Regina glances back at Robin with a frown.
She and Henry have been combing through her vault's bookshelves for anything discussing Pandora's box. Robin, meanwhile, kneels on the stone floor with forest maps spread out before him, examining the rift's course. But his teeth dig into his bottom lip as he looks down at the pages, and even from the other side of the room, his poor mood radiates.
She leaves Henry to continue and walks over to Robin, threading one hand through his hair at the base of his skull.
He cranes his neck to see her. Head on, his blue eyes seem darker and heavier, even, than she'd noticed.
Her hand falls away from him when he stands, but he searches them out again, his thumbs running over her knuckles as though he's the one trying to soothe her. He clears his throat, looking down at their hands before his gaze returns to her. "I rather dislike this place."
A ripple of unease shivers through her, and she reminds herself sharply that although the evil queen's lair and her victims are her first thoughts in this place, it's not what he means. "Too many stones?" she teases. "Too few trees?"
His lips twitch, but it's hardly a smile. He looks around again, then back at her, and his haunted eyes help his words fall into place. She retraces his gaze around this back room, from its bookshelves and magical curiosities; to Henry, who is doing an excellent job of pretending not to notice them; to the strong lock on the door; and finally, to a long stone table tucked against the wall behind her. "This is where you put me. When…" I died. It's not quite a question.
She'd used her magic to protect his wife from being pulled out of this realm, from possible torture or death at her own hands. And in the process of violating rightful time, that magic had killed her. Elsa had thrown ice at her on a whim, trapping her soul before it could escape. And after three days when everyone had thought her dead, Robin had been the one to bring her back.
She'd missed everything during those three days. Henry's pain and mourning. Robin's. Snow's. There have been glimpses, passing words.
But the depth of his pain still surprises her enough to take her breath away, as does the guilt she feels for causing it. Her gaze snags on his, and the longing in his eyes, and the way he tries to soften it for her benefit…
"I'd forgotten," she confesses. "I was barely conscious when you woke me."
He squeezes her hands.
Her voice is soft, teasing, but not quite light. "I remember it being colder."
His grip tightens. "Don't even joke about that."
She tilts her head, studying his strained features. "Robin."
"When I woke you, you were freezing cold. Barely alive. And I was so angry at myself for what I'd said, and done…"
She lifts one of his hands to her neck, over her pulse, and he lets out a shuddering breath. "I'm fine."
He's told her of the nightmares, waking her in the dark early morning and explaining in a gravelly whisper that he's just seen her collapse to the ground, that he's heard Henry's cries, that he's felt his paralyzed limbs as she froze him so that she could back away. But like this, wide awake…she hadn't known. Could the curse be driving this, making it worse?
"Hey, found something!" Henry looks at them. "It can wait a minute…"
Robin nods as if to say go ahead.
She takes his hand from her neck and kisses the back of it. "We're coming." She searches his eyes one last time, then releases him gently and rejoins her son.
"Do you know this guy?" He holds up a thin, leather-bound volume with a belted clasp. Inside the front cover, the name Elymas Milner is scrawled in cursive.
"That's my mother's great grandfather, I believe."
"Really?" Henry tilts his head, tracing the name with one finger.
She feels Robin come to stand behind her, and reaches back for his hand. "The last name changed spelling at some point. Why?"
Henry opens the book to a page about a quarter of the way through.
Sketches fill both sides of the paper. The box.
Henry turns the page eagerly, and they both skim through several pages of entries.
Before it came into my family's possession, this box belonged to a wealthy man who kept it on display in his home. As far as I can tell from my research, it sat in his library untouched and unopened for decades. However, upon his death, it was given to his daughter and son-in-law, who knew nothing of its past. They opened it, and brought the curse upon their house. It is rumored all manner of evils befell them.
The house lies abandoned now, as does the village on its estate. The son-in-law and his wife's brother fought over their inheritances, and killed each other. The wife and her young daughter were the only survivors, and she passed the story down to her child, warning her never to open the cursed object.
It has been in the collection of some cousins of mine, who had moved away from that village, and believed themselves to be distantly descended from that daughter. They passed it down for generations, along with the story warning them never to open it. The family has fallen on hard times after a fire damaged their home, and wishes to sell the object. My aunt worries that their misfortunes may be a result of having the box in their possession.
