Hiya Peeps, another instalment - I'm getting these out faster now :D And it seems for the world of The Carlyle, everything is going to hell in a hand-basket. I also just thought to update this Author's message to let you know, Robin and Regina's 'talk' is in the next chapter, so please don't think I've deprived you of it in this one :D

Roland had fallen asleep on the couch, cuddled up to Will's side. His girlfriend, Anastasia, was sitting across from them on the large plush mis-matched arm-chair, smirking whenever she looked their way.

"It suits you, you know." She grinned, touching her bare toes to his, across the coffee table, as Frodo and Sam were climbing Mount Doom on the TV in front of them, the volume turned right down once they'd noticed their own little hobbit friend had drifted off to sleep.

"Don't you start," Will scowled. "We can hand this one back, that's why it's fun. You wouldn't think it was cute if you had to clean up after him every day."

"I don't know," She hugged her arms around herself. "I think he's precious."

"That's what he wants you to think," Will pointed at the sleeping child tucked into his side. "Lull you into a false sense of security and them WHAM! Tantrum in the middle of Walmart."

Ana laughed heartily, tucking her knees to her chest as Will grinned at her. He was about to go out of his way to make her laugh again, that being his very favourite thing to do, especially when her blonde hair would fall over her shoulder and her smile was broad and bright, making her eyes sparkle. But his attention was pulled away from her when his front door suddenly burst open and Robin came stumbling into the room with a wobbly brunette, desperately covering her mouth.

"Ana, hey, I'm so sorry," Robin tried pathetically to apologise but Ana was quick and gentle-hearted and she was on her feet before Will had even really realised what was happening. Ana wrapped her arm around the pretty, yet clearly unwell, brunette before guiding her to the bathroom at the end of the hall.

"Locksley."

"Scarlett." Robin's eyes were fixed on the hall where they could hear Regina retching behind the closed bathroom door, and the sound of Ana's soothing, gentle voice saying kind words they couldn't quite make out.

"New girlfriend?" Will asked and he could see the slight blush to Robin's cheeks, but he didn't answer, just tucked his hands in his pockets. "Right."

"Was he good?" Robin gestured to Roland, still fast asleep with his cheek squished against Will's hip. Will nodded, but didn't want to dwell on the boy when Robin had just staggered into his house with a woman he'd never met, just seconds away from spilling her dinner on Will's carpet.

"She seems nice."

"She is."

"So, stomach bug? Or am I to be an uncle again?"

Robin blinked at the insinuation before shaking off the shock of it and sitting down on the edge of the coffee table, unable to take the comfort of the sofa in that moment. "That guy that owns the club has had her drinks spiked, he thinks he can get her to stay and perform there, if she's the angry drunk she used to be so no one will want to work with her."

"Sounds like a great guy." Will deadpanned.

"The scary thing is, I have no idea how long he's been doing this to her." Robin took a deep, shuddering breath as he looked up at the hall again, hearing a particularly loud, anguished sound from the bathroom that made him wince. "So yeah, Emma noticed this time, but what if he's been doing this for weeks and Regina's just managed to sleep it off?" Will could see a tear come to his friend's eye and he shifted in his seat. "What if all this time, she's been succeeding through the day, only to be kicked back down to where she was, at night?"

"Nah, she'll be okay," Will smiled gently, running his fingers absently through Roland's hair. "You fell off the wagon a couple of times, if I recall, and it didn't set you back too far. And he's been caught out now, you can help her through it."

"She's more damaged than I ever was, though. What she's been through, I don't even know the half of it," Robin sighed. "I can't even imagine how she's going to react when she finds out."

Will was about to respond and reassure his friend, when Ana appeared in the hall with a gentle smile, looking down at Robin. "She's asking for you, Robin,"

"Is she okay?" he asked, moving closer to Ana with a worried expression.

"She's okay," She smiled. "A little embarrassed maybe but she'll recover, of course."

"Thank you," He placed a kiss to Ana's cheek before brushing past her and heading up the hall.

"I think he's a goner for that one," Will grinned and Ana nodded, dropping down on Will's other side.

"I think she is too."

Robin made his way cautiously up the hall, wincing at the gentle squeak the door made as he pushed it open. The image before him broke his heart and he could feel the shattered pieces jump up into his throat.

Regina was huddled on the floor beside the tub with her back to the tiles, her knees pulled up to her chest and her dark fingernails buried in her hair - the heels of her hands were pressed to her eyes and she'd kicked her shoes off; they were laying haphazardly beside the toilet that sat open.

"Regina," He said her name as softly as he was able and she looked up at him; when those dark eyes set upon him, he could see her tears begin anew, with new tracks forming through her already marred foundation, muddying her cheeks with melted eyeliner.

"Robin," She sobbed. "I'm sorry," She pulled at the thick curls still wrapped through her fingers. "I'm so, so sorry," She wept even harder as he dropped to his knees and bundled her in his arms. She gripped his shirt, pulling herself even closer as he pressed his palm to the back of her head and kissed her brow. Her mascara was likely to stain his shirt; he didn't care. "I didn't realise, I mean," She gasped through her sobs. "I didn't think I,"

"Shh," He held her tighter, feeling her shake against him with her tears. "It's alright." Robin kissed her brow again, soothing her by rubbing his hands along her back. "You're okay, Regina, you're safe."

"It was you, wasn't it?" Neal startled a little, hearing the small voice from the stairwell behind him. He was sitting out on the fire escape of the Carlyle, a bottle of beer dangling from his fingers by it's neck and his eyes fixed on a deep puddle in the middle of the street below. The sun was just a few hours from coming up and the club had cleared not long after Robin had dragged Regina away, much to the fans dismay; the whole place was surrounded by an eerie silence.

