"Orange?" Mulan asks, and Marian catches it by reflex. She's perched on a lower branch in the trees near the encampment, leafing through a book of town ordinances Emma had loaned her. She might not be seeing much of Henry anymore, but she does have more sympathy for him now that she's seen Emma's paperwork, and she's decided to do them both a favor and get to work on it. She's been versed in the runnings of landowners since a young age, and Storybrooke isn't that different, if perhaps less divided by class.

"Mama!" comes the second voice. Marian perks up. Roland scampers up the tree, settling between two branches just above her. "I played in the sprinklers at the park. Philip got all wet." He giggles and Mulan leans back against the tree, combing her fingers through her own wet hair as she gazes up at them.

Marian quirks a brow. "Aren't you going to come up here?"

"I don't climb trees."

"You're a Merry Man now. We all climb trees, right, Roland?" He bobs his head in agreement.

Mulan grins up at him. "Even Little John?"

"Especially Little John," Marian informs her. "There's a woods back home with trees as thick as a great dragon's neck, and a whole community has built houses up in the sky. Little John grew up with them." She pats the trunk she's leaning against. "No excuses. Come on up."

Mulan shakes her head but she climbs with surprising ease, scaling the length of the tree in moments until she's settled just behind Roland against a tree that touches Marian's, a protective arm around his waist. Marian can't help but smile at them, old jealousy abating bit by bit with more time spent with Roland. "So you really did go out with Aurora today?"

Mulan sighs. "I guess it's time to adjust. Neither of us is going anywhere, and I can't blame her for loving who she does. It's up to me to come to terms with that." Her legs dangle down and she draws them against the branch. "And they are both close friends."

"It can't be easy for you."

"I have a friend who spent several days living with her husband's soulmate." Mulan purses her lips and Marian's stomach bottoms out at the mention of Regina. "It could be much, much worse. I am certain I will love again." Her eyes are thoughtful and she doesn't expand on that epiphany, but there's the hint of something bright there, something new that's begun to blossom.

Marian can't ask. She still feels shaky, nauseous at thoughts she's been pushing from her mind, and it takes all she has to offer an encouraging smile. "You will," she agrees, inhaling deeply. "If not Aurora, then someone else. Anyone would be lucky to be had by you, Mulan."

Mulan watches her, lips pressing downward in sympathy, and she says, "And you, Marian. I am honored to be your friend, and I know that I'm not alone in that. If Reg–"

"Please." She swallows. "Let's not."

They don't. They talk about work and the Merry Men and the woman Elsa is terrified may still be hunting her down in Storybrooke and they don't touch on another woman, sitting in an office across town and avoiding Marian with all she has.

It's impossible to avoid her altogether when their paths cross through so many people, and she isn't surprised when she enters the station one morning to find Regina leaning back against the side wall while Emma stands, hands on Regina's hips as her lips graze Regina's ears. Regina is murmuring something to her, eyes open and focused on Emma while Emma's have drifted shut, her fingers delicate on the blonde's cheek as though it might shatter if she presses too hard. She doesn't see Marian until Marian clears her throat uncomfortably and they both start.

Regina's eyes are still peaceful, heavy-lidded and hungry, and it's only when she sees Marian staring at her that the emotion fades away into the mask Marian is growing accustomed to. She offers her a jerky nod and the tips of her fingers run across Emma's face and down to her neck, drifting from her but not quite breaking free until she looks back at Marian again. And when she finally lets go, an invisible wall slams into place around her, warding Marian off with her gait and eyes and ramrod-straight back as she exits the room.

Emma chews on her lip and says nothing. Marian says, "You two are getting on nicely now."

"Yeah." Emma can't stop the smile from curling at the corners of her mouth. "I guess we are. It's still…it's really new. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what the fuck we're doing because it's not usat all. But somehow it is." She shrugs helplessly, still beaming. "And now I'm turning into some kind of romantic over this. Stop me, Marian."

A laugh bubbles up, somewhere under the resentment and hurt in a space where she's genuinely glad for both of them. "I don't think you need to be stopped. You're happy. You're in love."

Emma's eyes widen. "In love. I don't…let's not get that U-Haul out just yet." She laughs, as twitchy as she'd been back when Marian had first mistaken them for a couple. "I'm still figuring things out, okay? Just…feelings. Disgustingly strong feelings. Feelings all over the place like a shitty romantic comedy. We kissed in the rain yesterday." She says it with raised eyebrows and a twist of her lips like it's significant, and Marian nods obediently.

"But enough about that." Emma's a delicate shade of pink now, and she ducks her head to rummage through her files. "How've you been settling back in? Happy to be home?"

