Side note for my British (or British English speaking) friends. I'm American, obviously. And my English is American. But I'm trying (my best) not to have these characters in London use jarringly American terms (i.e. apartment rather than flat) so I've done my best to make the dialogue fit that. Apologies because I'm sure you can see through it, but hopefully you'll cringe fewer times? Not that this comes up, but in my head Cora's American and Regina has spent a lot of time there, so she uses American and British terms both.

(Sorry this took me so long.)

Chapter 2

"I still don't understand why you don't call her."

Robin looks up from his eighth concept sketch for the new art museum's grounds. It's looking unlikely that he'll have the planned proposal to them on Wednesday, or at least not one he's satisfied with. "She's not lost my number."

John raises an eyebrow at him. "And it's a one-way street, this phone thing."

Robin sighs heavily. "I would call her if I thought it would solve anything."

"But?" He prompts.

"She said she'd call, when she's ready. Don't think she needs any more pressure from me." Robin's teeth dig into his lower lip. "She'd clearly had enough of that last night."

"What did you fight about, then?"

"I dunno—a few things. Her mother. Our past, mostly. That, I've been trying to bring up for ages, but yesterday it all sort of…imploded."

John slides into a kitchen stool beside him and selects an apple from the counter. "You've always sparred, though. You're not exactly a pair of easy-going personalities."

Robin lets out a short laugh despite himself.

It's something John knows from experience. He and Robin have been roommates for five years now, since long before Regina came back into his life. It had been quite a laugh, really, when Robin had introduced him to Regina last year, and his friend had realized that it was that Regina.

"Not about this," he shakes his head, sobering. "Not real fights. When we first got together, we slipped into all of this so easily and we never talked about it. But now…" He adds pointless extra lines on his sketch to thicken the border of the building, then looks up at his friend. "She wanted some time to think things through. Decide if this is what we—" his voice struggles slightly over the words, his hand flexing around his pencil—"what she really wants."

John tosses the apple to the opposite hand and takes a large bite, staring at his friend with an expectantly raised eyebrow and a voice almost dismissively certain. "You're an idiot if you think it's not."

" I dunno; maybe she'd have an easier time with a fresh start. She didn't have the best of teenage years, or childhood for that matter, and I'm a constant reminder."

"You don't really believe that."

"No. I don't." Robin makes a decisive line through his paper, crossing it out and abandoning it like the last seven drafts. They sit for several minutes, and the only sound is an emphatic crunch as John makes quick work of the rest of his apple, and drops a few pieces of post that he'd been carrying in onto the counter.

"I'm sorry," he tells John with his lips half-turned into a frown. "I know I've not been much company today."

"You've been in better moods," John agrees. "Still, it's an improvement on when I first met you, and her mother had shipped her off to study business and marketing or whatever."

Robin laughs mirthlessly. "She dropped out after one term, you know. Took the money from all the gigs she'd played as a kid and enrolled herself in music school instead. She'd probably already quit by the time I told you the story."

John looks up at him from the mail that he'd been casually paging through.

"What?"

"Before you continue to wax poetic about your girlfriend," John tosses his apple core in the garbage and brushes off his hands, "I have the perfect thing to lighten your mood."

"I do not wax poetic—" John's laughter cuts him off.

Robin glares as his friend laughs over his protestations.

John pushes an envelope toward him that has Robin's name and their address scrawled on the front in cursive type. "Looks like it's from the symphony."

Sure enough, a single ticket to tomorrow's matinee is tucked inside, with his name printed across a receipt that shows it's a discounted ticket for an orchestra member.

John chuckles knowingly. "The pair of you are ridiculous. I hope you know that."

Robin picks up the ticket, the sharp edge of his hurt, his anxiety, softened.

John, ever eager to tease anyone who needs it, casts comically exaggerated glances around the apartment. "So, what're you thinking you'll find around here to wear?"

"There are a few things in the front closet still," Robin insists.

John chuckles. "I'd wondered about that. Looked too small to be mine."

Robin's lips quirk into half a smile, despite his every effort not to give in to his friend's transparent attempts to cheer him up. "Oh come off it. I still pay my share of the rent."

"Well, not that I don't like having you around, and love having your rent contribution, but do this right tomorrow, would you? You two are good together."

"Yeah," Robin's smile grows more sure. "I know."

.

.

.

Robin glances down at his wrist. The hall has cleared out substantially in the five minutes since he last checked the time, but, as is his habit, he's remained in his seat while the rest of the concert-goers made their way to the exits. There's no point, he's always reasoned, in being the first to the lobby, when Regina always needs a few minutes to gather her things anyway.

He's always liked theaters like this too, in the quiet, bright lull between concerts. It feels private, somehow; only his own. In some ways, it is not unlike the sensation of knowledge and belonging that he feels when stepping into a garden he's helped to grow; the familiarity with dirt and mulch and leaves in a landscape that looks, from a distance, to be almost unknowable. And of course, it has always reminded him of how he sees Regina, past the well-ordered surface of her expressions and words and actions and into the intricate spaces that lie beneath.

That intimate feeling of the empty theater strikes him with particular poignancy today.

He looks up from his wrist to the stage, wondering if she'll reappear there, or in the lobby, and then takes stock of the hall once more. At this point, there are only ten or twelve people left. The lobby is probably a safer bet. He's just stood from his red velvet chair and turned to gather his jacket and scarf from the crevice of the folding seat when a hand brushes his shoulder, featherlight and familiar.

"Hi," she says, her voice rough over the word with the hundred others she has enveloped in the simple greeting. "You came."

A shiver runs up his spine, warm and pleasant, as he turns to face her. "I always come, don't I?"

She takes his breath away; truly she does. The flush on her cheeks from the warm stage lights; the strands of dark hair escaping her braid; the bright glint in her eyes from the delight of playing; the way that she eagerly and yet carefully searches his features. And beneath it all a determination that makes him ache for her.

