Thank you for all your wonderful reviews! You are all so amazing. I know I haven't been able to reply to all the reviews, and I'm sorry but I hope you like this one. I made a promise to write angst solely today so check my other oneshot for #AngstDay2k15 :)

We're turning a new leaf :) so here we go! :) Enjoy!

This is for Geli who I've tortured so much so far, love you bub! :)

Chapter Seven

How am I supposed to live without you?

"Didn't come here to break down, it's just a dream of mine is coming to an end"

Robin's mind is made up.

He needs to do this, he knows he does. If he even has a shot at getting her back, then he needs to get his shit together and try to pick up the pieces of himself he hadn't realized he's lost. She is right, he supposes, he's not the man he was once, and it's time he tries to look for that man and reconcile who he is now to who he used to be.

After all, he can't just keep dreaming of having her in his arms like he had two weeks ago after Mary Margaret and David's party. He's starting to lose his mind he thinks, if he smells her everywhere, even in his sheets when he wakes up without her, his arms bare and empty.

She won't have come home with him that night. There had been no traces of her in the morning after all. He must have dreamt that—and now it's time for that to become reality. He needs to make that his reality once more.

He doesn't really know anymore how he's supposed to live without her.

So he's made up his mind: he's going back to England for awhile, away from everything that is breaking him, perhaps study for a while again so he could get a decent job, get some help with his drinking problem, and then come back to New York clean and sober, ready to woo Regina (that is if she hasn't found someone else by then, but that thought depresses him, so he curbs that out of his mind).

But first, he needs to tell her…needs to say goodbye, if he ever learns how to do that, let her know how much he loves her, let her know that he's doing this not only for himself but for her as well, because she deserves more than just what he's become.

He puts it off, at first, for a few days. He can't face her, cannot say goodbye to her once more. He tries to prepare himself for the pain, but really, there is no way to prepare for this. He's going to lose her, one way or the other, has actually lost her a long time ago, and he can't…saying goodbye makes it feel more final, more real.

After three days of telling himself he's going to do it, he finally does it, dragging his feet to Regina's new apartment, on a beautiful Saturday morning. He is meant to leave the next day, and he hadn't really meant to leave it too late, but he couldn't bring himself to do it

He knocks on the door gently, mindful of the fact that the last time he's been here, he'd make a colossal idiot of himself. The door opens and reveals a tired looking Regina, still dressed in her pajamas. She looks up at him in surprise, and then in apprehension.

"Hi," he says, feeling lame as he fidgets and shuffles his feet awkwardly.

"Robin," she breathes out, surprise coloring her voice. She is still looking at him, and he doesn't really know what to do or say. "What are you doing here?"

"Hi, Regina," he says again, wanting nothing more now than for the ground to swallow him whole. "My mind told me I was meant to stay away, but my heart took me here."

"Robin," she utters in a soft voice, looking like this is torture for her, and perhaps it is, because it is for him too. She looks at him with furrowed brows, her lips pursing. She sidesteps and lets him in—far better to have this out without making a scene outside her new apartment. "You can't keep doing this. I know it hurts, it hurts me too, but we can't keep doing this to each other," she adds once they're both inside. Her voice is tinted with a thinly-veiled desperation and god, how he wants to put her out of her misery. "It's torture."

"I'm sorry," he says as he watches her stand a few feet away from him. His heart aches to hold her, to never let go, but she's right, he needs to fix himself first. "I know you asked me to stay away, I know I've screwed up. And everyday I'm living to regret everything that I've done to drive you away from my life." He pauses as he breathes and tries to suppress his tears from falling. "I try everyday to stay as far away from you as I possibly could." He walks over to her, bridging the physical distance between them—the emotional distance is enough.

"Then what are you doing here?" she asks, looking at him, puzzled.

He cups her face in his hands and leans in to steal her lips in a kiss but not before he mumbles, "Today is not one of those days," against her lips.

When they pull away from each other, they are both breathing heavily, panting. Her eyes are closed as his forehead falls against hers, his breath shallow and quick, hitting her face at every exhale. She is clinging to him, arms around his neck whilst his loops around her waist.

"I love you," he whispers against her skin, unable to stop the words from spilling from his lips. "I love you so much that I don't know how to be whole without you. But I know you deserve so much more than me." He pauses as he pulls away from her, stepping back as he does the thing that he never though he's ever going to have to do. "I never meant to hurt you, Regina. I'd sooner rip my own heart from my chest than do that."

She looks at him, tears gathering in her eyes as she clenches her fists at her side. She doesn't say anything, only looks at him, through half-hooded eyes. They hold so much pain and it hurts him so much that he's responsible for them.

He never thought he'd ever have to live without her, but here they are now.

"I'm here to tell you that I'm setting you free," he says in a whisper as the gut-wrenching pain fills him and spreads to his very soul. He can't believe he's doing this, but he is. "I'm letting you go. We were happy once, and I took that away from us, and while I might never be happy again without you…I want you to find that happiness, and love again."