"It was never really home," she says, and unbidden, thoughts return to her of sitting on a porch of the mansion and listening to the voices inside. Of longing, of a quiet voice beside her, of tentative arms around her and a new feeling of belonging.

Back then, she'd only wanted to be home. To feel that sense of family with Robin and Roland. She'd been out of place and she'd been thrown into a new family while still longing for the old one, and now she's regained the people she cares about and she's still longing for the ones she'd found. There's still an odd burning on a specific spot on her forehead and her stomach still churns whenever Regina walks past her without a second glance and she doesn't understand, she doesn't know why it had gone this way.

But Emma is watching her with aching compassion, and she says, "I don't know why she's…why she's being like this. I've tried talking to her about it but she refuses. She won't ask– but when I talk about you, she listens. She misses you."

"There's no reason for her to be around me anymore." Marian drops into the chair beside Emma's desk, avoiding her eyes. "She doesn't need to keep me alive anymore. I was a nuisance, not someone to miss."

Emma picks up a paper on the desk and begins to fold it. They've graduated past what Emma calls paper airplanes into paper arrowheads, which aren't very dangerous but thrill Roland when he's visiting. "That whole true love thing may be crap, but I don't think it qualifies for nuisances." The paper folds unevenly and she balls it up and tosses it into the trash. "Look, Regina didn't even want to talk to me after what happened."

"You seem to have managed fine."

"Yeah, well, she also didn't want to let go of me. I had it easy." Emma winks and shrugs and Marian rolls her eyes despite herself. "Give her time, okay? She's processing. You're processing. There's a lot to figure out."

There is plenty to figure out, but Marian feels like she's floundering again, even in this new world worth living in. She has a job now, a loving family, friends…but there's something missing, something she'd barely gained before she'd lost it. She wanders aimlessly through the woods in the evenings, accompanied by Mulan or Robin more often than not, torn between gratitude and misery.

When they're not there, she finds herself moving closer and closer to Zelena's old house, where she knows that Elsa and sometimes Emma are training with Regina. She never ventures from the woods and flinches whenever Elsa's white-blue magic erupts from her fingers but she finds excuses to stay in the area, to listen to Regina lecturing them.

"Think of your magic as contained in a sieve," she's telling them today. Emma is restless, pacing in circles around the other two and occasionally moving to brush past Regina, and Elsa is silent and obedient. "Only in this world, the holes are all the wrong sizes. So when you're used to a series of smaller gaps through which you can control the flow of your magic, it's all pouring out at once. It exhausts you and it's dangerous and Emma. Stop that." Emma is flicking little flames from her fingers at the ground, setting individual stalks of grass on fire. She jolts at Regina's voice and makes a face.

Marian smiles and Regina moves on, guiding Elsa's hands as though she isn't afraid of being turned to ice. "Elsa, you can freeze a tree, but can you do an individual branch?" She waves her hands toward the dark woods where Marian is walking and a branch detaches from a nearby tree. Marian stumbles back, banging into the closest trunk.

Regina frowns. "I'll be right back."

She walks to the edge of the woods and Marian doesn't move, doesn't budge from her place even when there's a harsh, "Show yourself!" and Regina lights a fireball, illuminating the woods in front of her.

Their eyes meet and Marian thinks she should be embarrassed, she should be afraid, but all she can feel is the same stubbornness she'd felt back when Regina had walked from the Dark One's shop and told her to stay away. She doesn't want to hide away, to be forgotten again. To stop mattering.

And she knows in that moment, Regina stock-still in front of her with her eyes startled and unguarded, that she does still matter to her. That Regina couldn't look so afraid if she didn't. "What…" Regina inhales sharply. "What are you doing here?"

She wants to run back into the woods, to leave Regina standing there in the night wondering if she'd only seen a mirage. She wants to snap at her and she wants to be aggrieved but Regina is still standing there, fireball rising and waning and her eyes bare with emotion, and she knows that she must look equally lost to Regina, equally unsure. "I don't know," she confesses, rubbing her fingers against the tie of her coat. "Do you?"

Regina shakes her head and takes another step forward, and Marian stands, waiting, waiting…

And then there's an explosion from behind them and Regina startles, turning back to where Emma and Elsa have somehow managed to burst the branch into a thousand tiny pieces. "Emma!" she says reprovingly, jerking out of whatever spell had been holding them together.

She doesn't turn back and Marian flees at last.

She's curled up against Robin at night when she cries silently, shoulders heaving and breaths short and gasping, and he brushes his lips against the top of her head and croons old ballads in a rumble against her skin. But again, dear love, and again, dear love, will you never love me again?

"I'm happy," she whispers. "I truly am. I would never ask for more."