I became curious to study it, and, wishing to assist my family, I agreed to purchase it from them.
What follows are a variety of observations about the etchings on the box and their possible meanings. These continue on for several weeks, as the man studies and prepares to open it, describing the design of his magical net that he believes will contain its dark magic when he does. They find this event about fifteen pages later, in an entry dated nearly three weeks past the first.
I opened the box today.
I was prepared for it to be unpleasant, but when I lifted the lid the tiniest amount, the worst feeling came over me. Like everything bad in the world had been gathered into that one place and time, and nothing else had or would or could exist. Even my magic couldn't resist that hopelessness. The net may have prevented the curse from spreading to the surrounding homes, but that is all that it did. I am convinced that, had I left the box open for any length of time, the curse would have broken through my magical constraints.
I have forced it closed again. I do not believe that this object is worth studying, even for its rarity and the family legend behind it. No one deserves to experience it, neither for study nor by accident nor by the malicious actions of another. I would merely leave it be, but I worry what it might be used for if it were to fall into the wrong hands. I plan to hide it where no one will ever have access to it again. It is too dangerous to be left in anyone's collection.
The in-between place will do, I think. It is so hard to access, and nobody will stumble upon it, there. I will separate the box from its key, as well, to make opening it harder.
The fire-veins that are its gateway do not occur very often, but I will simply have to wait and search until I find one.
Henry's eyes fly to hers. This is it. "The in-between place?" he asks.
"I don't think I've ever read his journals, but he mentions that elsewhere. In one of his printed books."
She walks to a different shelf, fingers skimming over the spines and pulling the right one down, skipping over pages until she finds it. "Here. In the non-magical world, they have what they call "mythology", stories about gods and immortals and other unlikely creatures. It has become a convenient way, over time, for us magical beings to hide our world in plain sight. One of these "myths" involves what people there call "The Underworld", the land of the dead in Greek and Roman mythology. This, however, is not entirely accurate. We can no more access the land of the dead than anyone else. But there is a place, the in-between place, where the dead can linger. Those who are waiting to move on for one reason or another, who have unfinished business, will stay there for a time.
It is said to mimic the appearance of an individual's home, and so while it has certain fixed characteristics, its landscape and general appearance are determined by the living home of the preponderance of its visitors. This in-between place is well hidden, and can be accessed only through portals that appear, often randomly, like cracks in the ground or veins of lava."
"That's what it was, in the forest," Robin realizes.
"So we'll have to go there, to get the key," Henry adds. "To the in between place."
Robin takes the book when she offers it and studies the page himself. "But there's one thing I still don't understand. If he left the box and the key there, how did one end up with us? The rift must be one of the passages he describes, but surely objects do not simply fly into our world at random?"
Regina shakes her head. "I don't know. You searched? Nothing else came through the portal with it?"
"Nothing," he confirms. "There wasn't a key."
"But what we do know is that whoever had this box, originally, is related to you. To us," Henry looks excited about this revelation, "That means you might know things about where he'd hide it, or what his magic was like. That could help!"
"Yes. I suppose." A flash of worry floods through her. Surely, if this journal is with her, then it came from…and Mother must have read it, as she did almost everything on the subject of magic-bearing ancestors, so…the in-between place? Is it possible?
"What is it?" Robin asks, picking up on the shift in her thoughts even though she hasn't voiced them.
"Nothing." She shakes her head. Just a crazy thought. "Nothing at all."
.
.
.
Storybrooke, June 2021
"Chocolate chip cookie dough, huh?"
"Mmhmph," Roland hums around a large mouthful.
She takes a small bite of her own, a single scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips. (That's boring, Roland had objected when she ordered it, and she'd teased that it meant he'd be less likely to steal it. Not that she's eating much of it herself.)
"This is a good day," he tells her decidedly once he's swallowed the bite. He reaches for a one-armed hug around their small outdoor table, and Regina returns it, fighting the lump forming in her throat. "I love you, Regina."
She squeezes him tightly. "I love you, too."
"Where's it coming from!?"
"Get back!"
"Hey!"
"Call the sheriff, someone!"
