Pregnant Regina+angst
"Regina?" he asks, knuckles tapping against the bathroom door. "Regina, may I come in?"
He receives a tired hum in response, and knows her well enough to feel comfortable that it's an invitation. She's in the bath facing the door, folded in half, hands around her legs, chin on her knees. She doesn't look sad—more…apathetic, and that scares him more than anything. He walks over to the tub, dropping to sit beside it, the air around it cool; the water must not be even lukewarm at this point. Regina does nothing to acknowledge his presence.
He lifts one hand, hovers over her knee, then lets his palm rest there, her skin damp and cold beneath his. His thumb runs back and forth over her thigh, the skin warming under his touch, and he waits, silent, his own legs bent, his free hand around his knees, an opposite mirror to her posture.
"My cycle's late again," she tells him. He perks up at that, sits a little straighter, and she must notice because she backs away, the water sloshing onto Robin's arm. "Nothing will come of it, Robin," she sighs, turning her face away from him.
"You don't know that," he argues, his weight on his knees now, so that he can lean over the side of the tub to catch her hand.
"I do know it." She turns to him with pained and pleading eyes. "Could you—not be an optimist right now. Please?"
He heaves a sigh. (It's grown hard for him, too, two years of trying to have a child has left them absolutely nowhere, and the excitement of each possible pregnancy has ground down into the expectation of disappointment.)
"Would you at least get out of that freezing bath?" he requests.
"Fine," she relents, turning away again.
He stands and returns a moment later with a plush cream towel, wrapping her firmly in it as she steps out of the water, and when she shivers, he embraces her, towel and all, her head pressing into his chest as she finally, finally lets herself cry.
He rubs her back, completely unashamed at the tears that begin to fall down his own cheeks. "It'll happen," he promises. "When it's meant to."
Her words are muffled, "And if it doesn't?"
"We both have plenty of people to love. But don't give up hope, okay? We happened, didn't we? When we were meant to?"
She smiles at that, pulling back so she can smile at him and she thinks she'll deal with the humiliation of another pregnancy test tomorrow, and for tonight be satisfied in all the beauty and love she has.
(When she finally faces taking the test, two days later, it's positive.)
Free
"The door—" Robin pants against Regina's lips, groaning as she digs fingernails into his chest and shoulders and shoves his jacket off, "is it—?"
One of her hands leaves him for half a second to gesture in the vague direction of her office door, the lock clicking into place.
He lifts her onto her desk with both hands, then begins to skim them over her thighs as she wraps her legs around him, kicking her stilettos to the ground.
"Couldn't someone still—?" he breathes, his words trailing off as she lifts her hips into his.
"Let them," she trails her toes up the back of his leg, "It's been nine days since—"
"Ten actually," he corrects, palms flat on the desk on either side of her, their lips meeting in kiss after kiss, each one longer than the last.
She pulls her lips from his with a smack, her hands coasting over his shoulder blades, one eyebrow arched as if to say Really?
"Regina," he whines, "come on. Please."
It is Tuesday, and Regina had been in Boston since Sunday last, moving Henry into his college room. She and Robin had reached the conclusion that, so as to best save the boy from uncomfortable questions about his family, it would be better not to have to introduce several suspiciously aged or named relatives as "friends of the family", and only Regina and Emma had made the trip. She returned late Sunday, exhausted, and they have been precluded from any reunion of a more passionate kind by several unhappy accidents.
"It's not my fault you had to get up early for work the day after I got home," she tells him, legs still tight around his waist, forehead against his, mouth turned playfully, tauntingly, infuriatingly away from his.
He wraps strong hands around her hips and moves her closer to him. "And it's not my fault you didn't wake me. And," he punctuates the next few words with kisses down her neck, "It's not my fault Roland kept coming into our room last night."
"Those are your stealth genes, thief," she grumbles, hands sliding into the hair at the nape of his neck, then up, higher, mussing nearly all of it.
"Regina," he sighs.
"What?"
"Stop teasing."
She takes in his heavy, rapid breaths, the desire burning in his eyes, the love and warmth and she can see it, how much he's missed her. They've not been apart this long in six years, and they've both felt it (will feel it, until they have been fully reunited.) She surges forward and catches his willing lips with her own, surrendering to the moment completely, her hands tugging his head back for a better angle, then lifting away for a moment as she begins to undo the buttons of her shirt. His trembling fingers help hers, their foreheads tilted together, Robin working his hips into hers with a groan, and her blouse has just joined his jacket on the floor, his fingers have just begun to drag down the straps of her bra, when a knock at the door makes them both jump.
"What is it?" Regina calls, her voice gratifying somewhat near even, despite Robin's tongue swirling against her now bared collarbone, his hand unclasping her bra, the other finally finding one of her breasts.
"Is Robin here?" David asks.
They wait a beat, and Regina smacks Robin's upper arm at the smirk she feels against her skin.
"Yes?" Robin calls, his voice much more obviously affected than Regina's.
"Archie's dog is missing, and we need help with the search party."
"Can it wait?" Robin answers, his head now resting in the hollow of Regina's neck, his breathing heavy, resigned to at least a momentary interruption.
"He's really upset, and it's so hot today there's a danger of dehydration, so—"
Robin groans, lifting his head away from Regina's tempting skin and insistent hands. "All right, I'm coming," he calls, standing reluctantly.
He swallows as she retrieves her bra and blouse and that beautiful skin disappears once more.
"Soon," he promises at her scowl.
"Better be," she sighs, hopping down from her desk. She tugs his jacket tighter around his neck, mostly as an excuse to yank him into a heady kiss that lasts just long enough for David to knock again.