"Sometimes more comes to us when we least expect it." His hand is gentle against her shoulder, tracing a path down until he can tangle his fingers in hers. "It doesn't make it less painful when it fades away."

"Did you love her?" She asks it in a small voice. They've kept a careful distance from any discussion of Robin and Regina, have avoided what is a discussion bound only to bring them both pain, and she wants to take the question back as swiftly as it had come.

But instead she's silent, waiting, and Robin says, "It was…very soon."

"You say you fell in love with me the moment you saw me. And I wasn't your soulmate."

"You are my soulmate in every way that that word matters," Robin corrects her. "I know you. I love you. Only you." He sighs, and she knows what's going to come next. "Regina was the first time I'd ever thought of finding someone else. I was…taken by her, yes. Less so when I'd found out that she was responsible for your death," he says wryly.

"I don't care about that anymore." She's moved past that resentment and fear and found someone else hidden beneath the Evil Queen, and now even that woman has withdrawn from her.

"Because you love her." He squeezes her hand. "Because she loves you."

She admits it so low that he has to move closer to hear, moving to wrap his arms around her waist. "We could have been sisters." She'd been freezing to death and Regina had held her tight and kissed her forehead and told her a secret. She'd been adrift and Regina had given her the truth and refused to let her float away.

"We could have been lovers," Robin says in a murmur, and she pulls away and turns to face him. He's pensive, hands still against hers but his eyes somewhere distant. "We were second chances for each other. And then we weren't.

"Perhaps Regina has wearied of pinning her hopes on second chances," he says, and her heart hurts like a revelation.

"You're coming over for dinner," Emma says when they're packing up that evening. There had been an incident with a runaway Lost Boy that had gone on too long and they're late to close the station because of it, worn out and grateful when Emma's father arrives to take on the night shift with a baby-full carseat in hand.

Marian's fingers halt on the ties to her bag. "Your apartment?"

"You know where." Emma doesn't look up. "It's steak night, which according to Henry means Regina's going to cook too much food and then–" She stiffens her back and sighs heavily, putting on an affected tone that sounds nothing like Regina. "Oh, Emma, if you're here, you'd better stay for dinner. I don't want you to set your microwave on fire." She's all exasperation and more sighs and Marian laughs. "It's not like Regina doesn't know that I can cook- I've cooked for her- but she thinks she's Martha Stewart and I'm some stray she picked up off the street. At least I'm getting free steaks out of it. And you are too."

"Emma." Her smile has faded as abruptly as the thought of Regina can summon and vanish it. "I'm not wanted there."

"Yeah? Because I'm pretty sure that I want you there and Henry wants you there, and we both know that Regina does, too." Emma's eyes are determined like they'd been at Regina alone, back when they'd all first sat together at Granny's and talked about her future. "You both need to stop hiding from each other and being miserable about it."

"I'm not–"

"Aren't you?" Emma closes her last drawer and straightens, tucking her cell phone into her pocket. "I know you were in the woods that night when Regina saw you."

She frowns. "You saw me too?" She's losing her touch if she can't stay hidden in the dark and the woods for a few minutes.

Emma shakes her head. "We went home and Regina wouldn't talk to me. Not even when we… I know the signs of a Marian encounter." She heads for the door. "You coming?"

It isn't a question as much as a demand, and Marian would resist just out of contrariness except a Marian encounter. Regina is hurting and she's hurting and they both still matter too much to each other for her to stalk off when summoned. Not when her elusive second family of people she cares too much about are all to be arrayed at the table and she can't stay away.

Instead she follows after Emma and waits until the other woman is locking up before she ventures, "Did you say you went home?"

Emma throws her key ring at her. "Oh, shut up."

"Marian!" Henry's eyes are wide when he opens the door. "Hi, Marian!" He looks torn between a hug or a handshake, his arm rising as he moves forward, and she holds out her arms and tugs him into her grasp. He wraps his arms around her just as tightly. "Where have you been?"

"Hard at work."

"With Emma?" He levels a suspicious squint at both of them and Emma looks outraged.

"I work!"

"You have an entire corkboard of best office doodles on the wall. Gramps brought in oil paints."

"Well, Gramps does the night shift. His job is to watch Baby Neal and sit around and look pretty."

"As is the only duty of all men." Marian nods sagely and Henry scowls at both of them. "Except you, of course. You're going to take over the world." She winks and he grins again, mollified.

Emma musses his hair. "Come on, kid, let's see if your mom's up for company for dinner."

"She made extra. Elsa's already here," Henry says, heading back toward the stairs and missing the way Marian stills at the name.