Regina and Roland look up at the shouting voices, Regina suddenly on edge, magic tingling at her fingertips.
It quickly becomes clear why there's such a commotion. Smoke billows from Gepetto's shop across the way.
Regina drops her ice cream back on the table, taking Roland's hand as they hurry to the site, where they see a situation worse than it had seemed.
Two men who she recognizes as some of Gepetto's assistants stand in the center of the workshop, staring in amazement at a fire that blazes across the entryway, blocking their escape. The flames are so strong and so high that they've begun to catch the rest of the building on fire around them.
Another shop assistant who must've been outside when it first broke out shouts to them from the sidewalk, his voice half covered by the growing roar of the fire.
"What's going on? What started it?" Roland grips her hand, and she pulls him protectively behind her.
"We don't know. Everything was fine and then there was just—fire, everywhere."
A few people from the street and neighboring businesses have noticed and have come outside, all of them watching in silent amazement as the flames lick at the building and grow stronger.
"Call the fire department would you?" the assistant cries at the growing crowd, staring at the two still trapped inside.
A woman whose phone was already raised to her ear waves for their attention. "They're coming, but they say it'll be a few minutes."
"Seriously?" Regina surveys the scene. She skims over the crowd and notes that Mrs. Carter, the third grade teacher at the school, is among them. "Could you keep an eye on him?" Regina calls, nodding Roland in her direction, still watching the building. "Roland, stay here for a moment." She waits only a second for him to nod, then hurries back to the building, hands outstretched.
The first wave of magic pushes the flames from the doorway. But in an instant, they have sprung back, stronger than before. She grits her teeth and tries again, forcing the flames down with a sharp blast of magic. They fight her, and she clamps down even harder. "Run!" she cries at the two men, her eyes trained on the flames and the small gap she has created. "Get out!"
They do as she says, and once they've crossed she relaxes her hold the slightest bit. Flames leap up as they are freed, jumping to various wood shavings and scraps. "Something isn't right." She turns to the assistants, keeping watch on the flames out of the corner of her eye. "How did it start?"
"We don't know," the shorter, blonde man insists, his voice defensive. "It was just there."
His companion shakes his head. "My back was turned when it first started."
As the flames rise and fall along the fault-line of the store's entrance, Regina catches sight of it. Two, perhaps three inches wide, flaming red-orange in the center and black on the edges, ragged as it stretches across the open wall. It looks almost like…the passage to the Underworld.
"What's going on here?" Emma calls as she jogs to meet Regina in the street. A firetruck has pulled up behind her, and the three firemen riding in it have begun to connect their hose to the nearest hydrant.
They back out of the firemen's way. "No idea."
"Is that—magic I see across the front of the shop?"
"So you can see it?"
"Just a shimmer of magic like a light or something. That's all. Why, what do you see?"
Regina frowns. "I'm not entirely sure."
Those neighbors and passers-by who have gathered on the street start to cheer as the water begins to quench the fire.
A few seconds later, however, it leaps even higher than it had been, and jumps dangerously close to the wooden siding of the small apartment building to its left.
"What do you mean by—"
Regina places a palm on Emma's arm to quieten her, watching with sharp eyes as the tides turn against the firemen.
"It's magical. It has to be. That's why it's resistant to being put out…"
Emma sighs. "What do we do first?"
Elymas, she realizes. The net. The box's curse. That has to be what this is. Regina explains her plan, a magical net to stretch over the fire and quench it. He described his plan in enough detail that she should be able to copy it, and the combination of their two magics should make it stronger than his had been. In theory, anyway. They get to work quickly, weaving silver and purple magic together to create a rectangular net the size and shape of the original source of flames. The firemen continue their work, but to no avail. Once they place their net, however, the flames begin to die out on that edge of the shop. They both see with relief that the water is beginning to have its usual effect, putting out sections of the fire in the walls and roof. They stretch the net until it covers the whole area where either of them sees magic.
Emma bends, palms on her thighs, to catch her breath after the drain on her power. Regina turns around to check on Roland, relieved they've contained it. But a moment later, a line of flames spring up just to one side of their net, stretching eight or nine feet long. "Emma!" she calls.
The blonde turns in an instant, glowering at the persistent fire. It takes them another ten minutes to contain the new fire, and this time they stretch the net several yard past the flames, hoping to prevent another break.