He knew he didn't have to answer the question still hanging in the silence between them; they both knew she was right.

"Why?"

There was an even longer silence then; her eyes burned into the back of his head, while his were entranced with the reflections of passers-by in the puddle below.

"Why do you think?" He said quietly, scratching his nail along the seam of his jeans, knowing it was pointless to hide the guilt, futile to cover the shame. He hadn't wanted to do it, it wasn't his choice; he knew what his father was capable of.

"Don't you dare put this back on me!" She demanded, stepping out onto the fire escape and finally, he spun around, pulling his legs back through the rail and sitting with his back to the puddle, to the lights of Los Angeles.

"What would you have had me do, Emma? Let my father destroy you?" He cried. "Because that was the choice; it was Regina or you!"

She studied him, the hurt and pain twisted in his eyes. She couldn't reconcile this man with the one that she'd fallen in love with. This man had broken through the locked gates of a fair-ground so that they could ride the ferris-wheel all to themselves on her birthday, he'd brought her flowers and gave her a job to save her from boosting cars; this wasn't who she thought he was.

Tears sprung to her eyes and she pulled her arms together, wrapping them around herself. "And you really think this is what I wanted? You think destroying Regina is better than what? That I might lose my job? That I'm back on the street?" Emma sobbed, anger burning in her stomach. "You think I care, if that happens?"

"I wasn't willing to pay that price."

"And how is my life, any more precious than Regina's?" Emma cried.

"I love you, Emma."

"It's her soul, Neal - you took away her right to choose what she wants to be. You violated her trust, and mine."

Neal pulled himself up to stand before her, reaching for her elbows but she reefed her arms away, angrily.

"You had no right!" She screamed, her tears coming full-force now. "She was learning to be good and she wanted to change; she was sober, completely and she was working so hard at fixing her life." Emma sobbed. "She has been in so much pain, for so long and she was finally feeling like she was moving away from the darkness and you took that all away."

"I couldn't lose you."

Emma looked up into his eyes suddenly, her expression stoney and resolute. "Well, great work, Neal" Emma sniffled, holding back tears. "Because now you have."

"Emma,"

"You broke my trust, Neal!"

"But she'll be okay now, and my father can't blame this on me, Robin came and took her away," He sighed. "She'll sleep it off and Robin will take care of her, and she'll be fine."

Emma pressed her eyes closed tightly with a sigh. "It doesn't change what you did."

"Please, Emma, I didn't have a choice." Neal's pained expression tore at her heart, but Emma couldn't back down. He was right, Regina would be fine, Robin would make sure of that. But she was vulnerable and she was hurting and over the last few months, Emma had learned so much about Regina that she knew she couldn't just accept that. Regina had struggled, every day of her life and she deserved the happiness that she was working so hard for.

"You did have a choice, Neal." She brushed at her cheeks, wiping away her tears before straightening her shoulders and looking him in the eye. "You just made the wrong one." With that, she turned around and made her way back into the club, shuffling her way down the narrow steps to the bar, doing her best to ignore Neal shouting after her to stop and let him explain, to forgive him, to understand. She grabbed for her red leather jacket behind the bar and shoved past him when he tried to block her way, tried to grab her shoulders to stop her.

"Please, Emma, just listen."

"NO!" she shouted. "We're done, Neal."

"Emma!"

"You know what the saddest thing is," Emma stopped, just by the door of the club with her shoulders hanging low, almost defeated. She looked to Neal who stood in the middle of the club that he hated, by the bar that he ran for the father that he hated, looking nothing at all like the man she thought he was. "All of this just proves you're more like him than I thought you were. A coward and a liar."

Neal's eyes filled with tears and he moved to follow as Emma turned on her heel and headed for the door, his arm reached out for her, but he was stopped, held back by a hand at his elbow. "Let her go, son." The voice behind him spoke quietly - like a viper, hissing in the darkness of the dim club.

"This is all your fault." Neal spat, not turning his eyes from the door, not willing to turn to look at his father.

"Come now, my boy, it's all for the best."

Neal's resistance failed him at his father's words and he turned, looking down, realising he'd been closer at his back than he'd thought. "For the best?" He questioned, face pinched and lip shaking with anger. "How is this for the best? You're going to lose Regina, she's already lost," He shook with rage, shaking his father's hand from his arm. "And because of you, I've lost Regina's trust and worst of all, I've lost Emma." Neal let the tears fall, he let his father see his pain written clearly on his face.

"You'll get her back and Regina will come around when she gets her taste back."

"You don't get it do you!" Neal yelled. "You're so blinded by your own greed that you don't care what happens to anyone around you. Regina won't give in this time, dad, she's so much stronger than you think. How can you not care that you've hurt everyone around you?"

"I only care what happens to you, Neal."

"You," Neal hesitated, biting down on his lip; he stood there, staring at his father for what felt like an age, trying to understand how his father could care so little for the rest of the world and claim that he still loved him. "How can you say that? You've known Regina longer than you've known you even had a son, you've known her since she was a child, you knew her parents before they died. How can you say that, about her of all people."

"Oh I care for Regina," Mr Gold smirked, edging closer to his son with a frightening sort of malice in his eyes. "But she's not my child, you are, and if she's truly decided she wants to turn good, she's no longer of any use to me."

"Screw you, you soulless bastard." Neal said through gritted teeth. "Good luck finding another son to do your dirty work, I'm done with you."

"Come now, Neal, don't talk like that."

"This place can burn for all I care," Neal hissed in his father's face before walking away, with no intention of looking back.

TBC