She can see the girl when she turns to her left, white-blonde braid curled at her shoulders as she sits at the edge of the living room couch uncomfortably. "I don't-" she starts, but then Regina is emerging from the kitchen and the words stop on her tongue.

Their hostess's face is thunderous and her eyes are furious when they settle on her and she cringes under the gaze. Regina blinks at her again, shaking her head, and this was a mistake of epic proportions, an awful miscalculation on both their parts because Regina does not want her here, Regina is angry at the sight of her, and Regina grabs Emma by the arm and nearly forcibly pulls her into the kitchen with a low, "What the hell were you thinking?"

And then she continues and Marian leans back against the foyer table for support. "Yes, let's bring every woman who's ever assaulted Marian into the house at once," Regina says, voice scathing. "And invite her for dinner!"

Emma's returning tone is placating and a little annoyed. "I didn't know Elsa was going to be here. I thought this would be good for–"

"You don't think! You never think!"

Marian sneaks a quick peek into the kitchen. Regina's hand is still tight on Emma's wrist and Emma's face is somewhere between offended and contrite. "How was I supposed to know?"

Regina determinedly ignores her. "What am I supposed to do now, tell Elsa to leave? Should I leave?" Now she sounds just as confused as Emma, just as helpless and unguarded. "I can't send Marian…" She swallows like a gulp, choked for just long enough that Marian peers in again. Now they're kissing, harsh and fast and angry, Emma backed against the kitchen island while Regina grips her arms and they're so close that Marian looks away, out of place again.

Her eyes settle back on the girl on the couch. Elsa has her arms wrapped around herself and she's staring to her left, eyes glazed over and teeth biting on her lower lip. She can certainly hear in the silence of the house and Marian purses her lips and looks back into the the kitchen. Emma and Regina have parted, foreheads still pressed together, and Emma's eyes are closed and her hands are tight against Regina's hips, thumbs stroking a pattern against her dress. Regina's open-eyed and solemn in her grasp but her gaze is on Emma's face as though she can't fathom pulling away.

It's even more intimate than the kissing. Marian swallows and walks forward instead, across the foyer to where Elsa is sitting.

"I still have the gloves," Elsa says when she enters the room. She doesn't turn around, just raises one gloved hand slowly so Marian can see it. "And I've gotten my magic under control at last. Regina pronounced me suitable for company earlier today."

"And this is your celebratory dinner." Marian moves gingerly to the other side of the couch, schooling her body to not recoil when Elsa turns toward her.

Elsa shrugs, her hand lowering to clasp nervously in the other. "I can go if you'd like. I know how important you are to them and I don't want to make you uncomfortable." She's as twitchy as Marian, the two of them caught in the other's discomfort, and Marian swallows and can't keep herself from checking on the gloves again.

"It's…it's fine," she murmurs, and she's surprised that it nearly is. "I've been nearly killed dozens of times since I got here. You were only the last." The last forever, the one that had freed her from the rest, and she can't bear a grudge against yet another forced killer. She can't quite free her body of the tension within it, but she manages a smile nonetheless. "Don't you have a sister here? Does she want to be here tonight, too?"

Elsa's shoulders lift, up and together. "I didn't want to bother her."

It's a mirror to her own emotions, not long ago, nervous and displaced and not-quite-belonging, and Marian feels a sudden kindredness with this other girl from the past. "Knowing that they're able to move on without us is the hardest part," she agrees, and Elsa looks up with wide eyes. She musters up a smile. "But it doesn't mean she loves you any less. Or that she isn't ecstatic to have you back with her."

Elsa smiles, soft and tentative. "How do you…how do you find a place in this world? Where everyone else already knows where they belong?" She bites her lip again, staring down at her hands as though they hold an answer she can't quite see.

Marian reaches over, settling her hands over Elsa's with stilted movement. It feels steadying, like facing a fear she's only just begun to consider conquering. "You find people to care about. People who care about you. Then you wait." She thinks about Robin, about Regina and Mulan and Emma, all focused on giving her a home. All determined to make her fit.

"You make it sound so easy," Elsa says, and they hear footsteps clipping across the foyer and turn. Emma and Regina are in the doorway beyond the end of the couch, Emma's fingers still looped around Regina's wrist and both apparently discomfited by their camaraderie.

Marian struggles to meet Regina's gaze and Regina's eyes flicker down instead. "Can we help in the kitchen?" she asks, and only Emma responds.

She expects more awkwardness at the table than there is. Regina sits at the back of the round table and Henry and Emma take the seats beside her, leaving Marian beside Henry and Elsa next to her. She sneaks glances at Regina but otherwise doesn't have to look at her at all, even when she can feel her eyes on her and the conversation drifts to their communal magic lessons.