"You still can't see it?" Regina confirms, looking at the jagged, now blackened line marking its way through the scarred concrete.
Emma shakes her head. "All I see is the magic, and the ground."
Regina frowns. What could this possibly be, that only she can see? It has to be related to the box, doesn't it? Or to the Underworld, at least? "This hasn't happened before? Anywhere in town? It's not a usual part of the curse?"
Emma shakes her head, "Not at all."
"Regina!" She turns to the voice, and finds Roland's arms tight around her. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she assures him, squeezing him back, and nodding to Emma that they'll continue the conversation later, "promise. Where's Mrs. Carter?"
"She went home 'cause I didn't need to stay with her anymore. Papa's back."
Her eyes snap up to the crowd.
Robin.
He's standing in the street with Gepetto and Friar Tuck, and Snow and Charming, and they all seem to be comforting the man as he looks, bewildered, at his half-ruined shop.
She cannot tear her eyes away from the many things she notices in an instant. His stiff posture and tense jaw and the beard growing over more of his face. "I see that."
Friar Tuck looks up at her, and in his eyes is anger, pity. She purses her lips.
When Charming looks up, too, he tilts his head, studying her with characteristic unsubtlety, clearly having been caught up by his wife on the events of the morning. She ignores the way Snow's eyes dart between them.
Robin glances at those around him, as though wondering what they're looking at, and then he catches her gaze, and stares at her, too.
His eyes are hard. Normally, he is an open book, with his every thought passing through a glint in his eyes or a quirk of his lips. But not now.
"Regina, I was telling Papa about our day," Roland explains, dragging her by the hand until only a few feet separate them.
Her gaze doesn't leave Robin's. "Were you?" She gets the impression that something in her voice unbalances him, and suddenly his stiff mask flickers. Surprise, hurt, tenderness, flash through his eyes.
"You got back a little early!" Roland observes.
"Indeed I did." Robin drags himself away from their eye contact to listen.
"It was an awesome day," she hears Roland enthuse, "I built some ships out of legos, and got ice cream. Oh, and we made pancakes for breakfast!"
"You did?" Robin ruffles his hair, though his facial expression is much darker than his teasing voice.
Has he been like this, in the time she's known him? This…disconnected. Going through the motions. Back when they first met, perhaps? A little. But she'd been so distracted herself that all she truly remembers is how patiently relentless he was.
"There's a plate of leftovers in the refrigerator, Roland," Regina offers, still cataloguing Robin's features as though they might hold some clue to what has happened. "You should take it with you for breakfast tomorrow."
This clearly strikes a nerve. Robin's entire body tenses, and his voice is rough and stern and sad. "I can cook, you know."
Regina falters, her lips falling slightly open, stung.
Roland looks between them, and Regina can see the way Robin softens when he notices it as well. "All right. Thank you."
Her hand twitches with the urge to reach out, if only to touch his wrist for a moment, to find some way of comprehending. "Of course."
He shifts his gaze back to her, looking confused as he tilts his head. "Did something happen today?" he says softly. "Other than this I mean." He nods at the half-destroyed workroom and firetrucks around them. "I came back once I caught a spot of service and saw the missed calls."
The words leave her lips almost before she has thought of them. "Yes, something did."
His brow furrows, and he's about to reply when Snow walks up beside them. She turns straight to Roland. "Hey, Roland. Neal and I are going to head over to the playground for a bit. He would love to play with you, if you'd like to come?"
Regina gives her a stern look that says she's not pleased with the unsubtle ploy, but Roland's excited about it and takes off with both of their quick nods of permission.
Robin continues to stare at her.
"What?" She feels out of place, that she cannot guess what he's thinking. "What is it?"
"I haven't seen you wear something like that in…"
She looks down at her cobalt blue dress, then back at him. Her heart pounds, and she takes a gulp of damp summer air. He'd known from the moment she walked over here that something was wrong. Of course he had.
"Never mind." he breathes.
Roland runs back to Regina and touches her arm, Snow watching from a few paces away. "Hey, Regina, did you drop this? It was on the ground by where you were standing."
He holds a necklace out before her, a finely worked long chain with a gold circle looped around it.
