As promised here is the Storybrooke chapter! And yes I went there. Found a big loop hole and then fixed it up and tied it off with a big black bow of sadness ;p and I know I will be asked about the timeline for Storybrooke and even though I write it in this note to you guys I know that many of you will not read it and I will have to answer the question anyway. But for those of you that do read this part, for the purposes of this story the scenes in Storybrooke are taking place after Neverland. Regina killed Pan in Neverland and the whole gang made it back safe to Storybrooke and are living out their days there. Just for clarification as to why Tinkerbell is running around in Storybrooke.

Sending you off with a "happy reading!" Isn't all that fitting lol! So I don't know...deep breaths! It'll all work out in the end ;) please leave a review!

There was a knock on her front door and when she opened it she nearly slammed it shut immediately, "what do you want, Tinkerbell."

"I wanted to see how you were doing," she answered gently and the brunette simply scowled at her. Understandably so. In Neverland had they acted civil and that was only because they needed one another's strengths. But now? Now Regina needed nothing from her. They had hardly spoken at all in Neverland but Tink had managed to accept and move on from their past. Regina had not and her reasons were valid.

"I do not need nor want your company, fairy."

"Regina you're struggling and I just want to help."

"I'm fine," she snarled but the fairy didn't so much as blink.

"You are not fine. You were for a little while but I saw you and David in the diner yesterday. You are not fine."

"You stay away from me. You stay away from David," she warned lowly and Tinkerbell scoffed exhaustedly.

"Robin was not my fault! I showed you who he was! All you had to do was talk to him! But you ran!"

"You left me alone!"

"I lost my wings because of you!"

"You lost your wings because you stepped out of place and made things worse. You should have stayed out of it. I never would have known Robin existed or who he was to me and his death wouldn't have mattered. But it did matter!"

"Regina I know I hurt you. I was trying so hard to give you a chance to shine. No fairy so much as glanced your way because of your mother but I tried for you, I saw something in you. But I was inexperienced and you were young and afraid and I am so sorry."

"Get off my property," she demanded but her voice was quiet with her tight throat and her eyes were glossed with tears. It had been a long time since she thought about Robin Hood.

"Regina-"

"Now," she bit out and slammed the door shut before she walked away, ignoring the fairy's call of her name on the other side. She didn't want to think about Robin.

...

David sat on the couch in silence. He had nothing to say to Snow when he had gotten home so he had just sat on the couch and stared at Emma's dog. He had thought it strange when she had first brought home the bulldog. But he was quickly fond of him. Partly because he loved dogs. But mostly because it gave him an excuse to do something other than talk with Snow. He could walk the dog, play with the dog, wash the dog, teach the dog a new trick, anything that came to mind he would happily do it. He felt trapped in this house.

It was ridiculous to feel as such but he did. He felt like he was suffocating and Regina was the only thing he could breathe. He had dreamed of her the last night. He had dreamed of making her smile, of touching her skin, feeling the shape of her body, breathing in the scent of her as she leaned back in to him with a happy smile and closed eyes. He had dreamed of her fingers intertwining with his, of her throat vibrating against his lips as she hummed a gentle melody. But he had not kissed her in that dream. It seemed no matter the scenario, his sleeping mind could not fathom what it would be like to kiss that woman. So it didn't even try.

"David?" She called him back from his thoughts carefully as she circled around the couch and sat in front of him on the coffee table.

"Yes."

"Please talk to me..."

"I don't feel like talking, Snow. We always end up fighting anyway," he dismissed tiredly and didn't bother to look her in the eye.

Snow sat there quietly for a little while, staring in to her mug of tea before she gave a quiet and sad laugh, "what happened to us?"

"A lot of things..."

"We used to be able to talk about nothing at all."

"What's the point in it though? It grows tiring."

"That's not what I meant, David," she frowned and he kept his eyes down and his face empty, "things used to be so easy between us."

"We always had a distraction."

"David."

"We did. We have never been alone with our thoughts. There has always been a distraction. Regina, Rumple, Cora, Pan," he shrugged and looked up at her, "there has always been something hanging over our heads."

"Alright I'll give you that," she conceded and looked down at her mug again, "but...we were fine until Henry disappeared."

"Yes."

"What changed?"

"I realized how exhausted I am over these constant crises. I am done...fighting. It just seems like it is inevitable that we are going to keep getting knocked down and this time I just don't want to get back up. I want to hang up the sword and just surrender. But you were still running around trying to fix things. Trying to fix Emma, trying to fix, Regina, trying to fix me when none of us wanted to be fixed."

"So I've learned," she whispered with a forced breath of laughter.

"I played along. Until I found out how good it felt to just be miserable with someone."

"With Regina."

"Yes. With Regina."