"Coming," Robin sighs, giving Regina a final peck on the lips. "Tonight," he promises, "I'll make David watch Roland for a few hours in payment, or…I don't know. But tonight."
Regina smirks, not quite managing to resist the temptation to curl a hand into the middle of his stomach. "I'm counting on it."
First Birthday
Prompted by globotheque
The first birthday of which Regina has any memories, they are of a lavish ball in a shiny gown, sparkling jewelry, her mother's proud smile.
She hates her birthday ball every year, the way her mother fusses, not at all for her daughter's pleasure, but for her agreeability to others. After the age of thirteen, Cora even refuses her daughter a taste of her own cake—she must be thin, and beautiful, and give the attending noblemen no idea of the beautiful girl as a person with an appetite.
Her first (and only) birthday with Daniel she does not mind so much. Each year marks a step closer to an age when she imagines she might safely run away with him, and the night after her ball she sneaks away to the stables for the surprise of a cake that he made just for her. (She gets to eat that one.)
Time stops after that, her birthdays with the king. He does not know, does not mark them, does not care, and neither does she, for every year passed is a year more since she was last with Daniel, another year of her captivity. She tries to forget the date as much as the people around her try to give it no notice.
On Henry's first birthday, she has no one with whom to celebrate but the boy himself, and yet celebrate she does. He grows, and grows, and though for her, time does not move and she does not age, yet each new year of Henry's is a reminder of the blessing he has been in her life; time passes well enough.
She makes some note with her son of her own birthday, when he grows old enough to ask.
But it is not until years later, after time truly moves for Storybrooke once more, after she misses one of his birthdays in the Enchanted Forest and stares blankly at the ceiling for another sleepless night, after the proper timeline is destroyed and struggled with and put to rights, that the word celebrate might be used to describe the anniversary of her birth.
Her mayor's mansion, once so sterile and empty, fills for the night with friends and family and loves. Henry and Roland had made her breakfast in bed this morning, burnt and cold but perfect nonetheless, and as the party wears down, Robin catches her waist, drops a kiss behind her ear, promising a private and blissful celebration of their own later tonight.
And for maybe the first time in her life, rather than fearing what changes the next year might bring, what the passage of time might do, she looks towards the next year of her life with hope and open arms.
At the movies
Prompted by someonethatiamnot
Henry and Roland beg and beg, put together a full-fledged Operation in order to convince Robin and Regina that they need to go to the latest Marvel movie. Storybrooke has no movie theater; the nearest lies several towns over, but it's fifteen-year-old Henry who finally convinces them to make a trip of it, to drive down to Boston for a night, take in the city, get away, have a day to themselves while he takes his brother to see the film. (Regina smirks at the suggestion; he's such an adult with his bargaining tactics and his calm, reasoned words.)
With one arm tucked over Robin's as they wander on a path along the Charles River, the other resting over her swollen belly, she has to admit that Henry had a good idea. Storybrooke will always be home, the place where she has raised him and Roland, and will raise this little girl when she joins them in a few months, but the looks they get from passerby here, absent the weight of decades of complicated history, the grins and smiles and nods at the happily-in-love and expectant couple as he sneaks a kiss to her hair, are an unexpected gift.
Never Again for melazon
I will never love again. And no one will ever love me.
Regina climbs down to her basement with heavy steps, her heeled boots clunking dully on the beige carpet. She holds the stem of one key on a crowded ring, letting the rest fall with clatters that go unnoticed, hears the disused pins of the lock thud into place, pushes open the heavy door. Only a vein of moonlight illuminates the room, creeping through the high and narrow window that is this room's only connection to the outside world. Faded embroidery meets her fingertips as she steps forward, the aged but barely-worn cloak drawn out of its corner. The cloak she'd chosen to wear to the stables the night Daniel died, the cloak she'd hoped would billow out into the night behind them as they ran away, as she broke free of her prison. (She can no longer curl fingers plaintively around the ring that she should have happily worn for the rest of her life; she destroyed it in exchange for dark magic. Just a thing, she'd told herself, an object that lost its magic long ago. How she wishes she could hold it now, something real to remind her that somebody did love her, once.)
Daniel she breathes, and she grasps the cloak in her fingers and buries her face in the fabric, the scent of the stables long gone. Hates herself, for it is not Daniel's voice she imagines, interrupting this self-pitying moment of weakness, nor Daniel's arms coming around her to hold her to his chest, it is not Daniel she wants.
Daniel had told her to love again, and still she had sworn she could not, would not, I will never love again, the pain of him was enough to bear, she did not need more. (Took more anyway, loved Henry, lost him, has him back, would have ended this miserable life of hers weeks ago if she didn't.) (She wouldn't have, she admits to herself as she tilts back against the wall and sinks to the ground, something like hope steadfast in the depths of her heart, she has never been able to root it out entirely, however much she might wish to.)
She did not keep that promise to herself, foolish of her, she proved herself wrong, she would love again, (not only a child, for Regina has always found it easy to love children) romantic love, but a lot of good it does her, for she was right that no one would ever love her. If Robin had even begun to love her, he surely doesn't now. A tear slips down her cheek. She flicks it away angrily with the back of her hand.
Those weeks before the time portal opened were a shockingly pleasant reminder of what it felt like, had helped her recapture the joy of a feeling that had faded away more and more each year after Daniel, faded with the colors on this cloak, dull, indistinguishable.
Now she fears it will fade once more, fall away into the realm of dreams until she is an old woman with one hand wrapped around the threadbare remains of this cloak, the other around the grey-black dress she's told herself—every day since that day—she will destroy tomorrow.
I will never love again. And no one will ever love me.