She hesitates only a moment as she looks at it. "Yes, Sweetie," she finally says softly, reaching to take it. She inspects the metal carefully, pressing it back together where the clasp has bent. It feels wrong, somehow, to touch this with magic.
As she lifts it back over her neck, she realizes Robin is staring even more intently.
"But—where did you…" his eyes soften. "I didn't know you wore that."
Given where she found it, she probably didn't, before…
Her gaze follows Roland as he rejoins Snow and they set out for Main Street. Then, she turns back. "Let's go for a walk. I have a few things to explain."
.
.
.
"Are you all right?"
Regina had been prepared for Snow to be emotional after her story, for Emma to interrupt with impatient energy.
But Robin…well, she should've known. She finds herself lost in his sea-glass eyes, and the pace they'd kept on the path bordering the forest falters.
He looks down, rubbing a thumb over his upper lip. "Sorry. Stupid question."
She shakes her head. "No it's not." His gaze returns to hers, and the complexity of it strikes her again. Worry, frustration, confusion, affection. "I don't know."
"I take it someone has told you that…"
"We broke up. Yes." She studies his face, noticing details that, in her concentration on her story, she had not before. Wrinkle lines that have developed on his forehead and temples. Bluish-grey shadows beneath his eyes, like he's recently lost sleep. Tremors that escape from the calm set of his jaw. Her focus on his face prevents her from thinking too much about what he sees in hers. "It was easy enough to tell when I woke this morning. But Roland and Emma and Snow confirmed it. Among other things."
"I'm sorry I wasn't here."
She shakes her head. "There wasn't anything to be done. I researched for hours, and I still can't understand exactly how this happened, let alone how or if I'll get back." She searches his features, and thinks about their fight in the kitchen, last month, last—lifetime, his broken voice, Regina, tell me what's really wrong. She clears her throat, and for each stab of uncertainty, she fights back with firm shoulders, with forced calm. "What else should I know?"
They walk again, their pace slower than before. "I can hardly guess where to begin."
However strange this may be for her, for him it must be even stranger, to see these past years unwound in a moment. She begins for him. "I see Roland every week."
He grows immediately more animated. "I could not have dreamt of tearing you apart."
Her lips curve up into a half smile. "And Marian's all right with it?"
"She insisted upon it, as I did."
It is a relief, at least, to hear that she is still trusted. She swallows, hard. "And you and she are…"
"Friendly enough, I suppose." He freezes when he realizes her implication and faces her, pained. Hurt, even. "Regina, I've never stopped—you're still…surely you must know that." His eyes plead with her, and she gets the sense that he's pleading also with his her, hoping that she knew this as well.
She shivers under his gaze, caught, unblinking. "Yes, I—think I did." She fights to control the tremor in her lips, and the frustration surging in her chest. "What happened?" He watches their steps on the pavement. "What did I do?"
His eyes snap back to hers. "Regina, that's not... It wasn't… I'm not sure I'll be able to explain." She hadn't realized, until just now, that he had not yet said her name. It sounds right, still; the way he's always said it. And yet somehow that makes her lonely. Like pulling on a well-worn cloak only to find that its fit has changed since last it was worn.
"Try. Please."
He sighs. "When we got back, I suppose we both felt the effects of the curse. Everything was harder. You pulled away." He frowns, and his voice begins to crack, just barely. "And I let you. And it got to a point where we weren't good for each other anymore."
She realizes a tear has slipped down her cheek. Hadn't she grown better, learned better?
"It's been two and a half years now."
She looks away, bewildered.
He softens. "It must have been a shock this morning." And she is struck by the thought that although he trusts her and has made his own observations, he also wants to believe what she has told him. He wants something about this not to have been real.
She bites out the words, fighting angry tears. "I wish it were." It sounds exactly like her. Many relationships that have not done well under the curse; that has been plain to see even in one day. But to blame the curse is to take the easy way out.
Out of the corner of her eye, she thinks she sees one of his hands lift as though to reach for hers. But then it falls back to his side, and she wonders if she'd imagined it.
His brow furrows. "Your arm."
"What?"
"Your arm. The burn is still red and raised." He stares at the mark that she'd noticed this morning.
