Photograph

Prompted by fbdarkangel.

Robin looks up when he hears her footsteps. "Robin? What are you—" Regina's words trail off as she sees what he's holding.

She reaches out, her fingers itching with the urge to rip the frame out of his hands, before she reminds herself that he's already seen it, and ripping it out of his sight won't change anything. Still, she closes the last bit of distance between them, curls a hand around the edge of the metalwork and tugs it out of his hands, setting it face down on the trunk beside her.

For a moment, they simply stand there, facing each other, both too stubborn not to meet each others' eyes, and too unsettled to speak. What could she say?

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"What—"

"Emma and Hook came back into town, said you had a run in with the Snow Queen. I came to make sure that you're all right."

She glances at the ground, then back into his eyes. "I'm fine. No—progress on Marian, though. Not yet, anyway."

He reaches out a hand as if to take hers, then thinks better of it, lets it bump into his own leg instead. "I know you're doing everything you can," he assures her. "I trust you."

She scoffs, a hand curling into her own waist. "Right," and she speaks the words quietly, glancing at the velvet backing of that photo, almost can't help it, "As your second chance." That was harsher than she's meant to be to him. Nasty. Uncalled for. Even if it's the truth.

When she looks up, his eyes are tense with agony, and apology, and more than a little self-hatred. Regina could swear she can hear their hearts beating over the deafening silence, and then she's thinking about use mine for the both of us and can you feel? and she's thinking yes, too much. Because this would all be easy, it would be so easy (it wouldn't—those first few days would've been torture; she wouldn't have found the anger to consider harming Marian, but she also wouldn't have found the strength to help her, or to leave her home and spend time with Henry), but it would be easier, emptier if he'd just gone. If he'd pretended they were nothing, she was nothing to him, if he'd stayed away from her and kept silent and let her think she'd misunderstood, and he'd let her go. But he hadn't, he hasn't; he's been relentless, my feelings for you are real and I'm in love with someone else and it's so hard, it's impossible, to walk away from. Regina's never, not once, been capable of walking away from someone who loves her. It hasn't served her well, not at all, but there it is all the same.

"I'm sorry I have—" she starts, but no, that's not the truth—"I'm sorry you saw that."

"Regina—"

She swallows, blinks back the way it feels when he says her name, the way her belly flutters, her soul flickers with something like hope.

"I never meant for you to erase your memories."

"Well, good, because you don't own them."

He swallows heavily, clearly hurt, and for a moment, she regrets her harshness. She hugs her arms into her chest. "That's what you're trying to do," she reminds him. "Erase your memories. Remember different ones." Forget his feelings for her. Remember his feelings for his wife.

"I miss you," he says, so softly it could be a whisper.

Regina fights the tears, manages to keep her voice from shaking too much as she returns, "I miss you too." And there's that anger again, nagging at her. Because he asked her to look into her heart, and understand the impossible. Love, love has guided her forever, falling for Daniel and saving Snow and hating the king and chasing Snow White, her daddy, and Cora, and Henry and Robin. She cannot fathom loving, and choosing to walk away. Regina takes a heavy breath, meets his blue eyes with chocolate brown. "But I'm right here."

"I know."

"And you're here," she tries.

He winces. Visibly. "I know."

She sighs, turning away, and she doesn't realize she's walking towards the trunk until the velvet touches her hand, and she runs a fingertip around the rim. "Go home Robin," she says without looking back. Regina hears rustling clothes behind her, and then calloused fingers slip between hers, squeeze once, before falling away. He leaves.

Regina presses her eyes shut for a moment, and in the moment captured in the picture beneath her hands, he did the same, caught her hand. But that was different, another lifetime, a path fate has lost interest in taking. Wait, and gentle but insistent hands and a final kiss, another, a smile and caress and safety and love. Robin himself is gone, from this room, from her. He'd only lent her use of his heart for a short while. She'd thought it would be forever, for the rest of their lives, a second chance, but this fleeting moment in her frame—that's all she has left of who they used to be.

Distance

set during Rocky Road

It is her eyes that draw him in, sparkling at first, alive and bright and playful, and he can see it so clearly. How this woman brought a kingdom to its knees, the pull of chocolate brown like a siren's call.

A grin, raised eyebrow, and he can't resist stepping into her space, if just for a moment. Because he can, and he's attracted to this woman, smirks right back, feels the charged air between them.

But it is later, much later for them, though it's been barely a few weeks,that he truly sees her eyes for what they are. Wide and scared and hopeful and loving, and he had imagined saying these words to her—not quite like this; phrased differently, cradling her face as he speaks them—but he can't regret that he's said them now. Her jaw drops open, and there is pain, but he thinks she's never been so captivating. So beautiful. And then she smiles, and he knows he was wrong—she is more captivating, more beautiful, she is everything.

The gulf between them aches, and he swallows past the lump in his throat, clenches his hands tight to keep from reaching for her. You are? she asks, and gratitude swells in his chest, that he can still make her smile, ease her aching heart.

For all of that space, still it feels as though there's somehow never been less between them.