"We do have some private ones, too," Emma says, winking at Marian, and Regina follows her eyes to Marian. They swallow almost in tandem, flushing and looking back at their plates at once.

"I'd better clear off," Regina says quickly, hurrying to stand.

And it's automatic that Marian stands as well, reaching for Henry's plate before she realizes what she's doing, and she thinks she must be a dark shade of burgundy by now. Emma's nodding encouragingly and Henry's smiling and she can't sit down now, so she collects Elsa's plate as well and follows Regina to the kitchen.

And then they're in silence, no one between them to distract them and only the sound of water rushing from the faucet and conversation from the next room as their backdrop. "Thank you for coming," Regina says formally, taking the plates from Marian and rinsing them off. Dessert tonight is a fruit sorbet, thawing on the counter, and Marian finds the dessert cups in their cabinet and begins scooping it out.

"Emma asked me to. I wanted to," she adds quickly when Regina starts scrubbing a plate with furious strokes. "I thought…I thought it would be good for us to talk."

"Marian." Regina murmurs it like a sigh, like she's already surrendered to something beyond both their control, and Marian's hackles rise at it. "I don't know what you think there is here, but whatever happened with Elsa…"

"True love?" she cuts in. "How is that negotiable?"

Regina shifts just enough for Marian to see her face twist. "It can be one-sided," she says, and Marian's heart tightens and tightens and tightens like it might burst if prodded anymore. "We don't know how love magic works well enough to understand that. Just because my kiss woke you–"

Marian blinks, and now her heart is pounding a different beat, tense and hopeful with silly, silly needs. "Your kiss didn't wake me."

She sees Regina turn slowly, lips pressing together as though to hold back a protest, and she hurries on. "When I jumped in front of you…that's when I started to thaw. I was already saved when you kissed my forehead."

Regina's mouth opens, then closes, and she's flustered, like she doesn't know how to respond to that at all. Marian reddens but doesn't look away. "Oh."

"Oh," Marian agrees.

Regina nods. "I'm glad you were able to save yourself," she says carefully.

It's the most thoughtful thing anyone has said to her since they'd escaped Elsa and she staggers in place at it, at the understanding and pride in Regina's eyes. Regina had been just as much a prisoner to fate as she had, though her position had been less dire, and of course only Regina would comprehend the significance of her getting a chance to fight back at last. "I'm glad you helped me," she offers back, and there's a new light in Regina's eyes like she hasn't seen before.

It dims a moment later and Regina turns back to the dishes. "You don't owe me…there's no need for you to feel that way."

"Grateful?"

"Indebted," Regina sets out a tray and moves the glass cups onto it. "You don't need to be here." Marian stills, hands pressed against the container of sorbet. She doesn't speak, and Regina waits and waits and then finally says, "I understand…you don't need to come here just to satisfy Emma."

Her heart is thrumming again, an angry buzz like hornets struggling to break free, and she forces it silent, forces herself not to snap right then and give up. There's a part of her that still longs to take the sorbet and walk to the table, counting this as a victory, but her head is pounding and this is unfair, this is drowning in a deluge where everything she says is twisted into something else. Where Regina has just admitted feeling more than obligation and would turn her aside a moment later.

She lets the sorbet go and turns away and demands, "Why is it so difficult for you to believe that I care about you?"

Regina freezes halfway through lifting the tray. Marian glares. Regina's jaw tightens.

She leaves the kitchen and Marian remains standing at the counter, fingers squeezing the cardboard container of sorbet until it folds inward under her grasp.

"Tell me a story, Mama," Roland mumbles, eyes already half-closed. He's curled up in his little bed, a stuffed monkey half his size- a replacement, Robin had said, and had only shuddered when she'd asked for details- in his arms.

She tucks the blanket up to his chin and he smiles sleepily. "What do you want to hear about?" He doesn't answer, and she rests her hand on his back as she speaks, rubbing smooth circles into his thin pajama top. "How about one about a Lady and a Princess?" He bobs his head. "There was once a little girl who was a Lady, but she was all alone. She spent a lot of time in a palace where she didn't have any friends and her sisters were all too little to play with.

"Then, one day, a Princess came to the palace." Roland shifts, curling closer to her, and she draws her legs up under her so she's fully on his bed. "She was a lonely girl, too, and there were some other boys and girls who were mean to her." Roland's brow furrows. "But she was pretty and kind and very brave, and the Lady wanted to know her and be just like her. They played together for days and the Lady thought that she might have found a sister, someone else in the world she loved.