"I know. It's recent." He may have believed her, but she can see that, like her with her phone this morning, this is what's made it all start to sink in.
"I'm sorry; you'd think I'd grow used to the idea of magic, but…"
Her lips twitch, but it is not a smile. "I'll admit, this one's thrown me for a loop as well."
He frowns. "I didn't mean to be so vehement about the food earlier. I'm just not used to…"
She shakes her head. "It doesn't matter."
"It does."
His eyes linger on her face. Stern and vulnerable at once, he's described her with a warm voice that she's heard only in echo today, like a porcupine, or a maple tree. And with a grin, but much more beautiful. She wonders, is that what he still sees? The sea-blue of his eyes reaches for her, and she cannot help her small smile at the way they settle something inside her. But then she remembers, and her smile crumbles. Is this how it should be, how it will always end up being, in the future? Separation, loneliness, curse?
He catches her face, sliding his hand along her jaw and running a thumb over her cheek. She leans into the touch.
"I couldn't have imagined…" he stares at his hand where it touches her skin. "Are you certain you're all right?"
She blinks heavily, an evasive answer hardly within her power, and tells him the truth. "I don't know."
The sad, aching warmth of his stare steals her breath. Thief she thinks. She lifts one hand tentatively, carefully, and places it on top of his.
The world spins.
His heavy breaths grow quieter, or perhaps she simply ceases to hear them, because her sight and hearing are suddenly taken over by a rushing river and dark rocks and the glimmer of fire.
She sways, feels hands take hers, and, when she still stumbles, steady her at her waist. Shouting, gurgling water, the bright flash of magic…a voice she recognizes, angry, unintelligible words…
As suddenly as it had begun, the strange spell is over.
"What was that?" he asks, worry sharp in his voice. He releases her, his hands clearly steady only because of his archer's skill, and not because he is truly calm.
She shakes her head, blinking away the spots in her vision. "Nothing."
He frowns, wordlessly skeptical.
"I don't know," she amends.
Her earnest voice seems to convince him, though the worried lines on his forehead remain. His lips tremble as they watch each other and she is forcefully reminded of the man who teased a heartbroken mother to make her smile, who helped to press her heart back into her chest with wonder in his eyes. Who wouldn't dare to kiss her when they met, but who kissed her back so fervently when she did that they both nearly tumbled to the ground.
No, she decides, surprising herself with the force of her belief. She thinks of his comforting hand against her skin, Roland's excitement, Snow's hug, Emma's unquestioning help. No, the future should not be like this. No, it's not the only possibility. It can't be. But what can she do? She shakes her head at herself, and feels his eyes on her. She clears her throat. "Shall we head back to town?"
He looks down, then back up, a thousand questions swimming in his eyes, but none voiced. "All right," he finally says, and they turn back together, walking in silence.
.
.
.
Storybrooke, February 2018, Later that same day
Regina enters, her eyes red, her shoulders set, and Robin takes an instinctive step towards her before Belle hurries forward between them. "Regina, I've read the stories-closing off a portal before everyone who must return has gone through-that could kill you."
Everything in Robin's body tenses, clenches painfully, his hands in fists, his toes digging into the soles of his boots, his teeth clamped shut. No.
Regina's voice is flat, dark, emotionless; terrifyingly so. "I'm aware."
"Regina?" he pleads, hardly aware of his own decision to speak, walking until he is barely a few feet from her, a shift in the air behind him announcing the other members of her family who have followed him. "Is she right?" The words sound weak, a whisper, a prayer to be proven wrong.
"Probably," she answers, a little less flatly than before. (And he hears the truth of it, 'yes', he knows this woman well.)
"Regina?" Elsa cries behind them, "there must be something else we can do."
His gaze flicks to the girl for a moment. He sees panic in her eyes, and it fills him up as well, breathless, heart-pounding, sight-blurring, tunnel-visioned panic.
"Nothing."
"No. No, you can't."
"He's right, Regina," Emma agrees.
Regina's terrifying composure breaks, just a little. "I must."
Robin shakes his head violently, words warped into action.