A couple and their daughter excuse their way around Regina in the aisle, drawing their attention away for a moment. The little girl points excitedly at Regina's black trousers and blouse and the violin case held in one of her hands. Regina notices and turns to wave hello at the girl, who can't be more than seven or eight, and the girl waves back excitedly from the theater door, a shy blush on her cheeks.

When they turn back to each other, they are both smiling lightly, some of the tension broken by familiarity.

Robin tries to fathom the individual emotions that flicker through her eyes, but his glimpses are too brief, and her thoughts an engaging labyrinth in which he could easily lose himself.

Regina looks as though she's taking stock of him as well, and the comfortable intimacy of it reminds him how much better they do know each other than when they were children, how much closer they've grown to be in this past year. He can't resist catching hold of her hand and squeezing it gently.

She clears her throat as two people wearing black jeans and polos begin to walk through the hall with garbage bags and cleaning cloths. "I'm going to change, and then I was planning on a walk. If you're interested."

Robin takes a deep breath, and exhales with it some of the stress of the past few days. "Of course."

She smiles back, squeezing his hand and then letting go. "I'll find you in the lobby in ten minutes."

And after one last look, inscrutable and yet tender, she turns and walks away.

.

.

.

"So, which way?" Robin asks when they reach the main road.

It is only half past five, but it is so dark this time of year that it feels later. Streetlights reflect starkly against the damp sidewalks, and the crisp sound of vehicles running through shallow puddles confirms that it must have rained while they were inside the theater.

Regina turns to look at him, more completely than she had when they'd stepped out of the theater and into the damp February night.

The eye contact settles pleasantly in his stomach.

She's slung her violin case over her shoulder with its multiple layers of protective and waterproof covers. Her hair is still in braids, but she's exchanged her black slacks for jeans, and her blouse for a cozy knit and jacket, and a softly patterned scarf that he remembers is cobalt blue, but that looks more muted in the half-light. Her eyes are as much of a contradiction as ever, at once bright and sad.

She blinks slowly, heavily. "Let's head toward the park."

Robin agrees and falls into step beside her as they head left, and for the next couple of minutes, their silence is slightly awkward, but not tense. They turn to each other as they cross onto a quieter street, where there are fewer people around them.

"I—"

"Could—"

They laugh, eyes meeting as he nods for her to continue.

"I'm sorry about Friday," she pushes on.

"I'm sorry as well," he tells her fervently.

"I didn't mean what I said about you, about us."

He takes a deep breath and breathes it out slowly, allowing his shoulders to relax and his hand to reach between them for hers. Thank God, he thinks, surprising himself a little with the force of his relief, when he'd known—known, as surely as he knows every fleck in her brown eyes, that she hadn't.

She stops them in the half-light of a street lamp, threading their fingers together firmly.

"What is it?"

She searches his face determinedly, and he wonders what she sees in it, that has brought on this reaction.

She shakes her head and tugs him closer to her with their joined hands.

"Regina?" he asks again.

Her hand slides from his onto his wrist, her fingers pressing into his pulse. "I do want this."

"I knew that, love. I know that."

Her lips turn into a half-frown of mild disbelief. "Do you?"

His brow furrows. "Where's this coming from?"

"You were right," she says forcefully. "I run away. Not—not like you said." She blinks rapidly, her gaze falling briefly to their joined hands. "I don't just leave. But I can be so cold, so cruel, so stubborn—it pushes everyone away eventually, even if it isn't what I mean or want and—"

"Regina Mills," he tells her, his tone light but earnest, as he gathers up her hands and presses them to his chest, "that is not possible." He lowers his forehead to hers, holding eye contact until it becomes impossible. His eyes fall shut as their skin touches, and he feels her lean into him, even as another tear falls between them. He always underestimates it, he thinks. Her ability to wander into a maze of self-hatred, and lose herself in it. He taps fingers against the back of her hand lightly, teasingly. "I am far too stubborn for you to get rid of me."

She lets out a sound somewhere between a scoff and a relieved laugh.

He rubs a thumb over her hand, mapping out her skin to the easy cadence of their breathing, and shielding her bare, calloused fingers from the damp night. He does not speak for several moments, and when he does, his voice is soft and unobtrusive, a low hum.

"Do you know what I was thinking when we first saw each other again?"

She shakes her head against his skin.

"I walked into the green room, and knew your playing the moment I heard it. Your eyes were on fire," he sweeps a thumb across her temple. "And I couldn't believe that I had convinced myself you would be anywhere else. As if you could've been stopped from playing that violin." He threads fingers through her hair. "You can be…hard, sometimes, but it also makes you brave and fierce and stubborn and incredibly kind. Don't sell yourself so short."

"You're an idiot," she says, fondly. She leans into him, shaking her head without any real force behind it.

"I was angry, too, about everything I'd missed. All those years." He nudges her shoulder with his. "Cora's fury when you broke the news about music school."

He smiles that he's finally made her laugh.

She always tenses up, changes the subject when he brings up that time, but he finds to his relief that today seems different.

"I used to hope you'd stumble into a concert somehow," she clears her throat, "and I'd see you again. I'd convinced myself that I just wanted to apologize, to see you one last time on better terms. I think deep down, I was hoping that wouldn't be all." Robin plays with her fingers absent-mindedly, tracing lines and joints with his thumb. "It certainly wasn't all after we'd spent twenty minutes together."

He grins in remembrance of that evening when he'd come to her concert. The scales and runs she'd been fiddling with before putting her violin away. The way they'd broken off when he knocked on the dressing room and asked to enter. His pounding heart. The neutral expression on her face that had melted, second by second, as they stared at each other. The invitation to coffee next week that had quickly, if awkwardly, transformed into a plan of finding somewhere still open that same night.

"Speaking of," she asks, tugging him with her as they resume their walk at a slow pace, "how did you get backstage?"

"Oh, I sweet talked a guard who liked you. Told him we were old friends, and I wanted to surprise you."

"Thomas," she surmises, laughing. "How have I never thought of that before?"

"I don't know about you, but I was a bit distracted."

"Mm. I suppose we had more to catch up on than that. Five whole years."

He tilts his head curiously. "So you knew nothing about me, hm? No internet stalking or anything?"

