My current song addiction is Over You by Ingrid Michaelson, and thetruthbetween prompted me some EC angst, and I'll leave the prompt at the bottom, so as not to give away the story. Listen to the song if you have a chance, it's beautiful and you recognize some of the lyrics in their dialogue. That said, I own nothing!
David asked Ruby to watch Henry for a couple of hours, he told her he needed to see Gold and Regina about making sure the portal was ready for Snow and Emma to come through. Heading to Regina's, David let himself in and headed to her study. He didn't knock, he hadn't for several days.
"Regina?" he called out, pushing the door open to the study. She looked up at him with pain in her chocolate eyes, pain that he didn't want to see.
"David," she whispered. Regina hadn't expected him to come over. "Well, tomorrow you get your family back."
"You and Henry are my family, too."
"You say that now. But when Snow is back, and the daughter that you've missed for 28 years… you'll forget that I exist."
"That's not even possible. You're impossible to forget."
"We'll see," Regina answered, causing David to walk to her and pull her up out of her chair. When she was standing in front of him, flat on her bare feet and several inches shorter, David cradled her face in his hands.
"I've fallen so hard for you, I can't imagine going back to not being with you."
"But you've loved Snow for so long, and I know you aren't saying it, but you can't imagine your life without her, either. I can't stand here and tell you to choose, because that's cruel… but, I also can't accept half of you."
"Shh," he hushed, bringing his mouth to hers in a soft kiss. When the kiss escalated, and clothes were being torn from their bodies, Regina didn't stop it, because she believed this would be their last night together and she just wanted to feel him, to feel his love. David didn't stop it because he didn't know what he would do. He honestly had no idea if he would choose Snow or Regina, because picking between his True Love and a woman who he had discovered layers upon layers of a beautiful person under a hard shell… it was an impossible choice.
After David made love to her, which it was, it was slow, passionate, sweet; it was filled with all of the things he wanted to convey through words, but couldn't, he held her. They laid on the couch, wrapped in each other's arms until Ruby called David to ask when he was picking Henry up and how his tasks were going.
When David left, Regina crawled into her bed feeling worse than she had in years. She knew it wouldn't last, even when she let it start. They had spent nearly the entire time Snow and Emma were gone being together. Neither could really say who started it, but it had escalated and they had gotten attached, even though it had started as sex, needing to be touched and to feel another beating heart against their own. And now Regina couldn't' stop thinking that by this time the next day, she would be alone in her bed, again, crying and with no hope of David or Henry being in her life. David would have Snow and his daughter and Henry would have his mother and both his grandparents, and nobody would need nor want her.
David tossed and turned after he and Henry had gotten back to the apartment. Sure, he was excited to get them back the next day, but he also knew that he would have to make a choice and he didn't want to. He wanted them both, but that wasn't fair to anyone. Trying to shut off his thoughts, David shook his head and rolled over onto his side, his eye catching the picture of Emma and Snow that was on the nightstand.
The next day was when they were supposed to come through, but they hadn't, and Regina was relieved. She had comforted Henry, telling him they would see them again, maybe it was just taking a little more time. That was when David came up with the plan to go under the sleeping curse, so he could communicate with Aurora, or Snow. Probably Snow, he thought, knowing she would want to explain why it hadn't worked like Aurora had told Henry it would.
Letting tears slowly fall while she made the sleeping curse, Regina wiped them away when Henry came in to watch her. He didn't know about what David meant to her, or what she hoped she meant to David, she couldn't let him see her tears. She asked Gold and Henry for a minute with David alone, after she had finished brewing the curse. Though Henry had given her a puzzled look, Gold nodded knowingly and led Henry out of the room.
"Are you sure, David?" she asked, hoping he would change his mind.
"I have to do this. We have to get them back."
"What if you don't wake up? What if she isn't there?" Regina choked out, holding his face in her hands. "I'll lose you forever. You won't even be here to be a nuisance to me."
"They'll get back eventually, and Snow will wake me with True Love's Kiss."
"Right."
"Come on, don't be like that, Regina," he whispered, pressing his lips gently to hers in a soft and sweet kiss filled with sorrow. "Regina, even if she is my True Love, I do—"
"No. Don't say those words to me. I care for you, David, and I don't want to hurt when she's back."
"I care for you, too."
"Ok."
David called for the other two to come back in, and he pressed his fingertip to the needle, falling into the deep sleep he hadn't truly been ready for. Regina clutched her chest over her heart, scared he wouldn't be able to ever wake up, and she would lose another person, one of such a small number, that she cared for.
When Regina and Gold tried to block the portal, and Henry caught them, yelling that Regina needed to believe in him, believe that he was right, that his mom and Snow would beat Cora, Regina cried as she took in the death curse. She thought that maybe it would kill her, and cowardly as the thought was, maybe it would be better. She didn't want to hurt when the two people she loved left her for the two people coming through the portal. Once her body was flung back and she fell against the tree, her body crumbled, along with the walls around her heart. She was alive, and Henry was running past her to Emma, calling out 'mom' and it was directed to the blonde woman.