Silence fell between them then. Both kept their eyes down and the tension grew slowly until it could be plucked like a string on a bow. She was panicking inside and she couldn't decide whether it would be better or worse if she kept hiding it from him. He was her whole world. Apart from Emma of course. He had always been there, had always been fighting at her side and now he was drawing away. She didn't know what to do. She had taken his presence and his love for granted and now she was feeling the burn of that. She loved him more than anything and every time he opened his mouth she feared the word 'divorce' would leave his lips.

"Do you love her?" She asked quietly as she stared in to her milky tea.

"I don't know," he replied just as quietly. He didn't know. His heart said yes but his mind told him to stop being foolish. He could not pin down any one word that described what he felt for that woman. They were much too complicated for that.

"...have I already lost you to her?" She asked even quieter and felt her tears threaten to prick her eyes. She dreaded his answer. Feared it most of all. And his long pause was not making her feel any better. It meant he had to think about it. Which meant that yes she was at the very least losing him if she hadn't lost him entirely already.

"I don't know," he answered quietly after several seconds in silence. It was one of the hardest things he had had to say to Snow. Even if he didn't love her as much as he once had, he didn't want to hurt her. But it was unavoidable in this situation they found themselves in.

"Okay," she whispered and nodded her head, sniffing softly as she stood and walked away with another quiet and shaky, "okay."

...

He didn't expect her to answer her door so when he knocked on it he was not surprised when she didn't answer it. He was expecting it to be locked though so when he tried to open the door and it gave way he paused for a moment to make up his mind. He walked in slowly and silently as he closed the door behind him. The house was silent but a light was on in the back so he wandered toward it and found the back door cracked open. She was sitting in the dark on the edge of the deck with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a bottle of wine beside her.

He walked up behind her and with a long exhale he sat down beside her with his feet on the grass next to hers he offered her a small smile in greeting but she didn't even look at him and kept her eyes down at the wine glass between her hands. His smile vanished the very moment he saw her face. It was just the side of it but the sorrow was strong and overwhelming and had him frowning as he gently moved his hand down her forearm and to her hands, she shivered at the touch as she sucked in a shaky breath through her teeth to try and keep herself from crying. He hated it when she cried.

Carefully he took the glass from her hands and placed it on the deck and she lifted the fingers of one hand to her lips as he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the blanket over her shoulder. His heart throbbed when she tipped her head in to his and hugged her blanket tight around her shoulders. He didn't know what was on her mind but it wasn't Henry. She was getting stronger regarding her faith in Henry so this was something else. He didn't push her though and he was rewarded with a heartbreaking story.

"Have I told you about Daniel?"

"Nothing more than what you told me when Whale brought him back," he answered quietly knowing it was a touchy subject and wondering if today was some sort of anniversary for her. It would explain her mood.

"We were going to run away together. Get married. Start a family I'm sure...but Cora stopped us at the stables and killed him in front of me...I was eighteen," she frowned and he kissed the side of her head, "not too long after I became queen I was visited by a fairy. Tinkerbell. We were fast friends for I was lonely and she filled me with hope for happiness and love. She used pixie dust to find my soul mate. It worked. It led us to a tavern and there was a man inside with a lion tattooed on his wrist..."

"Did you go in?" He asked and she shook her head against his shoulder.

"No...I panicked. I wasn't ready to love someone so soon after Daniel. Or at least I thought I wasn't. I'm sure I would have been just fine and lived quite happily."

"...is he still out there?" He questioned quietly, hoping that this was not her wishing she could go out and find him. He regretted such thoughts the moment he heard her cracked voice.

"No," she shook her head and sniffed as she sat up taller and no longer leaned in to him. She could see him watching her and his arms around her were comforting and warm and his silence encouraged her to continue. No one knew of Robin Hood except herself and Tinkerbell, "I didn't see him again until I travelled to Nottingham. I had some business to do there late in my reign. I don't remember how many years it had been since that night at the tavern nor do I remember what business I had in the Sherwood Forest but I never went back. I came striding in as I always did. Head held high, strong strides, smirking I'm sure, cocky as hell," she tried a laugh but it came out strangled with a cry and David moved the arm wrapped around her front so he could tuck the hair behind her ear. The gentle contact had a tear falling free of its dark cage.

"There was a man named Robin Hood being cuffed to a post for execution and I of course approved and my expression showed it despite not knowing who he was or what he had done. I didn't care. I kept walking as I looked him over and I remember thinking it was a shame that such a handsome man was wasted...and then I saw the tattoo on his wrist," she pushed out, her voice strained with a heartbroken sob and David's hand held her thigh as his shoulders drooped. She drew in a shaky breath threw her teeth and shook her head, "I stopped walking and my arrogance vanished as I looked at his face again and that time I caught his eye."

She shook her head faster and her tears fell freely as her breaths came and went in unsteady bouts, "I can't get his face out of my head!" She cried and lifted both her hands to cover her mouth and vaguely felt David's hand around the back of her neck as she stared off in to the dark. "He recognized me but he was not afraid, he was curious, he was intrigued, and he smiled at me. Just a small smile but it was a genuine smile nonetheless. I was drawn to him like there was a string attached to my heart and he was pulling on it. I was so lost in the way those eyes were looking at me that I completely forgot he was about to die. I didn't remember until I opened my mouth to speak to him and there were four arrows in his heart and the life left his eyes."

