Outlaw Queen Shorts

Theif in the Night

Missing Year.

The mahogany wood of the table made a perfect distraction from the disgusting ball unfolding before her. She dragged her nail through the grooves, plotting a map from the central platters of food to her own small dish, circling the edge and kicking herself for not being hungry. Granny had gone all out for this buffet and she was missing it.

Leaning forwards, Regina snatched up her fork and stabbed the spiced pheasant breast, sawing a chunk off with her knife before lifting it to her lips and forcing herself to bite into the succulent meat. It tasted delicious, she knew it did, but her stomach still lurched as the herbs and spices covered her tongue and the lump of gamey flesh slid uncomfortably down her throat like a ball of tissue. She set her cutlery back down and slumped against the high wooden back of her chair.

Snow had been worriedly eyeing her for the past however-long (pretty much since they all returned to this stupid Henry-less land) and she was sick of it. All of it. All of them. With their council meetings and their balls, acting as if that witch wasn't on the brink of ending all of their lives. But whatever, Regina would go along with it for no other reason than a simple life and Snow's worrying being put on the backburner.

"Regina—" That was it. Snow's whiney voice would be the death of her.

"What? What do you people want from me?" She snapped, rounding on her step-daughter as her clenched fist made contact with the table, unsettling several platters and sent a silence fizzling through the hall. People stopped eating, the couples in the centre of the room paused their dancing, craning their necks to see the commotion. "Is it not enough that I'm not killing you all? Do you not care about getting home? Because it seems like you've all given up," she spat, pointing an accusatory finger at Snow whose face had paled. David had sat forwards, his hand protectively covering his wife's shoulder and God, she couldn't bear to be in the same room as these people for another minute.

She threw her chair back, the scrape of wood against the concrete floor even louder in the hungry silence. "Have your ball," she said, stalking through the centre of the hall and moving the crowd like she had invisible hands pushing it apart for her, "and keep it the hell away from me."

Blasting the huge carved doors open with two puffs of her magic, Regina swiftly crossed into the corridor and relished the slam as the wood closed again behind her. She swept round the corner and up two flights of stairs to where the music of the ball became muffled enough for her to block out, and The Queen crumbled away. Her anger became a maddening ache in her chest, the tension in her shoulders suddenly running down her arms like candle wax and pooling on the floor under her feet. She slid down the wall to the freezing flagstones, only realising she was crying when the tears dropped from her chin onto the leathery fabric of her trousers. Her fingers swiped viciously under her eyes – crying is for the weak – but she couldn't stop her chest from heaving. With a defeated sob, she brought her knees into her chest and dropped her head back to the wall, desperate to breathe in some of the cool castle air.

"There you are," Shit. She knew that voice. And she didn't want it anywhere near her tear stained cheeks. Turning away, she wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands, but they came away smudged and black – why did the Evil Queen have to wear so much goddamn make up?

Robin stepped around to her front and his gait faltered. He didn't say anything; no scathing remark or sarcastic quip, he just slid down the wall to sit beside her. "I know." He said, "Little John on the fiddle always makes my eyes water as well." She let out a wet laugh at that, small, but she couldn't help it. She looked up at him, and he had the softest of smiles on his lips. It wasn't the type he used when he wanted to get his way, the charming, toothy, dimples-as-deep-as-tunnels grin, or even the little half smirks he reserved solely for flirting his way into her good graces. No, this was something else completely. His eyes were so full of...something – concern? – that she had to drop his gaze.

With a delicate touch, he lifted her hands one at a time from her lap and wiped away the black kohl stains with his thumb. She watched the way her skin ruffled and then smoothed, the dark smudges finally coming away. When he'd finished, he didn't let go of her right hand. He pulled it over towards him and rested the back of her hand on his leg while he traced patterns onto her palm. Regina couldn't help watch, transfixed by the motion and anchored by the tingling his fingers sent across her skin. She pulled her gaze from their joined hands to see him already searching for her eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Yes. "No," she shook her head. The last thing she wanted to do was let him see how broken she really was. Then he'd try to fix her. And she wasn't some object to be glued back together.

His fingers carried on their gentle caressing, and she almost found it hard to concentrate. With his other hand, he placed a finger under her jaw to lift her chin – her skin going hot wherever he touched. She looked up at him, into his ocean blue eyes, "Are you sure?" She could tell if she said no again he wouldn't push. He wouldn't be happy about her bottling everything up, but wouldn't force her to explain. It made her want to tell him everything.

"There's so much to say."

"Then pick the first thing that comes to mind. We can start there."

"I—"

He gave her hand a squeeze then linked his fingers through hers. "Take as long as you need."

Regina took a deep breath. There was so much to say. Too much to say, a lifetimes worth of suffering. But she could start with the best things. The happy moments in her world of darkness. "I have a son. His name is Henry." She glanced across, waiting for the judgement or the surprise, but he just nodded encouragingly at her to continue. "He...isn't here. He had to stay behind when we came back, and it feels like a piece of my heart is missing. We had so many adventures, we did everything together. We'd build snow men at Christmas and sand castles in the summer, watch movies with popcorn and read stories before bed. He was my best friend. Is—" she corrected herself. "He is my best friend."

She was crying again, tears welling and falling down her cheeks in hot streams. Robin lifted his thumb to her face and swiped the salty tracks away. The calluses on his fingers were rough against her smooth skin, sending a shiver through her. "Hey now," the tears were drying now but he was still stroking back and forth along her cheek bone, "we're going to find a way to get you back to Henry." She breathed in shakily – he didn't know that if ever she did return home, Henry wouldn't even know who she was. But she couldn't bring herself to voice that fact out loud. "I will do everything in my power to get you home to your son, Regina." His voice had become merely a whisper, but still too loud in the quiet of the corridor. "I promise."

One of them – or both of them – had moved closer, their bodies pressed together from thigh to shoulder, and Robin's oath washed over her lips. She must look like a panda, with her red puffy eyes and black smudged eye make-up, but he was looking at her like she was the most beautiful person to have walked the earth. His eyes flicked between hers and her mouth as she drew his attention down by licking her bottom lip.

He swallowed hard, both of them drowning in the others gaze and oblivious to the silence around them. They were in a bubble, protected from everything as long as their bodies were touching. Regina inched forwards, and then he was kissing her. His lips full and warm within hers as she rubbed her thumb along the back of his knuckles. He lifted his free hand to cup her face, drawing lines down her jaw and then pushing the loose strands of hair behind her ear. Robin tilted his head, their noses bumping as he changed the angle of the kiss and then he broke away, leaving her reeling for more.

Her eyes were still closed as she chased his lips slightly before blinking back to reality, to the dusty flagstones beneath her. It wasn't a heated kiss, it was gentle and caring but their chests were both rising and falling quicker than before, the intimacy of being in such close proximity snatching the breath from their lungs.

"Tell me something else." He whispered, now even more careful not to shatter their little dome. So she did.

They spoke into the early hours of the morning, each of them taking turns to spill their deepest secrets, their memories good and bad, making room for a soft meeting of lips or a swipe of thumb to catch the falling tears. She never expected to find solace from the company of a thief, but, Regina thought, maybe this time he'd stolen something much too integral to give back unchanged.