Snow didn't even look at her as she ran with Ruby to go find David and wake him with her kiss. They all followed, packing into Gold's shop. As Regina watched Snow bend to kiss David, and she watched him wake up, she inhaled sharply and felt her heart breaking a little bit more with every second that passed.
"You really have changed," Henry said to her, slamming into her body in a hug that she needed, but leaving her arms far before she was ready for him to. David caught her eye and looked at her with sorrow. She knew what the look meant, she knew that he was gone, he wasn't hers, he never was. And she knew that she needed something else, something to fill the hole that was ripping her to shreds.
When Victor Whale showed up at her door that night, checking on her, as he said it, she felt grateful for the company; letting him in despite the pain they had put each other through. They didn't mention the Daniel thing, Regina didn't want to talk about that pain and Victor didn't want to acknowledge that this woman, who hadn't actually done anything to him in the first place, was also one of the sweetest and most earnest people he'd met, when he first met her, and he had destroyed her. He didn't want to admit to the very large part he had played in making her the Evil Queen she had become.
So when they drank wine and kept each other company, because Victor was one of the only people who had known about her relationship with David, it was a tentative camaraderie, but it was something, and Regina didn't want to be alone. Neither of them had intended for it to escalate, but they had ended up in her bed, sleeping together, fucking the pain away and getting out of bed once it was done, because it wasn't for fun or enjoyment; it was to take away the pain. Pulling her dark cashmere robe on over her short nightgown, Regina walked Victor down to the door, and when she opened the door to send him away, he kissed her gently on the forehead, telling her that if she needed anything, they could be friends, at the very least, and she nodded him off.
It wasn't until he passed David on the sidewalk that she even realized the blonde prince was there. When he got to the door, Regina stepped aside and let him in, shutting the door and leaning against it for support.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him, the strength in her voice was missing and the pain in her heart was returning.
"What was he doing here?" David asked jealously.
"You don't get to know that. You don't get to be jealous, and you most certainly don't get to be hurt. I'm going to bet you fucked Snow until she was too exhausted to stay awake and now she doesn't even know you're gone," Regina spat. David had the decency to look properly admonished, running his hand through his short hair, and then down his face.
"Regina… I'm sorry."
"It's fine. I knew that was how it was going to go, I should have never expected anything else."
"That's not true. I care so much for you, so deeply, I… I don't want to see you with another man."
"And I don't want to see you with Snow, but here we are."
"I didn't mean to hurt you."
"I know, but you did. And you standing here doesn't help. I can't look at you with your puppy face and your stupid flannel shirt. I need to get over you. Maybe if I tell myself enough that I am over you, maybe it will happen."
"I miss your laugh. You haven't laughed in days. There was a short time when you laughed at everything that I said, everything I did."
"There was, yes, but I can't stand here and look at you and not want to kiss you, so you need to leave."
"I'll try, too, so I don't keep hurting you. I'll try to tell myself I'm over you, so I can be happy with Snow again."
"If you aren't happy with her, why stay?"
"Because she woke me with her kiss. She is still my True Love, and that's too hard to leave." Regina nodded. "You didn't wait. You said you'd wait for me to make my choice, but you slept with him."
"You made your choice the moment you looked at me with sorrow-filled puppy dog eyes, David. The moment you pulled away from that kiss with Snow."
"You didn't give me time to make that choice! What if I had been caught up in the moment but then chose you still!"
"You didn't, so it doesn't matter. And to be fair, you slept with her before you came to tell me she was your choice. We can go in circles David, over and over in circles, but it won't matter. You broke my heart, even if it wasn't on purpose, and I hurt you, too. I… I do hope she makes you happy, I want that for you, happiness, I mean."
"And Victor? You like him?"
"Don't be silly. He and I both wanted comfort and that was how we got it from each other."
"And that was all you wanted? To have someone to fuck your pain away?"
"You don't get to judge how I heal, David. I couldn't move on knowing you were the last person who touched me."
"You're right, I'm sorry," he said, pausing a moment. "So what now?"
"You go back to your life and I'll go back to mine. Just... please don't let them forget that I am Henry's mother, too."
"I would never," he promised. Stepping forward, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. Regina reached up, clasping her hands around his wrists, kissing him back softly, conveying how much she could have given him, had he chosen her. Breaking away, David let his tears fall, their faces still so close that their tears mingled, and David brushed his lips against hers once more. "I am so, very sorry, Regina."
"Me too," she whispered, pulling away and opening the door. "I will see you around, I'm sure."
"Goodbye, Regina," he said, dropping his head as he walked away.
She waited until he was in his truck and driving away before she closed the door, leaning against it. And she whispered softly, "Goodbye, David."
Prompt: David and Regina begin to fall in love when Emma and Snow are in the Enchanted forest, and while David intends to leave Snow, when she wakes him with True Loves Kiss, he chooses her instead of Regina.