She cried in to her hand, and David's hands gripped her tighter and she found her voice again, "it shook me. I let out this sound that I had never made before, this horrified yowl that haunts me to this day and I covered my mouth because of it as I shrunk away from it but I couldn't look away. His body just crumpled to the ground and his eyes were empty but they had been so full of life and, and, and spirit and just goodness. He was so good and I never, I never-" her words were cut off with a harsh sob and David pulled her against him again as he hushed her.

She curled in to him, pulling her knees up to her chest as she slowly spun in place toward him and his hands held her to him while she took a fistful of his shirt over his chest. His heart ached for her. It was heavy in his chest and he feared if he were to open his mouth, his voice would fail him. So he held her close and kissed the top of her head as she worked at calming herself down from her hysteria. "An outlaw with a moral compass," he spoke softly as he recalled the tales in the Enchanted Forest of Robin Hood, "he would have been good for you."

"I know," she whimpered quietly and let herself stay in his arms with her head on his shoulder. It felt good, it felt familiar. It took awhile but soon her cries settled and only her tears remained with her tortured heart. David was still there. She couldn't say what was on his mind but he hadn't spoken a word. She had missed this. Had missed him.

With an exhausted and quiet laugh she tilted her head back to look at the stars and then began shaking her head as she breathed out, "why is love so hard?"

His gaze was caught by her throat as she swallowed and then he looked back to her face, the unmasked pain and sorrow kicking him square in the chest. "Does it have to be?" He whispered and could have cried at the longing, the yearning to give his heart to her, to kiss the sorrow from those lips when she looked at him with fresh tears in her eyes.

"David," she whispered almost too quiet to hear with the slowest shake of her head, "don't."

"I'm serious," he breathed as he lifted a hand to cradle her face and she closed her eyes and let her head loll tiredly in to his hold.

"As am I," she assured softly but her sense was fading in to nothing with every stroke of his thumb over her skin or her lips. His touch was like a welcome fire to her chilled skin and she truly wanted nothing more than to give in to him but she did not wish to live with the consequences of it.

"Give me a reason."

"You're married."

"Give me a reason that matters," he corrected and she shook her head and tried not to start crying again. Her eyes were pressed shut and he brushed his thumb across her bottom lip which had a sharp cry leaving her lungs. And then she was turning away from him and hurrying to her feet so she could walk away from him. He was on his feet right behind her and hurrying after her, "Regina."

"No," she huffed out on an exhausted and sobbed breath without turning or pausing for him as her tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Don't run from me!" He boomed and tears sprung to his eyes and it only hurt more when she spun around and yelled back at him.

"I am not running from you!" She cried and felt her body back off and slump when she saw her tortured soul mirrored in his eyes. But while her posture gave in to him, her shaky voice did not, "you don't get it, David! I don't want to lose you! I want everything from you! I want to always have you near! I want to fall in to your arms and never leave! I want you to tell me that everything is going to be fine when I know it's not! I want you to touch me! I want to let you kiss my pain away! I want-!" Her voice gave out and a sob replaced it and she covered her mouth with both hands as she cried helplessly and shrank away.

"Then why are you fighting me?" He asked softly, his voice hurt and confused and desperate for an answer. She could only shake her head and cry. So he dared to step toward her and when his hands gently touched her shoulders she shrugged out of the contact and quickly stepped away.

"Don't!"

"Regina, please!" He cried out as he stepped closer again.

"I don't want to hurt you!"

"You are not hurting me!"

"I am dangerous! I am toxic!"

"Regina you are not-"

"Everyone important to me dies! Everybody has dead people, I know that! But there is not a single person here today that I have ever given a damn about! My entire family is dead! Any man I have ever cared for is dead! And my son is gone! With my own eyes I have watched all of them leave me!" She screamed as her tears blurred her vision, "you don't get it David! I don't want you too close because I am afraid I will lose you too and I wouldn't be able to handle that!"

"Regina," he breathed as his shoulder dropped and his first tears fell. What was he supposed to say to that. Was that really the world she lived in? Had she really fallen so low as to think no one could breathe for her? That no one's heart beat for her? That no one could live for her? That she was a poison to anything she touched. She merely stood there. Small and crying in the dark with her eyes on the wooden deck beneath her feet with only the moon and the light of the house to see by.

"We are sad, David. We are hurting," she reasoned quietly and kept her eyes down and cocked her head for a moment, "we are lonely...that doesn't mean we bed one another."

"That is not what I feel for you," he argued sharply but quietly and she kept her eyes down but her expression grew all the more pained.

"Go home, David," she whispered and then choked on her last words, "and please don't come back."