Outlaw Queen Shorts

A Ghost Slipped Through My Hands

Authors Note:
This is quite angsty - it's an AU in which Regina is a ghost and Robin attempts to help her get 'home'.

Her hair was too silky to be real. Too in-between the colours of black and brown to be of his world. It sent tingles through his fingers when he carded the strands, standing close enough that he could smell the faint aromas of vanilla clinging to the air around her. She drew elegant lines with her body; a wisp of ethereal blue light trailing behind the paths her hands carved out before her.

"I want to go home." She'd say, her voice liquefying the words into molten rock that suffocated him with grief when he saw the sadness in her eyes. She was trapped. Lost in a world she had only half-belonged to for centuries.

"I know." His gentle touches and soothing words couldn't lift the burden she shouldered every day completely, but there was a peacefulness to her when he was there, an invisible string that tugged her back to him every time the sun arose and filled his small apartment with watery orange and pink light. He didn't know why she found comfort in him, when he had nothing to offer her except a place in his heart. But for her – for now – it seemed enough.

He clung to the scraps of affection she showed him like it was gold dust, like if he let her affinity go to waste she'd never give him any more.

"Please. Help me get home." His efforts were never enough. All he wanted was for her to stay, but it was an impossible ask – her life didn't belong here anymore. No matter how far he'd fallen for her, it was selfish to want her to stay.

And so he searched.

The shadows under his eyes grew darker with every late night he spent scouring libraries, articles, anything he could get his hands on that had an ounce of believability about it. He could feel her presence with him always, the light pressure of a hand over his shoulder, the brush of her cheek against his as she gazed at whatever he was looking at. But she would never materialize - not unless it was just them in his apartment - when they would sit for hours talking about everything and nothing.

Maybe he was selfish. Maybe he saw a glimmer of something in her eyes that made him stop trying as hard to find a way to send her home. He wanted this to be her home. With him. Every day that passed he became more enraptured with her, increasingly torn between what he thought was the right thing to do. They sat side by side on his living room carpet, a book on souls opened between them when he turned to her, breathing shallow, and cupped her cheek. He ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip, dragging the delicate skin and feeling the warm exhale of air she let out which should have been impossible.

He wasn't thinking about that though. He was thinking about how soft her lips would be within his, and so he leaned forwards, capturing her mouth with his own and lazily, languidly, moving his tongue over hers. She tasted like summer air, warm and comforting as she kissed him back. He was surprised at how full, how alive, her lips felt. He knew then he was just as lost, if not more than, her.

It was a windy night when he stumbled across the article. Written by a Scottish man – Gold, his name was – and almost too good to be true. A way to send her home printed in black and white before them. Her eyes seemed to flicker. She didn't know what to feel. It was only now they'd found a way that she was unsure if she still wanted to leave.

"This is your way home." He told her, hand reaching forward to grasp hers as he fought back tears and swallowed the lump in his throat. "We can send you home."

There was a stillness to the air that night as both of them lay awake in his bed, her blue glow filling the room with just enough light that he could make out the furrow in her brow. He kissed her forehead, promising her he'd see her again one day and whispering across to her in the dark that she needed to find home.

"What if this is home?" She asked, but her skin was already becoming more transparent, harder for him to grasp.

"It can't be," He said, and watched as a tear rolled down her fading cheek. The spell was already taking effect.

"Robin," She sighed, holding his hand against her face to soak up the last of the human warmth she'd ever feel on this earth. "Thank you."

Her hair was too silky to be real. He knew that, and he knew they could never be together. But that didn't stop him falling for her, the mysterious ghost who crept into his life like ivy up the wall of a house: slowly, ever so slowly, until one day there was no longer any brick left on show, just the memory of it once being there.

She faded into the night, his ghost, taking her ethereal blue light and the elegant lines of her body with her, onto a better place, to where he would one day join her again. Where he would lace his fingers with hers and finally, finally, they could both be home.