Chapter Eleven

Shouldn't be good in goodbye

"If it wasn't so worth it, this wouldn't be, the bad before the worst and the storm before the storm…there shouldn't be good in goodbye"

He is a coward.

He knows it too. And really, despite everything that Archie has said about him pushing himself too much at the background and looking down on himself, he really doesn't think that he deserves Regina.

"She deserves something more than just this, mate," Killian tells him over the phone when he'd called to ask how everything is in New York…mainly, how Regina is. "She's been over by the bar asking how you are and I can't keep lying to her, telling her I haven't heard from you when the truth is you've been a bloody coward to tell her what is going on."

He sighs. What exactly is going on?

"I don't even know what it is, myself," he defends, lamely, and he knows that Killian is right, but he is a coward, and he can't bear to hear the hurt that he knows she feels right now, all because of him.

"Oh you don't, do you?" Killian asks, voice dripping with sarcasm, "let me spell it out for you then, mate. You are so afraid to hurt her that you can't even call her to say that you need more time and more space, but you're too bloody selfish you know that that would mean she can move on now, from you, so you only end up hurting her more."

Killian is right. He is being selfish.

"I love her," Robin says, voice low but words true. He's never loved anyone more than he loves Regina. That much, he isn't a coward to admit.

"Then why the bloody fuck are you hurting her this way?" Killian asks incredulously, as though he can't comprehend why this is even happening. Maybe, there really is no explanation to it.

"I don't want to," Robin tells him, because it is the truth, he doesn't really want to hurt Regina this way. "I just can't…I can't pick up the phone and go, Hey, Regina, I'm not really sure I deserve you anymore, not even sure what the fuck I'm doing with my life. I know I said I was trying to fix it, but so far, I'm all out of luck in that department, I need you, I need you like the very air I breathe, but I'm so fucked up I don't want to drag you into this."

He is panting by the time he finishes, and there is a ringing in his ear. His head is pounding and he is about to have a headache, and it's barely even ten in the morning.

"You should be telling her this, man, not me," Killian says with a hint of resignation in his voice. He sighs. "She deserves more than just the cold treatment from you."

That is true, Robin decides, but where to start?

…

His phone rings and rings, and he knows exactly who it is. He wants to pick it up, wants to just talk to her, tell her how much he loves her and he's coming back, coming home to her. but Archie's words ring in his ears, how he needs to learn to love himself first before he could offer himself, because he's broken, broken by the many things that has happened in his life. Regina might have healed him with her love, but he still hasn't forgiven himself fully for the death of his late wife, and that, according to Hopper, had been the reason why he'd been all too willing to push himself aside. And that now, he blames himself for the demise of his relationship with Regina, and he had disappointed her so much. Archie says that he has become his worst bully, and until he could fix himself, heal his broken parts, then he could not love anyone without hurting himself in the process.

How true could that be, he asks, when he is fully, irrevocably, truly in love with Regina Mills?

He doesn't even know. And he doesn't much have time to ponder when his phone beeps and his voice mail kicks in.

It is her.

"Hi," she says softly and she sounds tired, sounds stressed, "it's me again, Regina. I…I don't know why you suddenly just stopped talking to me all together. I don't even know anymore how we got to this point, where we went wrong. Perhaps it was when you lost hope, perhaps when I stopped believing we can make it right. Maybe you've found someone else."

Her voice quivers as she says it, and he knows how much that hurts her.

"Maybe you're just busy and I'm just getting ahead of myself. Maybe I'm not, and you've finally just found your happiness without me. I don't really know anymore."

She pauses as her breath hitches, her voice cracking with tears.

"But I do know that whatever happened between us, I could never regret it. Not any of it, and I would never trade all those years for anything. There might be a time that I wished I hadn't pushed you away, but maybe it was for the best, if it means that you're getting better, then I…I could never regret that." She doesn't know how long she has until she has to finish, so she swallows and closes her eyes. "I just want you to know that you are and you always will be the best thing that has ever happened to me. The pat six years will always be the best years of my life…and I…I love you, Robin. I always will."

Robin feels his heart break inside of his chest. He doesn't know what to do.

Maybe, Killian is right, maybe he is selfish, maybe that is why he cannot bring himself to say goodbye to her, knowing she would and could move on with somebody else and he won't be able to handle it. Maybe Dr Hopper is right, too, he is too broken to ever love her without bringing pain to the both of them.

Maybe, his heart is right, he needs her, and he won't ever be complete without her, and this, all of these, is just torture he's putting them both through.

Maybe he's just using all of these as an excuse to not call her and do the right thing and set her free, because he's a coward.

Shaking his head, he picks up the phone and dials her number. He knows what to say, he'll apologize, he'll beg for her forgiveness, explain to her why he's been doing what he has been doing, and maybe she'll understand. He'll promise not to do it again, and he'll keep it too. He'll do everything to keep her in his life, because that is exactly what he needs, to be with her, to just love her the way he always has, true, honest, and endlessly.

Maybe there is hope for them yet.

Or maybe, he should explain, and let her go, say goodbye because it is the right thing to do.

He brings the phone closer to his ear, listening as it rings, before he puts it down again, ending the call before it has even started.

He couldn't do it, he could not say goodbye to her

He really is a coward, after all.

A/N: I'd apologize but...