Interlude III
Really shameless fluff
Aaaaannnnnd, Neal was over again. Her intended's bff. Regina poured herself a glass of wine in the kitchen, downing it all at once, and then pouring another, doing her best not to stumble as she oh so casually stood in the doorway with oh, just a newly poured glass of wine!
"That must have been wild!" Neal was saying.
"You say so, mate," Robin replied. "I got off of this normal ship into a new world."
"What was it like?"
"Emma and Henry were the first I saw. Roland was terrified, and I had to hold him, hiding his face for all he was worth as we walked down the gangway."
"Poor kid must have been freaked."
Robin nodded, "And I of course asked after Regina and Henry piped up that she had been feeling sick."
"Yea, I told you she had the flu," Henry said.
The wine glass dropped.
Damn.
"Regina?" Robin called.
"All's fine," Regina hurried to clean it up.
Henry continued, "And when I did that Mom, Emma-Mom, told me to be quiet. Now!" He and Neal laughed.
Robin didn't. He cleared his throat. "Yes. That was my first news of your mother in Storybrooke."
"Emma maybe didn't want to ruin the moment?" Neal suggested.
"I guess," Henry said, "but then Mom went all weird saying to Robin that it really, REALLY was the flu."
Now Neal stopped laughing.
"What?" Henry asked.
"Nothing," Robin and Neal said together.
So that was what made Robin so quick to ask!
Well, among the other rather valid reason that had made her run for a pregnancy test like Snow chasing a batch of sunshine stickers.
But still!
Change the subject. Change the subject. Regina went in, "And then we all lived happily ever after," her teeth ground with a smile.
"Yea, uh," Neal stammered, "uh, nice rock Regina."
Regina felt her face begin to crack. "It's a little late. Henry go get your things so you and your father can leave."
After they were seen out, Robin closed the door, "Yes, well. Maybe time to turn in," and he left quickly for the bedroom not looking at her.
One day she would find a way not to be humiliated when members of her "new" family gathered.
Maybe.
A positive, though, was the rock to which that person had referred.
Robin had rather surprised her after they'd agreed on the long engagement by randomly dropping to one knee and pulling out the ring, simply asking if she'd marry him.
Despite her determination to be cynical, her heart melted—it was his eyes, those eyes—and said, "I will."
So he got his traditional moment after all, sneaky though it was.
Now it was into January and Roland was getting ready for pre-school.
Regina smiled to herself.
After that first eventful day, when Roland was in bed and they were sitting before the fireplace, Regina asked something that gnawed at her sometimes when she was feeling pms'ed, "Why did you fall in love with me?"
"Why did you fall in love with me?" Robin asked without a beat.
"Don't answer a question with a question!"
"Why not? It's a perfectly acceptable form of inquiry and …."
"And we're not in an effing lecture hall!"
Robin just gave her his "smug" look, eyebrows raised.
"Ok," Regina gave up, "I don't know why."
"Neither do I."
How romantic.
"Maybe I'll write an essay in my twilight years, surrounded by our twelve children," Robin mused.
Oh dear gods!
"Twelve?"
"You want children?"
"Twelve," Regina gave him her "really" look. "Do the math, Robin! I'm not sixteen."
"Just a bit of hyperbole," Robin stated. But then, "Brings up a point."
Children.
"I have two sons already."
He pulled her onto his lap then, nuzzling at her. Damn he knew how to distract. "Not a little girl? A little 'evil queen?'"
Regina snorted, "No spawn of yours could be evil."
"Spawn! What do you think we'd have? A tadpole?"
Regina was starting to see the reason for the long waiting period in this world.
"You do know where babies come from, correct?" Robin asked.
"Now you're just being an ass."
"Not really," he said.
Of course not.
Robin moved his hand up and down her arm. Yes, he was serious.
Would she have agreed to marry him if she didn't want children? Probably not. Somewhere in her subconscious it had been there, that part of her he had always been able to read. Regina sighed, "You have no way of knowing if it would be a girl or a boy, now do you? Unless you now have been given the gift of second sight."
And he kissed her.
Maybe he should be the town shrink, Mr. Freud that he was.
She touched his face.
Second sight.
Or the mystery of love.
Regina kissed him again, and a re-run of their time in the Enchanted Forest make-out session began.
She'd let him write all about it if they made it to old age.
This was Storybrooke, after all.
But then Robin stopped the kiss for a long gaze into her eyes. His damn eyes.
And she thought nothing about any of it at all.