"You're going to live," Emma whispers. "I swear." There's something about Emma Swan that inspires, something that leaves Marian with unquestioned faith in her. She nods dumbly and Emma flashes her another smile and captures her in a quick hug, barely more than a reassuring squeeze.

Regina hovers, flames still at her fingertips, and Emma rolls her eyes and grabs her wrist above the fire. "See you soon." Regina is stiff and still for a long moment, and she finally moves forward just as Emma lets her go. They bump back together, arms fumbling around each other in an awkward embrace that is angled all wrong but neither one of them moves anyway, hands brushing against each other as they hold on.

When they separate, they're both flushing. Emma licks her lips and steps to the side, eyes bright. "Wanna start me off?"

A series of fireballs in quick succession and Emma is in the snow, pushing through slush and sparking little flames of her own as she burrows through. Regina slides back to the ground beside the broken wall of ice, hands on fire again as she runs them up and down Marian's arms. "She'll be able to do a lot more with her hands than with her magic with this snow," she murmurs. "Snow doesn't melt quite so quickly. But the fire should help. It won't be long now."

She barely manages to nod, and Regina draws her closer again, wrapping warm arms around her back and arms and pulling her onto her lap, her legs together and slowly whitening knees bent just above Regina's legs. The other woman's hands join together under her heart, and the warmth feels just a little more attainable. "I don't think Emma's capable of not trying to save anyone," she says ruefully. "She's…she's a good person. And she cares about you. She cares about everyone, much more than I ever could."

Marian's head falls back against Regina's shoulder, and Regina tightens her grip on her. "You seem to care about this town." She sees it in the way she works for them, in Henry's determination to be like his mothers. For all Regina's coolness, she cares, and it's what had made her so frighteningly unpredictable as a queen and so human as a mayor.

"I care about my family. Where they live, too, I suppose."

"They?" she prompts, thinking of Emma's eyes when she looks at Regina, and Regina sighs against her.

"My son. His…extended family." Orange flames lick against the sides of Marian's arms. "Long lost cousins and the people they care about." It hurts to breathe but she gasps anyway, startled at the admission so freely given. Regina laughs low in her throat. "I haven't held anyone like this since Henry found out he was adopted." Her voice is a rumble against Marian's hair, and Marian shuts her eyes. "And before that, a dead boy."

There's something unbearably comfortable about this, surrounded by Regina's arms. It feels like home and a mother she'll never see again, like Robin had held her when she'd believed that he loved her. Like family, reforged and rediscovered. "Never your sister?"

"I barely knew my sister." But the pain is clear in Regina's tone, raw like a gift yanked away before it had ever been opened.

"I'm sorry," she says.

And Regina shudders against her and is silent, and something within Marian tells her to wait. To listen to the silence, to dripping of snow and Emma scraping at the snow somewhere above them, as Regina gathers her thoughts. "I don't believe that she killed herself," she whispers finally, a secret she doesn't dare share with the world.

"What?"

"Everything- my gut, my dreams, common sense- everything tells me that she wasn't ready to die. My mother doesn't make daughters who give up so easily." The flames spark and die, but Regina doesn't seem to notice. "And I keep thinking about that scene, about Zelena alone and waiting for me to come back, and I see him there. I wake up some nights and I think I'm her, and I look up and he's there." She shakes her head. "And maybe she's sending me a message from beyond the grave. Maybe I was her last thought. Maybe it's wishful thinking."

Marian's trembling, too, and the cellar feels ever colder. She thinks she can see the sun shining through Emma's hole. "Who is he?"

Regina presses her chin to Marian's hair. "It doesn't matter. I can't…I can't seek vengeance here. I can't fall to anger again. My sister killed herself," she declares, and Marian feels again the curious sensation of tears sliding down an ice-layered face.

The only death Marian's truly known in her life had been her own, imminent and five years past, and she thinks of dead stable boys and sisters and Regina who'd once been a child so much like her. "I'm sorry," she says again.

"You don't have to be."

"I know." The first time she'd seen Regina in this world, standing at the center of Granny's with contentment on her face while Marian had looked on, she'd been terrified and furious a moment later. For all she'd lost, for all she'd been through, it had felt like a glancing blow to know that Regina had endured. That she would be the first familiar face Marian would see in the present.