"But the Princess had a dark mother, spiteful and bitter, and when she saw the Princess with the Lady, she ordered the Princess to stay far, far away from the Lady. You see, the Princess's mother wanted her to be friends with the other princes and princesses, not some little Lady girl." Roland's eyes are wide and concerned and she hastens to add, "But the Princess didn't listen and they became friends anyway, the Lady and the Princess. And when bad things happened to the Princess, the Lady was there for her and the Princess wasn't so alone. And they were happy together and darkness never touched either of their hearts."

"That's a good story," Roland says, snuggling into his blanket.

She keeps smiling until her lips hurt as acutely as her heart. "It's just a fairytale, Roland. Goodnight." She brushes a kiss to his cheek. "I love you."

"Love you, Mama," he mumbles, his eyes drifting closed, and she feels a sob bubbling up in her throat at the declaration, offered so freely from a child. From her child, and she kisses him again before she rises to leave.

She makes her way out of the camp, nodding to a few of the Men to keep an eye on Roland. She doesn't go to Zelena's house anymore, not after last time, not after Regina and her damned willfulness and this pain that won't fade when she thinks of her.

They haven't spoken since that evening at Regina's house and she's drifting, haunted by shapes in the woods and figures on the street. She sees Regina everywhere and hurts all the more for it, spots her in the distance and hears her voice when she's alone and…

…And there it is again, too pronounced to be an illusion. She frowns, slipping behind a gap in the trees to peer into a clearing. There's a fallen log at the center of it, long and high, and there's Regina, seated on one side. On the other, just a few feet away and facing the other direction, is Robin.

Her stomach drops before she sees the careful distance between them, the way they sit apart as they speak, and then she doesn't know which one of them she envies most. "Elsa believes a woman may be after her, the reason she was sealed into that urn in the first place. We'll need to keep our eyes open." Regina's voice is clipped and businesslike and she doesn't look at Robin.

He's watching her, though, brow furrowed and eyes compassionate, and he says, "I believe I owe you an apology."

"You don't need to apologize for anything." Regina rubs at her temples, elbows sinking onto her lap.

"I had said that I accepted your past–"

Regina sighs. "We didn't know then that I'd murdered your wife. I would have hated me, too."

"Still. You aren't that woman any longer." Robin is earnest, pressing through Regina's flippancy without frustration, and Marian bites her lip and wishes she could be so persistent without getting angry. "I am sorry to have left you alone again."

There's a ghost of a smile playing at Regina's lips, curling her lips and uncurling them again. "I wasn't alone." She inhales slowly, as though taking in the musk of the woods. "When I lost Daniel, I had no one. No one who loved me as…as I wanted to be loved then. But now…" She breathes out. "I have Henry. And Emma. And her…" She scowls to herself. "Don't make me say it."

He grins. "And David and Snow." A beat. "And my wife."

Regina glares into the woods. "Don't be ridiculous. I don't have Marian. Marian thinks…Marian has no reason to be around me anymore. There's no need to pretend it's more than it is."

"It was enough to save her life," Robin says, and Marian sinks down to the ground, listening but unable to watch anymore. "What are you so afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid of anything." Regina sounds cranky, as though she's had this conversation before. "Marian can rewrite our history however she'd like, but maybe it's time you asked her that. Because short of Emma dragging her to my house, I don't see her any more willing to be around me now than I am her."

Which is patently unfair. Regina is the one who makes the rules there, who had pushed her aside in the first place and rejected her, and she's the injured party. Regina had left her alone in her kitchen with too many questions and a crushed container of sorbet. And she hadn't followed, because she isn't Emma. Because she isn't Robin. Because she can push but not when she's so clearly unwanted, even despite true love. When she is only a burden again to someone she cares too much about to press harder.

"You're both afraid," Robin retorts. "But someone's going to have to break through that cycle, for both your sakes. And that burden rests on you, not her. She's only waiting for you."

Regina's face falls into her hands and she whispers, so low that Marian has to strain and rise again to hear, "I don't know how to do this, Robin. I don't know how to have people. I nearly…I nearly scared Emma off before I even had her. And I lost Henry so many times that I can't imagine…all these people."

"And you're willing to lose Marian because you can't imagine that she could love you?" Regina flinches. Robin shifts, moving close enough to put a hand on Regina's shoulder. "No one is going to stop you from being happy, Regina. No one but yourself."

"Why do you care?"

"I care about you," he says simply. "And I love Marian. I will do anything in my power to make her happy- and to give you that, too."

She offers him a long stare. "If you suggest double-dating, I'm never speaking to you again."

He considers. "Actually, that would–"

"Never again," she warns him, rising to her feet. But she's smiling at him, a real smile that lights up her face and makes Marian long, long, like she has no business longing, and she vanishes in a cloud of purple smoke a moment later.