She walks quickly to him, the sight of her blurred with his tears, her hands on his face, soft and the opposite of comforting with the knowledge that in an hour they may never be capable of comforting him again. He cannot do this, lose either Regina or Marian to this portal that burned all of their hopes into ash. "No," he cries, her firm hands yet unable to stop the way he's shaking his head, as though the motion would hold her off, keep her here-please, let it. "You cannot make me do this."
"Do what? It is no choice, and certainly not yours; the entire town will freeze over if I do not." She finally sounds as he remembers her, as she used to, before-before all this mess, when she cradled his face in her hands and told him about Daniel and taverns and fate.
"But—" he chokes out the word on a sob, panic making his head feel light and heavy all at once.
"I did not kill her, Robin, but I would have. It so easily could have been me, and I was not lying when I promised Roland that I would protect her. I will not let this magic take her back to execution in my dungeons." He clings to their contact as though to a last breath while drowning, trying to hold onto her, grasp her, keep her here, her scent and her voice and her presence; he will stop her; neither of them has to die; there has to be another way.
"You let me do this," she says, running a thumb across his cheeks, wiping away tears.
"No," he shakes his head against her hands again, compulsively, over and over.
"There has to be another way," Marian pleads, stepping forward. "Regina, there has to be something else we can do." Robin stares in Regina's eyes, pleading, falling into her, trying to tether her to this spot, to share everything he hasn't had time to say. Hasn't made time to say. Should have said already.
Regina breaks from the gaze to look over his shoulder at Marian. "It's better like this," she says.
"No, it's not!" Robin screams, helplessly angry "you being self-destructive does not make anything better." He tries to close the last bit of space between them. She has magically frozen him. He cannot hold her, touch her, stop her. "Let me go," he demands, drawn with anger, low, rough, (at your pain, he wants to remind her, anger at your belief in your own worthlessness.)
But someone else will stop her-someone, Snow or Emma or David or-
Regina's hand lifts above her head, and with a flick of her wrist he sees that everyone not meant to travel through the portal has been frozen as well.
She continues, her voice sad and concerned, "I will. The spell will release when I am gone."
He finds with relief that his hands still move, and grabs at her wrists, his fingers digging into her flesh. "NO!" he cries, his hands gripping harder, in any other situation it would horrify him to touch her like this; it does horrify him, but less than the thought of losing her.
"Tell Henry I love him," she begs, "you promise me."
His eyes flutter shut as she presses her lips to his forehead, and he takes a shuddering breath at her lips on his skin; this will not be the last time. "Tell him I always loved him." He shakes his head against her plea. Her mouth drags against his brow, her breath warm there.
"You are so stubborn," she sighs, pulling back, stroking a thumb against his stumble with a teary, gentle embrace of a smile.
With his arms still free, he grabs her and pulls her against him, her body pressed as tightly into his as he can manage. "Not as stubborn as you," he gasps into her ear, his voice rough and tears burning in his eyes as she breathes with him.
"When he's old enough to understand," he feels her voice on his shoulder, the rumble soothing for its intimacy, "Tell Roland thank you for making me smile when I thought I'd lost everything." No, no no no, no dying wishes, this isn't the end of anything, it can't be, she'll tell him herself, many times, as they watch him grow into a young man.
"I will," Marian whispers.
Robin sobs, a hiccoughing, ugly thing, almost without tears.
Regina's hand lifts off his bicep, and so Robin drags her tighter still, pressing her painfully into him. And then his hands are being removed from her body with slow precision, and she hasn't, she wouldn't-he cannot move his own arms. None of his limbs work, he should've thought of this, that she could do this, he has nothing left to stop her but words.
"No," he gasps out, his heart pounding, adrenaline flooding through him. "Regina, no, please," he begs.
Snow's voice sounds distant as she cries, "Regina!"
Gold raises the swirling portal, and the frozen soldiers fall into the fire-colored mass, vanishing one after another, but Robin rips his eyes away to watch Regina. "Don't!"
Marian leans forward behind him, and then, as Regina's magic flows, eases back, safe. But Regina-she looks weak, pale, exhausted. Dying.
Words fall away, and he can do nothing but sob, tears falling freely, his shoulders straining against the magic with shaking, his lungs collapsing and incapable of drawing in enough air. This cannot be happening. Regina is not giving herself up like a martyr to atone for a crime she never committed; she is not depriving Henry of a mother so that Roland can have his.