And instead she'd become an anchor, the only one Marian had been able to hold onto throughout this adjustment period. Her support, even as she'd become more and more of a threat than she'd ever been to Marian as the Queen. And Marian doesn't remember hatred anymore, not to the Regina who's holding her in her arms now and murmuring halfway audible reassurances in her ears as her hands light up again. For her she can mourn, for the woman who had lost and taken and has stopped taking but continues to lose.

And who still stands to gain from her death, but she's too tired to be resentful about it. "Is this the part where I'm meant to give you my blessing?" she asks, and Regina frowns into her hair.

"Marian–"

"I don't want to," she admits, her voice scratching at her ice-clogged throat. "Maybe it's selfish."

"It's human." Regina pulls back, settling her against the wall as she keeps fire licking at Marian's frozen legs. Her head is bent and Marian can't see her face when she talks, and her voice is even. "You will never be obligated to feel otherwise."

"I don't want to say it's okay. When it's not. It's never going to be okay." She thinks about the three of them, Regina and Robin and Roland like a happy family she isn't a part of, and she struggles to summon up resentment. But she's so tired. "But I don't…I don't want you to be alone or miserable. Any of you. And I know I don't have a choice in the matter…but I don't want to give you my blessing," she says again. She can't be a noble martyr, dying for someone else's love. She can't accept it no matter how likely it is to be true.

"No," Regina agrees in a careful tone, and something within Marian cracks.

"But you have to make sure that Roland is looked after. And that…that Robin smiles sometimes. I still want him to smile. I want you to smile, too. And take care of Emma and Henry. All right?"

Regina's jaw is working beneath her skin. "You're not going to die," she says with firmness that Marian doesn't feel. "Emma's already out of the cellar, and Robin must be on his way. True love's kiss can–"

"And what if it isn't true love?" Marian demands, insecurity washing up over her again. "How can you be so sure that Robin can save me?"

Regina blinks at her, gaze lifting at last to meet Marian. "He would walk through hell for you, Marian." She says it like a memory, like an admission that still burns. "He spoke of nothing but you all the time. You're…you're his everything, haven't you noticed?" Marian shakes her head silently and Regina purses her lips. "He spent every night you were at my house lurking on the grounds, watching over you. I found him asleep on my patio yesterday morning because he hadn't been able to leave your side."

She rolls her eyes. Marian says, "I know that. I know he's afraid of me dying again. But that doesn't mean–"

Regina cuts her off. "Did you know that he turned down that job in the sheriff's department just so you could take it?"

"What?"

"That he gave Mulan extra work so Roland would have to spend time with you before he got to know you?" She squeezes Marian's hands and Marian's trembling, her head pounding. "He's been doing everything he can to make sure that you'd be happy here. That you could find somewhere you belong."

She gapes at Regina. "I didn't know," she manages. She can't process this overload of information now that she's freezing to death in a cellar and Robin is coming, coming, and maybe this really is still belonging. Maybe she isn't just a road bump. Tears sting at the corners of her eyes again and now she can't even feel them once they touch her icy face. "It really…it really is true love?"

Regina nods, and she's smiling, the old pain gone and replaced with something sweet and young as the girl who'd ridden with her decades ago. "He loves you. There are a lot of people out there who love you, Marian."

"There are a lot of people I love, too," she chokes out, and Regina moves back to her, tucks her chin over her head and cradles her in her arms. She moves sluggish limbs to wrap her own arms around Regina in return, to bury her face in her neck and cry cold tears against her shoulder. It's overwhelming, how her heart is frozen and burning right now, how she wants to love and feel and dare to believe in a happy ending even while she's encased in ice and can't feel very much of anything at all.

She can see the ice still rising under her skin, nearly over her knees now and up past her elbows, and she doesn't know what will happen when she's fully encased, but she's suddenly less than content to find out. Her legs splay out and she presses heavy hands against the floor, spreading them flat as she pushes herself to a half stand.

"What are you doing?" Regina says, sounding alarmed.

"Getting up," she pants. "Help me."