Marian emerges from concealment and Robin's already facing her, arms out to wrap her into his embrace when she stumbles to him.

It takes two days for Regina to see her again, and by then Marian's worked herself up into such a tizzy of self-righteous resentment that she opens the door to the station and is momentarily stymied. "Regina."

"I…" she lifts her hands to display the glass pan propped up in them. There's a smile on her face that looks like it's been pasted there, and her eyes are unsure. "I brought lasagna. I thought we could all do lunch."

Emma leans back against her chair. "She only brings food when she's anxious about something." She's grinning easily, but there's warmth and comfort on her face and it's the only reason Marian steps back to allow a startled Regina to walk past her.

"Emma!"

"What? It's true." Emma winks at Marian and Marian can feel herself relax more, can feel the tension in the room dropping down to manageable levels. "I'm not as much of an idiot as you think."

Regina places the lasagna on Emma's desk, cutting out three precise pieces onto plates. "I don't think you're an idiot, I think you're wonderful. Now eat your lasagna."

Emma is momentarily stunned and Marian's lips curve up into a smile. There's something reassuring about them even now, about the affection and bickering that still feels like home. And when their hands brush against each other as Regina sets out the lasagna and they share tentative smiles, she looks down, embarrassed at her own happiness for their happiness.

When it comes down to it, that's all she's wanted for both of them, even if she can't have what she craves from one of them. "Thank you," she murmurs, taking her plate.

Regina nods shortly. "I…I've been unfair. With you." Emma's fingers shift to twine around hers. "I've been overwhelmed with both love and loss lately, and I think I was afraid that if I accepted you, too, I'd lose…I didn't want to lose you."

Marian swallows hard. "So you'd rather not have me at all?"

"I had a sister. I had…" She sighs and glances at both of them with wary eyes and Emma says, "You had Robin."

"Yes." Regina's fingers tighten where they're latched on to Emma's. "I'm…"

And Marian remembers Robin's words, late one night when nothing had seemed right. "You're tired of second chances," she says blankly. She turns away, staring into her lasagna and biting hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from an outburst. Any outburst, angry or emotional or devastated, all that Regina evokes from her that she doesn't deserve. That she shouldn't get from–

"No. Stop it. Stop giving up." A delicate, firm hand catches her chin and raises it, the same way she's seen Regina do to Henry a dozen times so they can speak face-to-face. "Do you have any idea how much you terrify me?" Regina breathes.

She shakes her head. "I don't want to terrify you. I just want…"

"I do love you," Regina murmurs, so quietly that Marian's eyes go wide and she has to run the words through her mind again before before she's sure of what she'd heard. "I want nothing more than for you to be my family. But I hurt you very much and I don't want you to wake up one day and know that and leave me, too."

A protest bubbles up in her throat, defiant and challenging, but the words don't feel right, like a promise that's an easy way out and a useless bandage on the past. So she clears her throat and says, "That's a risk you're going to have to take. If I'm worth it."

"You're worth everything." Regina's eyes gleam and are very, very soft, and Marian moves forward and reaches out to hold her. Regina hugs like Henry, tight and uncompromising in her affection, and neither of them let go for a long, long time.

On Sunday, she and Mulan let Roland run down the sidewalk of Mifflin Street until he shouts out a delighted, "Regina!" and Regina pokes her head up from behind a hedge.

"Roland? Marian, Mulan." There's a tentative smile on her face, as though she's still waiting for it to be wiped off her face, and Marian crouches down beside her and takes the clippers she'd been using to trim her bushes. "What brings you here?"

"Gardening," Mulan offers, joining them at the hedge.

Roland bobs his head in agreement. "Can I dig holes again?"

Regina looks gratified and a little worried, but they all get an assignment and they work with comfortable conversation, making small talk about work and the boys and their respective relationships.

"Emma still sneaks out most mornings," Regina says, rolling her eyes. "She's convinced that her parents don't know about us."

Marian snickers. "You've been going on dates at Granny's twice a week."

Mulan nods. "Kissing in the middle of Town Hall."

"In the middle of the sheriff's station. When David is there."

"Holding hands down Main Street." There's laughter in Mulan's eyes and Regina narrows her own.

"I've seen you looking friendly with…Rapunzel, is it? down Main Street, too," she retorts, and Marian's head pops up.

"Rapunzel?"

She's gratified when Mulan ducks her head and returns to the hedges, refusing to look at either of them. "I've been working with Rapunzel since the missing year. She's asked me to teach her self-defense and martial arts so she can better protect herself and hers. Nothing more."