"I thought about it," she admits. "But something always stopped me. I don't know. I think I was afraid of how you might've changed."

"Me? Never."

She laughs lightly, shaking her head. "You could've moved somewhere far away. Had a completely different life. You could've been with someone, Robin. You could've been married, or…"

"Come on, me?"

She shifts her hand in his, her voice quieter. "I think I was also…"

He pushes down the impulse to press her and waits for her to finish on her own.

"I was afraid that I would see you, and we would still fit. I know that makes no sense."

Robin thinks about how deeply he already felt for her in those early weeks of their relationship, about how quickly they became woven into each others' lives. About how wonderful and yet impossible it all felt. "It makes sense to me."

She clears her throat as though to dispel the thought. "And what was your excuse?"

He glances at her as they pass a 24-hour Tesco's with lights that are glaringly white against the dark night, and catches a more complete look at her features.

"What?" she encourages.

"It would've made me so sad if you'd become, well, what your mother wanted you to be. Regina Mills, Vice President of Business Development at some big company, and most eligible twenty-something at every auspicious social occasion."

A laugh bursts through Regina's lips, and he glares at her with a glint in his eye.

"Seriously though, I knew none of that would've made you truly happy. But I was worried you might've—"

"—given in?"

"Yes."

She looks at him, tilting her head as though she's noticing something she'd never seen before. "What did you imagine that phone message said? The one I left you after you moved away? The one you never listened to?"

He takes a heavy breath, lost in her gaze, feeling anxiety slither back into his stomach, much like it did on the day they're discussing, so many years ago.

"Robin," she urges.

"You called me to explain why we couldn't be together, didn't you? Why it was a mistake. Why you had to leave."

She laughs, her voice just a little bit broken. "You really are such an idiot."

"Why?" A jumble of curiosity, hope, regret spreads through his chest.

Her expression sobers, though her eyes remain light. "I was going to do that, you're right. I thought it would be easier for you, if you thought it wasn't an option. I thought you'd move on. But when I got to your voicemail, and I heard your voice, I couldn't do it. I asked you to come visit me at school."

"That's what you—but—"

"And when you never got back to me, when you never came, I figured—"

"I didn't want to."

"Yes."

His mouth is still hanging open somewhat. All of these years, and that was what she'd called him to say?

"Robin?"

"Sorry, I'm just—processing this."

"If I'd known it was so important to you, I would've told you sooner."

"Yeah. Would've been nice, that."

"What did you want me to do," she teases, nudging an elbow into his ribs, "leave you a second message explaining why you should listen to the first one?"

He rubs both hands over his face. "Ugh, I'm an idiot."

Regina laughs. "We both are, I suppose. I could've called again. You could've stuck around to see me give up on Cambridge after three months. In our defense, though, we were kids. And just think, if Tuck hadn't dragged you to that particular concert to get you out of the house, and I hadn't been playing on that particular night, we might never have known."

It starts off as a teasing remark, but doesn't end that way.

"I like to think our paths were bound to cross eventually. Although I know you'll tease me for saying that."

She shakes her head and squeezes his hand more tightly. "Not today."

He smiles warmly at her in the dim light. "I left because I…wanted it to be easier for both of us. You had decided to go to school like your mother wanted, and I didn't want either of us to have to watch our relationship drift apart. To become more and more distant until all we could see in each other was my employer's daughter and your gardener's son." He tries not to tear up as they both come to a temporary pause in their walk, this time just past a small coffee shop that's closing for the night, its last few patrons closing up books and laptops and filtering out into the night. She searches his eyes for several seconds, hers open and thoughtful and sad.

"We could never be that."

"I know that, now. But back then, it felt like it was the only thing that made sense."

"You know me." She sighs, "You must know I've never cared about that. Mother gets in my head sometimes, but that doesn't mean it could ever change how I see you."

"I know. It's not that really, it's just-I hear your mother saying all of those things about what your life would be like without me, and I-"

"-you worry, somehow, that someday I'll listen to them and leave you alone again on a piano bench rather than kissing you back."

"That would be one way to put it."

Regina's upper teeth dig into her lip, and he wonders if she knows that she's picked up the habit from him. "I suppose she gets to both of us sometimes."

Robin frowns. "I suppose."

"Well," she insists, "for one thing, it's not just you." She jostles their joined hands. "I am a musician because I want to be, even though she's never approved." Her expression grows more serious. "But, Robin, I love you. And I know you've always thought that you're nothing special, but you are to me. You always have been."

"Thank you," he whispers, squeezing her hand, a kind of fire he's only ever known with her washing through him and warming his body despite the chill.

"Oh, get over yourself," she says gently, teasingly, sliding one hand along his jaw. "I've chosen to be with you. I did the moment you walked into that dressing room and almost made me drop my poor violin. You know that, even though you were a thorough idiot about it and made yourself horribly jealous of Jefferson."

"You seemed close," he protests weakly.

Regina laughs.

"You kissed some sense into me, at least."

She grins. "Yes, I did. Selfless creature that I am."

"Mm. Stubborn, as well."

Regina sweeps her thumb along his jaw. "Seriously, though. You know how much I love you, right?"

He leans into her touch. "I do. It's still nice to hear."

"And for the record, when you came into that dressing room, after that concert?" she begins, grinning.

"Yeah?"

She runs a finger over his lips to silence him. "Even though I almost didn't recognize you with all of that scruff."

"Beard," he argues.

She smiles. "Scruff, sweetheart." She follows the line of his cheekbone, then circles his right eye, her pointer finger sweeping up the bridge of his nose, across his eyebrow, below his eye. He shivers. "You had the same kind eyes that I remembered." She sweeps her thumb across his lips, swallowing heavily. "And I really, really wanted to kiss you."

"Shame you didn't," he murmurs, squeezing her hand, searching her eyes.

She bends forward slowly to cross the scant space between them. A muffled groan rises to his lips, and she hums in response, pressing closer, tilting her head to deepen the kiss, one of her hands still tangled with his and squeezing tightly.