Regina might be tiny in her heels and little dress but she's surprisingly strong. She tucks her hands under Marian's arms and lifts, both of them stumbling backward into the ice wall as they regain their balance. "I want to try to get out there." Marian nods to Emma's hole. "If I can. I want to find Robin before I'm turned to ice."

Regina looks…not displeased about it. Maybe there's even a hint of pride there. "Then let's get on with it, shall we?"

They shuffle together to the hole in the snow, and Marian slips down to where Emma had burrowed through it. She pauses. "Regina."

"Yes?"

"I just…you should know. You don't have to be alone." She doesn't know if she's overstepping, if she's offering more than Regina would want for her. But she's half dead and being pushed into a giant hole in the snow, and suddenly being in the way is the least of her worries.

Regina laughs shortly. "The last person who told me that ran off into the distance with a deadly ice queen on the loose. But that's Emma for you."

She looks at once wistful and a little shy, and Marian takes another leap and says, "I think it's okay. That you and Robin didn't work out." Regina blinks at her and she bites her lip. "Maybe I'm not the one to judge that. But you have…you have other people who make you happy, don't you?" She thinks about Regina and Emma, frozen in limbo whenever they're too close, and amends, "People who could."

Regina looks at her for a long moment, eyes narrowed as though she's struggling to pin down exactly what Marian is saying and coming up short, and Marian heaves herself forward and scrabbles for purchase in the ice.

They combine some limited magic from Regina and a lot of determined inching forward from Marian and, bit by bit, they pull themselves up the channel Emma had dug through to the top. The snow isn't smooth but rough and disturbed, there's a hint of stair just below them as they climb forward, and before long they're emerging into the sunlight and a very different world than the icy chamber below.

"Warming up?" Regina asks, a hand sliding around Marian's waist to support her.

"I wouldn't quite say that," she says, shivering, but there's sun shining down on her and she can feel the crawling under her skin slowing. "But I think I can make it a little longer up here."

"Good." Regina smiles at her, eyes crinkling in a most un-Regina-like way. She's gentler than she's ever been before…no. Not ever. This is Regina who'd guided her on a horse, who'd ridden with her and addressed her as an equal even when she'd been only a child.

"What?" Regina asks, her brow furrowing at Marian's face.

Marian shrugs. "This…feels familiar, doesn't it?"

Regina looks startled, then not at all. "A bit," she admits. "You were one of my only good memories that year. It was…not one of the better ones. My mother had begun parading me off to be married and she was furious at our reception by the court. The aftermath was agony." She rolls her eyes but there's deeper pain beneath that, indication that agony might not be an exaggeration at all. "I wanted to go back, you know. To see you again. But Mother thought it would be weak to return to those who had spurned me."

"I was hoping you'd return. I never saw you again until…well." She settles against Regina as they round the side of the house. Her shoes are still off, but she can't feel any pebbles or grass against ice-coated feet. "A different time."

Regina doesn't apologize. Regina doesn't often apologize, not in so many words, and Marian understands that because she can't begin to comprehend how Regina ever could apologize. There are no words to allay any of past evils, no responses that could satisfy her victims. There are only her actions, fierce and protective as they've become. And Regina's fingers tight around her waist, warm through a thin layer of ice that's beginning to crust there.

They stumble past the next corner to the front of the house and she says, "Do you think we'll–"

She stills, her eyes landing on a small figure huddled across the field, swathed in blue and white. Her head is down against her knees, her hands tucked somewhere inside her cocoon, and Regina stiffens beside her. "She's back," she says, but she sounds relieved, and Marian turns to frown at her and sees that she's looking to their right instead. There's a tiny flash of yellow in the distance making its way down the road, swerving and far too fast. "She's going to get herself killed," Regina murmurs, squeezing Marian's shoulder where it's too frozen to hurt.

Marian nods with a jerky movement but her eyes are still on Elsa, watching the girl for a sign of stirring. They can't startle her. She's had too many stakeouts like this, with an unsuspecting target becoming a threat when taken by surprise, and Elsa is as deadly as a barrage of arrows. "Regina," she whispers, and then Emma's car comes sputtering up and Elsa jerks and everything is very suddenly dire.

