"If you stand closer to the edge, you can hear the waves better, like the ocean. But, if you close your eyes, they look the same."
Regina's calm voice breaks the silence of the night, reaching across the night sky to the girl looking out over the ravine. The interruption is met with sudden movement as her audience whirls around. Eyes burning with fury, she meets the dark haired women's comment with vitriol fueled by the passion of a scorned lover.
"You." Her voice breaks before she makes it any further. "You…"
"Stop."
Regina raises her hand now in an attempt to silence the distraught girl. While this motion once stirred fear, it now conveys a less threatening notion. Instead of wanting to hurt her, she is working toward a more comforting demeanor. She has spent enough time raising Henry to know that sometimes it is better to coax someone down rather than antagonize them. This applies here.
"Go away." The brunette rejects her presence. "I don't want you here."
"Belle…" Regina's voice catches as she wraps her mouth around the girl's name. It is not foreign to her, as the two have a complicated history, but it is different this time. Over her tongue, the soft sounds take on a new life.
"I hate you." Belle spits this, crossing her arms angrily. "Don't you know that I hate you? You're a villain. Just like him."
"Belle…" She voices the name once again, this time not enjoying the cadence of it. Now, she feels a wave of something less delectable. She hates that she is being compared to the Dark One. Though she knows that the pain is fresh in Belle's mind after banishing her husband only a week before, Regina has a sensation of bitter distress at this characterization. She is nothing like him anymore. Belle needs to know that.
"You're all the same."
"No." Regina looks away, taken by how beautiful the soft blue of her eyes are in the dim light coming from the headlights of her car. "I'm not like him… not anymore."
"You can't prove that."
"Let me try."
Silence falls between them. The truth behind Regina's words is a heavy sentiment. Though the once-Evil Queen had not truly thought before she spoke, the meaning rings out loudly.
"I mean…" Regina tries to backtrack now in an attempt to save face in light of what she has admitted. "I mean… "
"I know what you mean." Belle speaks quietly in a voice that is barely more audible than a whisper.
"No." Regina shakes her head, regaining the poise befitting her station. "No, you don't."
As she replies, the dark haired woman glances off into the distance, working to focus on anything but the woman in front of her.
What happens next sets everything afire in Regina's chest. Belle moves effortlessly across the distance between them and their lips meet before their minds.
"What?" Regina pulls back now. "What was that?"
"I don't know." Belle is breathless, caught up in the moment. "I don't know what came over me."
"I wouldn't mind if we tried that again though."
"Of course." Belle nods earnestly. "For research, right?"
"Always."