For all of the desperation of his pounding heart, the kiss itself is slow, their lips slanting over each other, fitting together as his hand slides onto her side, between her back and the violin she still carries.

How, how on earth, could either of them imagine for one moment that they would rather live without this?

When his tongue swipes against hers, she lets out a muffled whimper, and his breath hitches as her nails score across his shoulders, his head spinning. It's been only a few days since they last kissed, but this feels different somehow, like something more. She presses up into his body as much as she can with the coats and scarves and violin in their way, and they're past the point when they should probably have found somewhere a bit more private, and he'd really, really love it if her violin was somewhere else right now, but he also doesn't really care, so in love as he is with the girl who was too afraid to kiss him back so many years ago, and even more in love with the woman who is kissing him now.

"When you kissed me, that first time…" she begins to ask when they finally break apart, both of their faces flushed, their hot breaths visible in the chill, damp air, and their thoughts clearly turned in similar directions.

"When we went for that walk through Kensington Gardens?"

'No."

"Good, because I believe it was you who—" he sighs as she lifts one of his hands to her lips and presses a kiss to his wrist, her lips pleasantly warm against the cool skin, "—kissed me."

"I know," she hums. "I meant the real first time."

They start to walk again, and he notes, absently, that they are perhaps only a couple of blocks from her flat. They've never properly talked about this, not ever, that night when they were eighteen and both about to move away from home and kissed for a few brief seconds in the music room where the resonant notes that had induced him to finally kiss her had barely begun to fade.

She looks into his eyes again. "What were you thinking, then?"

He swallows and searches for the right way to explain, determined to give this woman who has trusted him enough to let her guard down the real answer, and not merely a teasing one. He thinks back to that day, to the knowledge that they both might be leaving soon, and the quiet evening they'd spent in the music room her father had built for her in the basement. Regina had been practicing while Robin lounged on a chair with a book. He recalls in great detail the nocturne that she'd been working on, and that he'd long since stopped reading so that he could listen to her play it. And though the kiss itself had been fleeting, distinct flashes of memory have always stuck with him. Her exultant smile when she'd finally played the hardest passage through without mistakes. The softness of the carpet in the two strides it had taken to reach her. The clatter of her bow against her violin as he'd pressed his lips against hers and her fingers had grown lax. Her surprised gasp against his lips, and the way it had morphed into a moan as she'd tangled a hand in his shirt. The instant he'd known everything had gone wrong, when she'd pulled away with tears in her eyes and the words I'm sorry taking shape on her lips as she'd fled the room.

"I finally saw what was right in front of me," he tells her, reaching to brush a stray hair off of her forehead, his hand lingering as he speaks. "I'd known for ages, I think, deep down. But at that moment your heart touched that music, and I wanted to show you how much it had touched mine."

"You're such a sap," she accuses half-heartedly, though a smile curves her lips.

"Always was," he insists, tapping his thumb gently against her hand. "You are, too, you know."

"I am not."

He emphasizes the cadence of his voice, as though speaking to a captive theater audience. "Regina Mills, the famous concert violinist who searched every audience in vain, hoping that one day, her long lost friend would be among them."

She groans. "When you say it like that, it sounds pathetic."

They laugh gently together as they both turn onto the street that leads to her building without discussing it.

"I didn't have to look for you today," she adds. "I knew you'd come."

"See, there you go make my point. Sap."

"You're infuriating," she decides.

"You know it."

They both come to a stop at her door. "I can't keep carrying this," she shrugs to indicate the violin strapped to her back, then meets his gaze with steady determination, "but I want you to stay."

He grins, catching her lips in a quick kiss, and moves to follow her through the door.

.

.

.

Regina knows that she should give in to her drooping eyes and go back to sleep. She won't be thanking herself for this when she's trying to make it through the chamber rehearsal and concert tomorrow. But even though she is tired and comfortable, she is also loathe to fully close her eyes.

She's enjoying the in-between, the simple pleasure of being not-quite-asleep, with her body worn from a busy day and her whirring thoughts stilled into a quiet. She hears the splash of water as cars drive by outside, the occasional hum of a far distant voice, and she feels the weight of the rain-damp air and the rhythmic pressure of Robin's lungs as they fill and empty against her back. They'd both fallen asleep on the sofa a while ago, it seems, and the thought of either waking him or moving to the other room is far less appealing than remaining exactly where she is.

If she wasn't lulled into such peaceful quiet, if it hadn't just caused so much heartache this weekend, she could almost laugh at the pair of them. This conversation that she'd dreaded for so long, not out of fear, necessarily, or shame, or stubbornness—none of those words capture it, not quite—it had been so different than had she expected. Not only because they'd both made assumptions that now look objectively ridiculous, but because, if anything, she feels closer to him, having had it.

Though she had barely recognized it consciously, she had always imagined him to regret that he had acted on his feelings when they were younger. Now she sees him regretting only that, as he assumed, she could not be open to it, and never would be. She had always thought that he had left back then because she had given up too easily, on him, them, music; had read his somber mood upon her telling him about her offer from Cambridge as a reflection of his disappointment in her. How unfair that had been, she finally realizes; what an underestimation of the depths to which they both know each other, and of his own feelings.

She finds his hand on her hip and drags his arm more firmly around her, feeling a rush of tenderness that makes her sag into the soft sofa cushions, and she finally allows her eyes to flutter closed.

.

.

.

Zzzzzt. Zzzzzzt.

Regina groans, reaching blindly for her phone. She isn't certain of course, but it feels as though she'd just closed her eyes a moment ago. Her left hand lights on the cushions, the coffee table, on Robin's chest. She realizes that her legs are half trapped under his and disentangles them carefully, sliding into a sitting position and looking around for the light of her phone screen as the call goes to voicemail, and her phone immediately starts ringing again. She finally sees it beneath the glass coffee table, shifting half an inch over every time it vibrates.

Her neck and back protest as she picks it up.

"Hello?"

"Oh, Regina dear."

"Mother?"

Her mother sounds agitated, like she's been crying.

"Mother, what is it?"

