Title: Apparitional
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Pairing: Robin/Regina
Rating: PG
Length: 305 words
Content notes: Set during Season Three.
Summary: She wears her past like a spectre.


Robin sees them in these moments, the ghosts in her eyes. When Regina bites her lip, when her breath stutters, when she averts her gaze for just a flicker of a second. They’re all cracks in her armour, tiny and carefully concealed, but Robin knows where to look, and so he sees them.

He knows where to look, because he has ghosts of his own.

Regina’s ghosts are bitter and sharp and dripping blood, the phantoms of her past, the mistakes and the sins. The terror she inflicted on others, rebounding back at her with snarling teeth and twisted fangs.

She hesitates in these moments, just for the briefest seconds, and Robin knows why.

She does not believe she deserves this. Regina does not believe that she could have true love, that happiness could be within her grasp. She hesitates, because she is always waiting, always anticipating the moment it will be snatched from her, the ghosts in her eyes howling for revenge, for her fall, for her misery.

Regina does not believe, but Robin does. He believes in her, absolutely, wholly, completely, with everything he has. She hesitates, and he kisses her with more love, with more devotion, and Regina melts against him with the softest of moans.

Robin cannot save her from the ghosts that haunt her. But he can stand beside her, he can support her, he can remind her over and over that she’s not alone. He can look into her eyes and see past the phantoms, see her for the woman she is now and not the woman she once was.

When the ghosts scream at night, he can hold her close and drown them out with gentle whispers and the steady beat of his heart.

He can’t save her from her past, but he can be Regina’s happy ending.