Elsa is whispering, "No, no, no," and she turns as her hands come forward and Regina is stepping closer, Regina who can't turn away from a fight when it's going to kill her and Marian is so slow, icy hands moving like molasses. "Why didn't you leave?" Elsa cries out, and she's clenching her fists but the magic is glowing dangerously around them and Regina says something Marian can't hear because she's forcing herself closer, step by interminable step, and then Elsa's hands flash white.

It's everywhere, glowing ice in every direction, and Marian throws herself forward at the last moment as magic bursts from Elsa directly at Regina. There's a shout from the distance as it surges into Marian instead, hitting her like a battering ram from the bottom of her stomach up to her heart- again- as she falls forward.

Regina catches her midway through, she thinks, though the ice that had been crawling up her limbs and from her hair is racing now, coating and recoating her in layers until she can't feel anything at all beyond an odd warmth suddenly growing in her heart. Is this what dying feels like? she wonders, and there's a low sob from somewhere in front of her.

She blinks, trying to see out of blurry eyes, and she knows the grip that settles on her hands even as she loses the ability to feel anything there at all. All she can see is a tan blur in front of her, and a hoarse voice saying, "You imbecile. Robin was right here." She can still hear shouts, familiar and unfamiliar as magic sparks around them. "Why would you jump in front of me?"

She wants to laugh, to explain the wealth of feeling that still swells within her even as she turns to ice. She wants to explain just how vital Regina is to the people she cares about, the image she'd had at the last moment of Henry and Emma and even Robin and Roland. She wants to say, I die on my own terms, too, and to admit how her stomach drops at the thought of a world without Regina in it.

But she can feel her jaw cooling and she can return with only one explanation, three words that have been her everything for so long since she'd come here. "You're…not…dying," she manages, and the last thing she hears is soft weeping as a furnace roars to life in her chest and she knows nothing more.

And then, a gentle touch like lips against her forehead.

It's the first awareness that she still has a forehead, that she is skin and bones and warmth, and it's only then that she hears a gasp of surprise and Robin's voice, wild with panic. "I don't understand. Is she…?" But it isn't Robin's lips she feels, and she wiggles softening fingers and breathes through lungs that pump air in and out without strain and finally, finally opens her eyes.

"Regina?" she whispers, and Regina jerks back, eyes wide.

"Marian!" Her eyes are red and her hands are still on Marian's rapidly thawing ones and it looks as though she hasn't moved, hasn't budged since Marian had…died? Had she died?

"Was I dead?" she asks, and then her hands are dropped as Robin blows forward, drops to the ground with tears streaming down his face and he kisses her, again and again and again. She catches one grimace from Regina and she laughs, joyful and enlivened with the sun on her face and Robin holding her like he'll never let go. "I'm alive. I'm alive!"

Robin pulls away to beam at her. "You certainly are."

And she hadn't been sure she'd ever see him again, she hadn't known that they'd ever have anything more, but the wildness has abated and he's only Robin again, serene in his confidence in her. She presses her lips to his cheek and she closes her eyes and whispers against stubble, "Thank you."

"I did nothing. You…somehow you saved yourself." He looks puzzled. "Or Regina did. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I suppose we owe you…" His voice trails off and he looks to his side. "Regina?"

It's only then that she notices that Regina is gone, run to the other end of the field where Emma and Mulan and a girl she doesn't recognize are bent over Elsa. Emma is shouting still, she suddenly realizes, shaking Elsa by the shoulders as the other blonde struggles to fight her off with newly gloved hands and the other girl is yanking at one of Emma's arms uselessly, shouting just as loudly as Emma bellows. "You don't hurt them! You don't touch Regina!" They're a mess of limbs and angry faces and Mulan is standing back, arms crossed and eyebrows raised as she looks down.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Emma, we're fine," Regina is snapping, shoving aside the new girl to pull Emma to her feet. Emma stops thrashing immediately and spins around, seizes Regina by the face and kisses her solidly.

Marian snickers. Robin rolls his eyes. Mulan delicately turns away and Elsa and the other girl just look taken aback.