Regina smoothes her hand over her cheek, where Robin's shirt has made an indentation, looking blearily around the apartment for a clue of the time. Then she remembers that she has a phone, and squints at the blindingly bright screen. 3:17am.

She feels Robin stir on the sofa behind her as Cora tells a fragmented story of Daddy waking up an hour ago unable to catch his breath, of chest pains and hacking coughs and an ambulance ride.

She almost doesn't feel Robin reach for her hand as she asks where and promises to head over immediately, her heart pounding and her muscles tensing.

She catches a glimpse of Robin's questioning concern as she ends the call and springs to her feet. "It's Daddy. He woke up an hour ago and couldn't breathe. They're at the hospital. I can't believe Mother didn't call right away." She hurries into the bedroom as she speaks, grabbing the first clothes she sees, nauseous with exhaustion and adrenaline.

Robin is up immediately, on the phone for a cab while he grabs a sweater and shoes for himself. She sees a thousand questions and reassurances in his eyes, and is thankful he chooses not to voice them.

She's ready in a handful of minutes, and tries to wait with some semblance of composure as he ties his shoelaces and finishes the call.

"They'll be downstairs in a moment," he tells her as he sets his phone down to tug a sweater over his head.

"Let's go."

.

.

.

Cora is in the waiting room when they arrive, and, Robin has to admit, looks slightly less perfectly put together than usual. "Hi, Sweetie," she croons, reaching for an embrace which Regina evades with a one-armed hug, her hand still tucked firmly in his.

"What's going on?" Regina presses her mother.

Robin could've sworn he was invisible to Cora when they walked in, but once she's given her saccharine greeting to Regina, she looks him up and down once with disgust. "Did he get caught in a violent wind on the way over?"

Robin glances at his clothes, wrinkled from being slept in and casual, even for him, to be wearing in public, and fights the urge to either roll his eyes or argue with her.

"Focus, Mother," Regina snaps. Both Robin and Cora turn to look at her. "How is he?"

Cora addresses her words only to her daughter. "Not too well, Dear. He's been on medication for that cough, but they think it's pneumonia now, and that's why he was having trouble breathing. They don't want anyone to go back and see him until they have him settled."

Robin watches Regina's paradoxical but now-familiar response. Shoulders high, lips pursed, eyes inscrutable and hard as ice. The only thing still outwardly soft about her is the hand she leaves in his. Small wonder the staff didn't want to deal with Cora while getting Henry settled, he thinks.

"He's been worse this weekend?"

"Yes, Dear. Much."

"Why didn't you tell me, Mother?"

Cora sighs, and Robin braces himself for whatever she's about to try next. "You know," she tells Regina, her tone of the kind that might be more appropriate when explaining the situation to a child of nine or ten years, and not to a full-grown adult, "You're always so hard to reach on the weekends, unlike those of us with normal jobs. And I did tell you both that this was going to happen if he kept up his schedule like that—But neither of you ever listen to me." A dismissive shrug of her shoulder towards Robin. "You're with him at all hours of the night, after all."

"Mother."

"Yes?" Cora asks, all mock-innocence. Honestly, Robin thinks, pressing his lips shut to prevent another tirade, her capacity to make everything about her is astounding.

"Let's go get some coffee, Regina, hm?" he offers, squeezing her hand.

Regina looks as though she's ready to argue more with her mother, but beneath that rage Robin sees her jaw tremble and her eyes widen, and he's eager to spare her from showing her mother how much she's gotten under her skin.

Regina opens her mouth to disagree, but her thoughts must have followed a similar path to his, because she sags the slightest bit and follows him to the other side of hospital's entryway, with one last, hard look at Cora.

Robin watches as Regina's arms tighten around her stomach, as though trying to prevent her emotions from escaping.

"You're sure you don't want anything?" He leans toward her, resting a hand on her forearm. "Another coffee? A quick walk around the block for some fresh air?"

"I'd tell you if I did," she snaps, shaking off his touch. "Stop asking."

He pulls back, momentarily stung and certain it briefly shows on his face.

"Sorry, I'm—" she meets his gaze and breaks off, her lips parting slightly.

"Scared. Upset. I know."

"I—"

"Ms. Mills?" They both turn to see a nurse approaching the bench they're sharing. "He's sleeping, but you can go see him now, if you'd like."

.

.

.

The waiting room's fluorescent lights are blinding after the near-dark of Henry's hospital room. Robin closes his tired eyes and tugs his jacket more firmly closed, eager to get both of them to a comfortable bed. Now that Henry's breathing is much improved, and he's been put on drugs that will keep him sleeping or out of it for the next twenty-four hours at least, there's no reason for them to stay.

"Will he be coming with you to visit tomorrow. Because you know, I'd prefer if it was family only."

Robin spins around, suddenly more awake. Cora's using that half-whisper meant to just barely reach his ears.

"Yes, Mother. I imagine he will."

Cora huffs. "You got your violin, I suppose. But do you have to have him too?"

"Mother." Regina's voice sounds like a warning. Robin gives up all pretense of not hearing and walks back to where they're standing, to one side of the exit.

"Cora, would you please—"

Regina holds up a hand to cut him off, her eyes never leaving her mother's. She looks different. Not like she's trying to protect herself from a barb that's already sunk into her skin, but like she's defending herself from them.

"I'm not sure why you're trying to make tonight about this, Mother, but I assure you that you won't get what you want by criticizing him."

"Regina," Cora cries, feigning shock in a way that makes Robin cringe, "you're imagining things. I only want to make sure you haven't forgotten about your family. We need you, you know, and we miss you."

"Well then you shouldn't have pushed me away."

"I only wanted what's best for you. A good life, with—a real job, and a real relationship, instead of this childish infatuation."

"Calling them that only proves how little you know me."

"You're my daughter; of course I know you."

Regina stands taller. "Then you would've known to call me when Daddy first got sick."

"I called you quickly, Regina. Don't be so dramatic."

"It runs in the family, I suppose."

"Really, Regina. I hardly think it's the time for this."

"And I hardly think it's the time to criticize my boyfriend for rushing to the hospital with me and not stopping to put on a suit and tie."