"Nothing more?" Marian echoes, tilting her head to meet Mulan's eyes. Mulan gives her a dark look.

"Actually, Elsa's been talking about the same," Regina says thoughtfully. "She feels defenseless when her abilities are so constrained to just ice, and she's been looking for someone to teach her to fight. Emma offered, but Emma has her own magic to work on." Her brow wrinkles. "Frederick from the local gym has been asking about taking on a teacher for an advanced self-defense class, too. I can have Emma put in a good word for you, if you'd like."

"I would like that," Mulan says. She looks taken aback by the offer, caught between gratitude and confusion, and Marian grins to herself and helps Roland with his pail and shovel as they continue.

They're trying.

Regina takes her lunch break at the station every day and Robin and Roland have come with her for dinner twice now, and there are always hugs, there's always emotion and this guardedness that still suffuses their motions. Henry sits with Marian as they shuffle through Emma's paperwork and Regina okays archery lessons from her that outrage his grandmother (which Marian suspects might have been Regina's goal in the first place). The house is loud and full of life and it feels just as much like home as the cabin in the woods.

And sometimes it's quiet and it's just the two of them, learning to cook or shopping online or exchanging stories of royal idiocy, and Marian savors every moment. Even as a child, she'd longed for nothing more than a big sister, a protector and a caretaker who would invest the kind of love and nurturing in her as she had her younger sisters. And now there's Regina, who is everything and nothing like she'd dreamed of and curt and mocking as quickly as she is fierce and gentle. And somehow she's real all the more for it.

"You were right. This world isn't that bad," Elsa tells her one evening when they're in the yard, watching Roland and Henry and Emma tackling Anna's husband's pet reindeer. Roland is hanging onto its antlers for dear life and Regina keeps a watchful eye on them, hand already alive with magic to cushion his inevitable fall. "And it helps to have family looking out for you."

"Very much," she agrees, eyes on Regina, and Regina's cheeks take on a tint like copper at the edges.

And they inch forward every day, step after step, living in a world where nothing is predetermined and they make their own future.

On her three-month anniversary of arriving in the future, she takes Roland to the stables at the edge of town. He rides his little pony and she's feeling bold enough to take out one of the rougher steeds in the end stalls, and they amble together across the meadow when they see the two figures astride their own horses in the distance.

"My mother used to tell me I rode like a man," Regina says, trotting closer and nodding at their mutual lack of saddle. She laughs wryly. "She'd probably have plenty more to say about my relationship with Emma."

"It's a good thing she isn't here, then." Marian taps the hindquarters of Roland's pony and it walks forward, joining Henry as the two women linger behind. "Your mother was terrifying."

"Hm." Regina's fingers twitch against her horse's mane. "Yet I can't help but wonder if we'd still be here if she hadn't kept us apart when I was fifteen." She rubs her knuckles along her steed's neck. "Are you happy?"

It isn't the first time someone's skirted around that question. Robin hints at it nearly every night and only sometimes can she respond, and Emma has said it offhand, glancing at her as though waiting for confirmation. But Regina turns to her and waits for a response, demanding, always demanding, never settling for anything less. It had been brutal on the Evil Queen, but on Regina, it's a requirement only for her to be truthful with herself.

And she'd been happy before she'd been captured, glad with her new family and the future stretching ahead of her, but now… Now she feels surrounded in a way she hadn't been since she was a child, by family and friends and the support of all the people around her. Now she has a future that seems stable and enduring, with opportunities looming beyond any in the Enchanted Forest. Now she has Regina and her family and true love all around them, flickering like new hope after the old has faded. "I am," she answers. "Are you?" And she thinks she knows the answer already.

There's still regret in Regina's eyes when she gazes at her, guilt and memories of so many victims contained within her feelings for Marian, and they both know. I thought I could reject the past, Regina had murmured one afternoon. That I could move forward and be what I wanted to be. And then you were here. And she doesn't know what she represents to Regina now, love or hope or remorse or all three combined, but she trusts Regina to take care of her now, as she's been doing since Marian had arrived in her town.

Regina doesn't answer, but she looks ahead to where their sons are riding, Henry guiding Roland along like a little brother of his own, and there's a calmness in the air as the sun shines down on them and the grass is green and bright.

I wanted one last chapter to let her adjust, for life to move on now that she- and Regina- are free to live their lives as they should. I hope I did it some justice.

Thanks to all of you for reading and especially to those of you who commented. I didn't expect this fic to get much feedback and I'm delighted that many of you have come to care about Marian as much as I have. This has been an unexpected treat to write. :)

Replies will be up as soon as I have a free moment! I'm going to take a few days before I return to Sore Must Be The Storm, lol.