They separate for a moment to stare at each other. Emma seems utterly bewildered at her own choices and Regina's mouth is opening and snapping shut before she closes the gap between them again, looking suddenly determined, and they both sink gratefully into another kiss. There's no more of the awkwardness of that hug from earlier, just Emma and Regina lost in each other in a wholly satisfying way for anyone who'd had to endure them until now. Marian doesn't even think to look at Robin for a minute, and when she does, he's vaguely uncomfortable but smiling.

"Hey!" the new girl says, finally pushing at Emma again until she's physically detached from Regina, who scowls at the girl in response. "You don't just attack my sister like that and then go around kissing people!"

"Well, maybe she should stop freezing people I care about!" Emma retorts, her hands sliding onto Regina's shoulders. Regina seems equally reluctant to move away, hands twisting as she moves one tentatively to Emma's hip.

Marian can feel the last of the ice fading from her legs, and she shakes them, testing her strength as she steps toward the group. It's the most painful sensation of pins and needles that she's ever had, and she slips to the side. Robin catches her, supporting her as best as he can as she hobbles toward them, the pain in her feet coming and going.

"I never meant to hurt anyone," Elsa is saying desperately. "My magic hasn't been working properly here, and my gloves were supposed to keep it contained, but here…" She shakes her head and her sister squeezes her other hand comfortingly.

"We were able to find these new ones from the Dark One's collection. It's okay. He didn't even make a deal for them." The girl frowns. "Actually, maybe we should be worried about that."

"Anna," Elsa sighs, but then she's hugging her sister and they're holding each other just as tightly. Emma and Regina are back to staring at each other from a rapidly shrinking gulf, and Marian is close enough at last to lay a hand on Mulan's shoulder.

"Marian," Mulan murmurs, and her smile is blinding. Marian can't help beaming, either, surrounded by so many people she cares about and still standing, and she throws her arms around the other woman, burying herself in the comforting scene of leather and metal polish and the woods.

"I'm so glad you're here. And I'm here."

"And I'm not trying to kill you anymore," Regina says from behind them. She's holding Emma's gun in hand and it hasn't exploded in Marian's face, hasn't discharged unexpectedly, and all it's doing is clearing a space in Emma's holster that Regina's fingers are currently occupying. "We've foiled the fates, it seems."

"An act of true love," Elsa says softly, eyes gleaming. "The only thing that can thaw a broken heart."

"An act of true love?" Regina repeats, fingers clenching against Emma's belt.

"She stood before you. You kissed her. I don't know which was necessary to break it, but you share true love. Perhaps with more than one, even." She cocks her head as her eyes move from Robin to Emma. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I wish I were able to…" She lets go of her sister to wrap her arms around herself tightly, suddenly just a girl again, deadly powers or not.

"I can help you with that," Regina murmurs. "If you'd like." She hasn't looked at Marian yet and Marian can't tear her eyes away. An act of true love. You share true love.

Elsa looks up at her, suddenly hopeful. "Could you?"

Regina nods. "You'll need to stay here for the time being. I can't have you lose control in town."

"That's fine. I have my sister now." They exchange happy grins and Anna reaches out to squeeze the gloved hand again.

Marian is still watching Regina, and she startles when Regina turns to her. "You'll want to move out now, I suppose." Her tone is controlled, curt as it had been when they'd first met here, and Marian recoils like she'd been stricken. "Emma, if you could meet us at my house?"

Emma glances between them, brow furrowing. "Uh. Sure. Anyone need a ride back to town?"

There are murmurs of assent and a hand on Marian's arm and then she's surrounded by purple smoke in Regina's foyer. "Regina," she starts, and she doesn't know what she can ask. Why Regina is suddenly distant again, as though nothing that had happened had changed anything and they're back to square one now that there's nothing to bind them together. Nothing except true love, and Regina is her cousin, her sister, her friend. Regina is…

"Pack up your things. I won't bother you." There's a flash of something in Regina's eyes, dark and miserable and guilty, and Marian takes a step forward. "Please," Regina whispers, turning away, and Marian watches with confusion and hurt as Regina flees into the kitchen.

It's the last time she speaks to Regina for a long while.

*ducks* Don't hurt me! Turns out this fic needs a whole extra chapter, which I am already hard at work at, I promise. Please let me know what you think! :)