"I merely meant to point out that he could've tried to look a little less sloppy."

Regina's voice is even, matter-of-fact. "I suppose I mussed up his clothes, Mother. Since we were sharing a bed."

"Regina," she cringes.

"What, Mother?"

"Oh, I just wants what's best for you sweetheart. Like any mother would."

They had maintained a controlled quiet in their voices that kept them from the few people entering and exiting the hospital at 5am. Regina's next words are no exception, but they are harder, colder, and, to Robin's attuned hearing, sadder, and more broken. "You've never cared about that. You've never listened to what I wanted or even needed. I'm finally happy, mother. I do have a good life—my good life. As impossible as it is for you to believe, I like my life as it is, and that is no thanks to you."

Robin takes a deep breath as he looks between them, concerned for her and yet proud.

Cora opens her mouth to respond, but Regina cuts her off decisively. "Call me when there's any news about Daddy. Otherwise, please don't."

.

.

.

"Tea?" Robin offers as he sits beside Regina on the bed. She is fresh faced and warm from her shower, and she has swapped out her clothing for a set of cotton pajamas.

She lets her head fall onto his shoulder.

"Thanks for coming with me," she murmurs, taking a deep breath of the fragrant steam from the tea.

He wraps an arm around her waist. "Always." They stay like that for a moment, in the home that's most definitely theirs, even if she hasn't quite been able to admit it yet. He tries to let that thought go for now.

"Mother called," she shrugs a shoulder toward the phone resting on the duvet. "The doctors say he's doing a little better."

"That's good," he encourages.

She makes a noncommittal sound.

"We can visit this evening, once we've rested a little."

"Yeah."

"Did you talk about—"

"—anything else? No."

"Hm."

"I'm almost—relieved I said all of that. It felt…good. Is that strange?"

He rests a hand on her shoulder and smooths out locks of her damp hair. "Not in the least. And if I may say so, you were superb."

She lets out a half laugh.

"Really," he insists.

She takes a sip of tea, pausing. "It's easier to think that—she just wants to coerce me into doing exactly what she wants, and nothing else."

Robin hums in agreement. "But she does love you."

She lifts her weight from him to meet his gaze. "Yes. And that makes it so much sadder."

He finds no adequate words, and so threads his hand into hers.

"You look exhausted," she observes softly, reaching to touch his face. His mind is still on Cora, and he imagines hers to be as well. Still, though he detects emotional fatigue and the residue of hurt in her features, there is nothing to suggest that she is feeling truly unsettled. Perhaps it hadn't been so much a sudden or startling realization about her mother, as an admission of something she'd known for a very long time.

His words are teasing, but his tone quiet and gentle. "Funny, that, when there weren't even sheets for you to rob me of last night."

Her nose wrinkles and she shakes her head in reluctant amusement.

"Come to that, I didn't sleep very well Friday, either. Or Saturday."

"Neither did I," she agrees. "Also, I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

"Famished. Toast and eggs?"

"Sounds perfect."

As they stand and begin to walk to the kitchen, his phone chimes from his pocket, and he recalls having seen something from John last night that he'd likely never responded to.

A glance at his phone screen tells him that he remembered correctly. He'd missed several in late evening, and has another from just now.

11:21pm How'd it go?

11:22pm Is it a good thing I haven't heard from you?

11:22pm It has to be a good thing, right?

11:23pm Call me, would you.

11:25pm Or, you know, don't. If you're busy.

7:38am Robin?

"Subtle," Robin murmurs with a raised brow and a nod.

"What is?"

"It's John," he informs her, shaking his head even as he grins, and types back a quick response promising explanations later, "reacting with poorly contained glee to the fact that I didn't go back there last night." He holds up the screen so that she can see the quantity of texts he's received from his flatmate.

Regina rolls her eyes.

Despite the rain, it's an almost-pleasant day for late February, and so he props the kitchen window open a couple of inches for the smell of fresh rain and the light breeze.

It's so comfortable in the grey, quiet midmorning here. Refreshing, and calm, and safe.

Between them they make quick work of cooking breakfast, and sit at the table to eat.

"What are these?" Robin picks up a large navy binder, shifting it to lie beside a second. A second glance shows him that they are photo albums, and he recalls having seen them in a storage cupboard somewhere.

"I was looking at them on Saturday."

Robin tugs one towards him and flips it open to a random page, dropping his fork back on his plate. There are no captions, no explanations, no dates, but he doesn't need them. He remembers that he took the first, of Regina, all of nine, grinning down at him from the upper branches of a tree she'd just climbed. On the facing page is a picture of him, biting his lip in concentration as he carefully spells out her name on the cake for her eleventh birthday party. He smiles as he remembers Regina ordering him not to forget the proper cursive capital R, and the cook allowing them to share what had remained of the red frosting they'd used to decorate. He hears rather than sees her smile from beside him.

He turns a few pages to a photograph in which they both feature. Regina's smiling into the camera, her eyes bright, her hands closed around her bow and the stem of her violin, and Robin is beside her, his arm around her shoulders, kissing her cheek, Regina's blush just beginning to spread. "We must've been what?" Robin asks, grinning, "Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"Something like that."

He runs his finger over their faces. "I don't think I'd even yet realized what an enormous crush I had on you." He shoots her a grin.

Her eyes dance.

He glances over to the right side of the page, tilting his head as he tries to remember what was happening in the photograph at the top of the page. It is of him alone, and he is smiling tersely, almost halfheartedly at whoever took the photo, presumably Regina. He tries to think back. The clear sky and colorful wildflowers in the photo means it must have been late spring or early summer, and he recognizes the meadow overlooking the grounds, but he can't recall a time when they'd had a camera there.

He taps his thumb against it. "I've never seen that one before."

"What one?"

"On the right," he explains, shifting the book closer to her. "At the top?"

She takes a more intentional look.

"It goes with this one." She turns the page and points to a photograph of her at the top of the next page. It is clearly on the same day, and in the same place as the photograph of him. She is in profile, sitting up, her hands in the grass, her eyes trained at some point in the distance.