"Go now," Regina says to Elsa, "Go!" He stores the tenor of her voice, like smooth whiskey, beautiful and warm and familiar. He'd lived decades of his life without that voice. But he hadn't known what he'd been missing.
His chest clenches, splinters, burns up, with her physical pain or the pain of his loss, indistinguishable, the pain is equal to him, it is ripping her away from him, a sudden wave of cold burning his spine.
He howls, screams in agony, and the meager relief of collapsing to the ground is no relief at all, for it means she is gone.
—
He's walking into the crypt with Gold and Tinkerbell behind him, treacherous hope surging in his chest. He takes her hand, kneels beside her, wakens the magic that had been left with him, giving it back to her, trying to bring her back to life.
This is when she wakes. When she opens her eyes and hoarsely calls his name. And then he can speak to her, apologize, say what he should've said so long ago. But something's wrong; she isn't moving…he feels her wrist, her neck. No pulse. "Regina!" he screams, shaking her. She's frozen again, turning blue, her face unmoving. "Regina, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry…"
Robin wakes gasping. He's in their room, not the crypt. A bad dream, just a dream. She woke. She lived.
He reaches for her hand anyway, fingers pressing gently into her wrist. A strong, steady pulse. He breathes until the images have cleared from his mind, and as they do, his fingers spread to cover her hand, and he holds it as he lies down beside her, fitting their bodies together. She murmurs in her sleep, pressing back against him, and he tugs her closer, burrowing his face in her hair, tucking an ankle around hers.
He watches her breaths: in, out, in, out, in, out. Even in the whitish moonlight there is difference between nightmare and reality: flushed lips; long, sleek, recently brushed hair; a comfortable bend to her neck. And even the furrowed brow and half frown peeking out from behind her hair, because they mean that she is there, and real, and herself.
For a moment he thinks of waking her, and hearing her warm, raspy, sleepy voice, seeing her chocolate eyes. But he's upset her already this afternoon. And she has so much to deal with as they prepare to leave tomorrow…
He fights to shake off the lingering images of his nightmare. This will be enough.
He presses a kiss to the back of her head, closes his eyes, and waits for the ebb and flow of even breaths to send him back to sleep.
.
.
.
The Underworld, February 2018
"No," Snow marvels, "it can't be."
"What is it?" Henry asks.
They've come out of the other side of the rift in a forest, at the edge of a long dirt path.
The world had collapsed for a moment, compressing down into almost nothing, and then it had spread before them again, like a page of a book closing and re-opening on a new but related scene. The reddish tint that had blanketed their vision as they stepped onto the rift and it grew into an opening has faded, and now, the landscape looks almost normal. Almost.
"We're not back where we started, are we?" Henry inquires, looking around at tall evergreens and a mid morning sun.
"No," Regina confirms, swallowing heavily.
Charming looks around. "It's…"
"Home," Snow finishes.
"No way!" Henry looks down at Elymas's book and re-reads the passage aloud. Its landscape and general appearance are determined by the living home of the preponderance of its visitors.
Emma takes in her surroundings, her curiosity suddenly more personal and less like that of a detective on alert. "The Enchanted Forest, huh?"
"We're in the north," Snow informs them. "That is, if everything is still be in the same place, relatively speaking. I hid in these woods, when I was on the run…"
"From me," Regina finishes. "Yes, yes. We know."
Snow glances back and smirks at her. Regina returns the look with a half-hearted glare, and catches Henry looking between them, as though trying to imagine these people who he's only ever known in his world dressed in skirts and corsets and chasing each other through the woods.
"There should be a village," Charming adds. "Perhaps fifteen miles to the east. We can head there."
"If it exists," Emma interjects.
"Might as well start walking," Snow chimes in.
"Fine," Emma sighs. "Lead the way, I suppose."
They set out on the dirt road, walking on the side in case other travelers appear, or they need to duck into the tree line.
"Well, Henry," David says, clapping his shoulder. "You always said you wanted to see it. I think this might be as close as you're going to get."
Henry beams.
Regina spares a grin for his excitement at finally seeing the place. Robin glances at Regina and squeezes her hand.
It will be strange, to be here, but it is unavoidable. And perhaps, it won't be so bad.