She stands before him frozen, unable to so much as move. Her lips are parted, in shock, in pain, he can't tell, but the tears finally fall from her eyes, and down her cheek. She bites her lower lip now, as he reaches out to wipe her tears from her cheeks with the pads of his thumb.

"I want you to be happy, even if it's not with me," he says finally before stepping in close to her once more and kisses her lips, one last time, before he goes, even as he wonders how he's supposed to live without her now. "I'll always love you, Regina, even if it has to be from afar."

She lifts her eyes to look at him, disbelief clearly written on them. "Robin," she whispers, her voice broken.

He is just as broken.

"This is goodbye," he says before he lets her go and turns away from her, walking out of the door and leaving her behind, with his heart right there at her feet.

…

Robin glances around the airport, his heart thundering fast and hard. He's not waiting for her, no, or at least that's what he tells himself. She isn't coming, he knows that, doesn't even know he's leaving today. He hasn't told her when he's said goodbye to her the day before, hadn't told her that he's leaving or that he's coming back. If he is, then he is, and whatever he might come back to—well, he'll just have to face it, now won't he?

"You should have told her," John says as he stands beside Robin. He looks at his friend sadly. "She would have been here."

Robin shakes his head—not entirely sure she would be, but if she is, if she would then: "I don't want to burden her with it," he says. "She doesn't have to feel like she needs to be here. We've broken up, mate. I need to accept that."

"Still," John insists, but says no further, as Robin just clamps his mouth shut and crosses his arms against his chest defensively.

It hurts too much already.

Overhead, they hear the announcement for Robin's flight, the gates are open, they are boarding. Robin turns to his friends gathered around him: Killian, David, Will and John, they've always had his back, and he knows he'll miss them so.

One by one, they pull him in for a brotherly hug, extracting a promise for him to come back, one that he dodges, because really, after what he'd pulled yesterday, it doesn't seem likely now. He wants to be with Regina and is actually doing this partially for her, but he's let her go, hasn't he?

"I don't deserve to have a proper goodbye?" he hears her voice say as he pulls away from John, who'd crushed him a tight bear hug.

Robin turns and finds his love looking at him furiously, tears falling down her cheeks as she stands there, barely a feet away, dressed in her jeans and white t-shirt, wearing her boots and black coat. Her eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, and there are dark circles under her eyes, her hair is in perfect disarray, but she looks so beautiful to him, so breathtaking.

"Regina," he breathes out in surprise. Who told her?

"I had to hear from Mary Margaret that you're leaving?" she asks as she strides purposefully over to stand in front of him. From behind them, David groans—MM can never keep a secret. She looks him dead in the eye. "You don't have the balls to tell me that you're leaving when you come to my apartment and tell me you're setting me free?"

She is angry and getting even more by the second.

He looks at her hopelessly. "I'm sorry, Regina," he tries to explain, but she cuts him off.

"You couldn't have told me?!" she asks again, her finger now jabbing at his chest as she cries in front of him. "Then go! Leave me. Leave for England and don't ever come back."

He takes her hand in his and tilts her chin so their eyes meet. "I'm doing this for you," he says, finally able to say what he should have yesterday, "because I love you and I want to be the man you fell in love with. I want to be whole again so I could offer you more than what I have given you the past few months. You deserve as much."

She throws her arms around him and sobs against his chest. "You can't do it here? With me? Together?" she asks desperately. "If you want us back together, if that is what would take to get you to stay, then we're together again, we've never broken up."

"Love,' he begins as he pulls away just enough to look at her face. "I have every intention of winning you back, I just need to get myself together. To heal," he explains.

She shakes her head. "Then do it here," she asks. "Why do you have to be on the other side of the world?"

"Because I can't heal if I'm here, and neither can you," he says softly, knowing that no matter how much it hurts to be apart, he needs to do this for them. "We need the time apart, you're right about that but we won't have it if we live barely five miles away from each other."

"Robin," she whispers. "Please stay." She clutches his shirt in her hands tightly, like she never wants him to go.

"Regina," he breathes out as they hear the announcement overhead again, calling for the passengers of Robin's flight. He wraps his arms around her waist tightly, leaning down to kiss her again, softly, gently, passionately, pouring all the feelings he couldn't put to words. "I—," he tries to say but she cuts him off with a kiss.

"I know," she whispers back as she clings to him once more. "Hurry back to me."

He nods, lets his forehead fall against hers. "You know I will," he promises, holding her close and inhaling her scent as if this is to be the last time. "Wait for me. I'll come back to you. And then we can start again and make all the dreams we've had come true." She nods at this. He smiles and continues, his heart hopeful. "Don't fall in love while I'm gone."

She chuckles through her tears as she clings to him more. "Silly," she says even as she chokes from her tears. "I'll always choose you."

And so will he.

A/N: there, that wasn't so bad, was it? :)