"You had just turned eighteen," she answers, her voice becoming a little rough. "Do you remember?"

He stares at her, then at the photograph. He does. It had been the last time they'd been alone before he left. For a week after he'd kissed her, she'd been studiously avoiding him. But on that day, she'd dragged him to the top of the hill, for old time's sake, she'd said, to tell him that she'd met her offer from Cambridge and that she had accepted.

He had taken that photo of her.

But he'd never known she still had it, and he certainly doesn't remember her taking one of him.

"Yes," he admits, swallowing heavily. "I remember."

She shifts closer, presumably at the roughness of his voice, drawing him into an embrace around the edge of the table.

He buries his face in her neck, his hands on the small of her back and pressing her closer. "Hard to forget. And you say I'm the sap…"

It had been a pretty clear reaction back then, he'd always thought, when he'd been kissing her one moment and she'd run from the room the next. He had allowed himself to think that it was a rejection not only of a romantic relationship but of the inseparable friendship that they had built over a decade. And though he doesn't remember the photograph being taken, he feels certain that this is what had been on his mind in it.

It had been so much easier back then to think that she had not wanted to stay close to him than to think that she had wanted to and couldn't let herself.

Her voice is muffled against his shoulder, gentle in its teasing. "Be careful. I might have to tease you to cheer you up, and I think I know quite a few embarrassing stories from your childhood."

A few days later

Robin wakes to the sound of rain out the cracked-open window. He cranes his neck to see the clock on the bedside table, wincing a little at the arm that's gone numb beneath Regina's head. The green numbers show that it's half past seven.

He flexes his hand carefully, trying to return blood flow to the limb without waking her, but a moment later she's moving against her, her weight shifting on the mattress as she turns to face him.

"Morning," he greets softly, sinking his free hand into her hair.

She smiles drowsily, and slides a hand around the back of his neck, her fingers kneading gently at the stiff muscles there.

Her eyes begin to flutter closed again.

"Regina, love?"

"Mhm?"

"Could I possibly have my arm back?"

Her lips quirk at the corners. She opens her eyes fully again and lifts her head just long enough for him to retrieve his protesting limb.

"Heavy, you are," he observes mildly, flexing his arm at the elbow as much as he can in the scant space between them. "Too much music knocking about in there."

She swats at his good arm, then reaches to check her phone, and, seeming to find nothing of concern in any missed texts or calls, drops it back on the bedside table.

"No news?"

"Daddy texted a little while ago. He's settling in well back at home."

He catches her hand and rubs a thumb over the back of it. "We can take the train up to see him after your rehearsal's over this afternoon, if you want."

She hums her agreement. A moment later, she pushes her weight off of the pillows until she sits cross-legged beside him. He half-sits to join her. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I just…like waking up with a grumpy puppy in my bed."

"I am not grumpy." He makes a show of narrowing his eyes at her, "Ridiculous woman. I'm adequately aware of the importance of rest."

"Mm," she hums. "Nope. You're a grumpy puppy," her fingers find the ends of his hair and tug gently, "floppy ears and all."

"Woof," he teases. She chuckles, and he has to trace her smile with his thumb.

"Hey, Robin?"

"Hmm?"

She looks down at their hands, then back into his eyes with fierce determination. "I think you should move in with me."

His face breaks into an ecstatic smile. "Are you certain?"

She jostles their joined hands, and is, as always, unshakeable now that she's made up her mind. "Yes."

"I'm moving in?"

"Yes. I want you to. If you still do."

He pecks her lips through laughter.

"I'm moving in," he repeats, giddy.

"Yes."

"With you."

"Yes."

"Thank God."

"What?" she laughs.

"I'm serious, I'm pretty sure John was going to kick me out if I spent any more evenings 'waxing poetic' about you."

She swats at his arm. "Stop flirting."

"I like flirting with you. I'm told I'm very good at it."

"Oh, and who told you that?"

"You're smiling," he points out.

"You're being ridiculous."

"You're blushing," he adds.

"You're an idiot," she laughs, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Mmhm, I thought I was a grumpy puppy."

"That too."

"Do you know what makes me less grouchy when I wake up?" He lifts his weight onto his knees and tugs her closer, his forehead bending to rest against hers.

"Coffee?" she suggests, running the back of her hand under his jaw and down his neck. "Eggs and bacon?"

"Perhaps." He presses a kiss to her jaw, his fingers coming to cradle her neck. "Although I was thinking of something else."

"A nice solid rain for your wildflowers?" she offers, swallowing heavily as his lips land on her neck.

"No." He moves until he hovers over her, one hand burrowing under her blue cotton camisole and onto the warm skin of her belly.

"The thought of a pr-" she halts on a breathy gasp as his tongue finds her pulse point, "-properly watered orchid?"

"No." His own voice is rough, his breath hitching as her nails score across his shoulders over his cotton shirt.

"I'm at a loss, then," she admits with a weary sigh.

"Really?" he asks as his hand leaves her stomach to push away the strap of her camisole. "Then I suppose I'll have to show you."

"Definitely," she agrees.

A few months later

"Hi," Regina murmurs as she softly closes the door to Robin's room.

He moves to sit more fully on the bed, smiling. "Hey."

Her parents have given him one of the smaller guest rooms, several doors away from the childhood bedroom and bathroom suite that she still stays in when she visits.

Regina unties and discards her dressing gown on a nearby chair, lifting the edge of the duvet so that she can slide into bed beside him.

"Do you think she knows that we do this?" Robin asks as he reaches for her hand, curious but not overly concerned about it.

"Probably," Regina confesses. She sighs as she leans back against the pillows and drops her head onto his shoulder. "Daddy does, anyway."

"Mm. On the other hand, your mother did seem a bit distressed about the implications of us living together now."

Regina snorts. "A bit?" She thinks back with an urge to roll her eyes, and yet a pulse of hurt beneath it, at the way Mother had reacted, raising an eyebrow and pursing her lips at her daughter as though she were tainted, letting a mere gardener touch her.

"This hasn't exactly been the most enjoyable visit, but…I'm glad we're here. I'm glad you two worked everything out enough for that."

"We have an…arrangement," Regina agrees. Mother knows where the boundary is, the line she shouldn't cross if she wants a relationship with her daughter. And even though she comes perilously close to it at times, Regina at least feels as though she has a little bit of control. Things aren't ever going to be great, but they're…better.

They sit in companionable silence for several minutes, the room silent save for their breaths and the ticking of an old clock on the far wall.

"This kind of looks like the room we used to play in when we were little, while your parents were hosting a party downstairs," Robin finally observes, looking around the room again as if to check.

"It is, I think," Regina replies, stifling a yawn. "They painted it and switched out some of the furniture a few years ago."

He looks more closely. "The table and chairs used to be there?" he points to their right, "And you set up your music stand over by the windows?"

She nods in agreement. "Right."

"Remember we used to sneak into the kitchens too?" he chuckles. "We were lucky the cook had such a soft spot for you."

She turns to look at him, her fingers grazing across his jaw, her own lips lifted into a smile. "And set so many pastries aside for us."

He traces patterns into her palm, his thumb pressing into the violinist's calluses on the pads of her fingers. "I seem to recall you forcing me to sit through quite a few mock auditions on those nights as well."

She sighs heavily, grinning. "See, I should've known you were in love with me."

"It wasn't such a hardship." He murmurs, shifting onto his side to see her face. His gaze is tender, breathtakingly so, as he close the space between them and catches her lips with his own. Their noses bump clumsily in the dark, and his hands brush her hair out of their way as he comes to hover over her and she turns onto her back. His elbows dig into the pillow on either side of her head, and she shivers as his tongue slides over hers.

She wraps her arms around his neck, tugging him closer.

A hum escapes her as he pulls back a few moments later, smiling softly.

"I've always wanted to do that here," he confesses, biting his lip with a mischievous grin and dancing eyes.

"Ah," she teases. "And so the fantasies of the teenage Robin are fulfilled. So glad I could be of service."

He frowns mildly. 'I meant that—"

She chuckles, craning her neck up to peck his lips. "It's all right. I know what you meant."

She curls a hand around his neck, dragging him back down so that she can kiss along his jaw, swirl her tongue against the spot on his neck that tears a reliably rough groan from his throat. "Did our first kiss not count?" she asks.

"Well—" he breaks off, distracted, as her lips find his neck, "we weren't together. And you certainly didn't kiss me like this."

She lifts her body from the mattress and presses his shoulders until he turns and flops onto his back, gazing up at her with dark eyes. "So, what else was in this fantasy of yours?"

His hands fall to her hips, and he reaches to kiss her again before he answers. She stares, watching as his eyes soften, as he lifts one hand from her hip to thread it through her hair, her heart thudding steadily and her belly filling with liquid warmth. "Regina, I didn't even know what to imagine back then. This past year has been so much better than anything I ever could've…"

She kisses him heatedly, tugging at his shirt until he complies and lifts it over his head.

"You have to be quiet," she orders, swallowing his moan as their bodies press together.

"They're in the other wing of the house," he protests.

"Robin." She lifts her head, looking down at him sternly, or as sternly as she can manage.

"I'll try."

She narrows her eyes.

He tangles a hand in her hair, sliding his palm from neck to shoulder to back. "Promise."

Her frustrated expression soon fades as he loops an arm around her back and spins them again, tugging at the blankets until they are comfortably settled. He rests a hand on her bare skin beneath her nightgown, pushing it up and up. She catches him just as he bends to kiss her again. She shakes her head, leaning back against the pillows and tugging him with her. "How did we not do this years ago?"

Robin grins into her lips, moving his to her temple, to the sensitive skin behind her ear, so that he can reply. "Talk late into the night? We did that all of the time."

"Robin," she laughs, tangling fingers in his hair.

"Oh, you mean sit together on the same bed? No…"

He grasps one of her hands and twines their fingers together, squeezing tightly as his lips make their way down her neck, across her collarbone. "Hold hands?"

"Robin," she warns.

"You are stunning," he says against her skin, undoing several buttons so that he can shove her nightgown out of the way, and dotting kisses over the swell of her breast, "you know that?"

She sighs as his lips finally reach her nipple, then groans in protest as he starts a path back up towards her collarbone. "You are horrible," she pants.

"Really?" he teases as he presses his lips to hers.

She hums into his lips, her hand flexing in his hair. "Awful," she confirms as he pulls away yet again.

"See, that's why you didn't give in. I'm far too frustrating."

He catches her lips again, capturing them in a heady kiss, one hand balancing some of his weight off of her as the other sinks into her hair.

Her hands curl around his biceps, one of her legs locking around his hips.

"Will you please shut up and kiss me." It is not a question; it is an order.

"As you wish."

He could never resist her, really.

"Still horrible?" he teases, trailing kisses along her jaw. He knows her so well that he anticipates it a moment before she pushes her shoulders and hips against the bed until he flops onto his back beneath her.

Her hair, still slightly wavy from its recent braids, tumbles down one side of her face, some of it trailing across his chest where it has grown the longest. She smirks down at his dazed expression, her grin warm against his skin when she kisses his Adam's apple and his hand tightens reflexively in her hair. She stays there only for a moment before she's trailing her way down his chest, nipping with her teeth and then soothing with her tongue in a way that always leaves him dark-eyed and slack-jawed, but this time, as she curls a hand around his wrist and moves his hand to the center of her chest, over her heart, he cannot stop a low moan. "Shh," she murmurs.

He sighs heavily, dizzy with pleasure, though she's not even touching him anywhere that warrants it.

"You all right?"

He licks his lips, swallows roughly as she moves back to where their gazes can meet, "When I last lived here, I thought we would never…"

She smiles softly, something warm and inexplicable welling in her chest. "I chose you," she tells him, fingers sliding along his jaw, "and music, and…a happy life."

He looks almost teary-eyed at her, and it takes him only a handful of seconds to surge up and capture her lips against his. "I'm so glad you did."

She laughs as he wipes a tear from beneath her eye. "Me, too."