I've been trying to cope and recover from Lily all week, but somehow this is the first fluffy piece of joy that I think is worth publishing. Even at that, there's no plot here, just musings and head canons. Sorry about that. My new lifestyle is figuring out how Robin and Regina are going to bounce back from this mess and also finding nature-related baby names. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters portrayed below.
A Chaos of Our Own
The thing about chaos, is that while it disturbs us, it too, forces our hearts to roar in a way we secretly find magnificent.
- Christopher Poindexter
Regina eased herself down among the sheets. No: the bed was not made, she just couldn't be bothered about that particular point at the moment. Robin crumbled next to her a few minutes later, when she'd started to consider reaching her phone and doing some work (there went that idea; the crease of his elbow was much more appealing). Their exhaustion somehow pooled together and the amount of energy in the room plummeted as their heartbeats synchronised.
"I think Faye's settled down," he said. He sounded exhausted.
"Good," she said closing her eyes. "Today was one of her worst days in a while."
"She doesn't know why she gets so angry," Robin said, pained. "She gets frustrated and flustered and confused when she tries to say, or if she even tries to understand it."
Regina sat up to look at him, to properly measure how upset he was. Faye had always been a beautiful child, but a touchy subject. For starters, she'd been the cause of a six month game of cat and mouse during which everybody was looking for Zelena, but nobody would actually touch her even if she was spotted. Then they'd found Zelena, had dealt with her properly and had realised with horror that she'd hid the baby. It was a horrible frenzy characterised by no eating, no sleeping and a particularly painful moment where Robin had begged Rumpelstiltskin, if the bastard wouldn't tell him where the child was, to tell him if it was a girl or a boy. The awkwardness of her birth had melted away when they'd finally found her in Boston a month later. Regina had spent nights in the hospital pacing worriedly to kill time without even thinking twice, and had dug out Henry's old crib and installed it in a spare room before Robin even asked. She'd imposed herself in the picture and had stomped out the awkwardness before it burned any brighter. Fate wasn't anybody's fault, she'd decided, especially not a child, especially not hers, especially not Robin's. Nobody was to pay for a child, after all. But despite how much Regina could love her and treasure her, Faye would always be just Robin's in a way.
"At least we know what it is. She's in Snow's class," Regina said. "It means she's in good hands."
She lied down again and he rested his chin on the top of her head.
"Roland's fever went down and he's sleeping right now," she said. "Not well enough to go to school tomorrow, but maybe we can get some food in him. Oh, but now Ash is coughing."
"So we could be in for round two of whatever this flu is." Robin said.
"And three," Regina said. "Don't try to fool yourself, if Ash gets it, Sawyer will too. I think they look at each other and catch each other's germs."
Robin whistled admiringly.
"What's that potion you make for the coughing?"
"I don't make it, I buy it. It's cough syrup." Regina said.
"I think we should get more," Robin said.
"Noted," Regina said.
"What about the other three?" Robin asked. "How are they?"
The Merry Men, though they'd nearly been annexed into pleasant Storybrooke society, were always the first to be called when matters of hunting, scouting or tracking sprung up. It was the first time Robin had been home in three days and he'd looked so exhausted, Regina had barely expected him to manage his way through dinner, much less wrestle anyone into bed.
"Henry's been skipping class. There's something about graduating in a month that makes him feel immortal," Regina said. "He's at Emma's right now, but I told her to give it to him."
"Poor bastard, if only he hadn't gotten caught," Robin said.
Regina swatted his leg.
"Speaking of juvenile delinquency, Jackson stole glitter glue from preschool to make Sawyer a birthday card," Regina said. "So that's what he inherited from you. I walked him back to school to make him apologise. Lucy's doing alright. She changed her bedroom walls again so they're green now, still not sure if it was an accident or not."
"So that's what she inherited from you," Robin said.
"At least Lucy's was an educational experience. It taught her a new word," Regina defended.
"Green?" Robin said.
"Magic," Regina said.
There was way more magic in the house than a two year old fussing about interior decorating.
Regina was pretty sure that there wasn't a single point in her life where the idea of a big family wouldn't have made everyone around her burst into hysterical tears. Maybe tears of terror, once upon a time in the Evil Queen era, but tears of laughter would have been common from when she was a young girl to her life in Storybrooke even. She'd always been graceful and respectable, but other than that she'd always been scrappy wife material and a bit too bold for the Enchanted Forest's old fashioned ways. Henry had always seemed like a plentiful exaggeration to those around her. A bigger family just seemed like a hilarious prospect- what, would Regina trade in her blazers and her heals and her sharp lipstick for strollers and sneakers and diaper bags?
It'd stopped seeming funny sometime around Faye's arrival when Regina had taken in hand a fussy, colicky, potentially dangerous child who wasn't even hers while bearing teeth at anyone who pointed out the later. When Sawyer and Ash had been rescued from Bluebeard's manor (long store) and adopted as babies, it had stopped being an option but rather a reality. Jackson had established that the Mills-of Loxley family was going to be some kind of an army. Lucy shut up everyone who had anything to say about it via cornflower blue eyes and wide, toothless smiles. Roland and Henry were still in the portrait of course, which had crowded the house and spawned a relocation to an airier home closer to the school, farther from the sheriff's office, and easily accessible to the Merry Men (who could do just about anything aside from surviving without Robin Hood).
The answer was yes. And Regina would trade it all for arts and crafts and soccer mom jeans and algebra tutouring and anything else Henry, Roland, Faye, Ash, Sawyer, Jackson or Lucy may ever need from her.
(This of course did not mean that the blazers, skirts and silk blouses weren't neatly hanging in the closet because Regina could, would and should still look damn good every now and then when vomiting toddlers were not at the top of her priority list. She was the Evil Queen gone good. What could she not do? Somehow she hadn't expected that ability to roar and trample all opponents to be of any use in the children's department, but when there were seven of them running around absolutely nothing could hurt.)
Regina wasn't quite sure how everything had spun out of control so fast either. Everything from the daily parade of going to school, to the even more confusing and hateful calendar, or the dreaded vegetable-related negotiations at dinner was a far cry from royalty. If not royalty, than at least the power and precision and the clean-cut mayor's office she'd practically been living in.
She was nearly certain –without knowing how or why, or wanting to justify her sudden humanisation to the entire world- that she liked this better.
Robin mumbled into the pillow.
"Honey I can't hear you," Regina said staring at the ceiling.
"Tomorrow is Tuesday?" Robin asked.
"It's a Wednesday," Regina said.
"So that means Roland's math test is the day after, Faye has her appointment with Hopper, the twins have a field trip and Lucy has the afternoon off from daycare," he summed up.
"Wow. I am truly impressed considering you wandered out of the woods approximatively six hours ago."
"I pay attention," Robin said falling back onto his pillows.
"Only sometimes," Regina said. She kissed his nose. "You forgot that it's your turn to cook dinner."
"No I didn't," Robin said. "I found ten dollars on the ground today. I believe it's a sign that pizza is in order."
Pizza: his favourite thing about the twenty first century in the Land Without Magic. Not the heating, not the plumbing, not the running water; Italian cuisine.
"You better hope that it was on the ground," Regina mumbled. "This week's special twist is that Lucy doesn't have daycare in the morning either and I'm in court all day."
"For the abuse charges against the Little Match Girl's father?" Robin said.
"Her name is Sofie," Regina said. "And yes, that's the case. The goal is to make him cry in court."
"That's my girl," Robin said. "Is the little- I mean Sofie, is Sofie going to be there?"
"She's testifying," Regina said carefully. "If I can't get him any other way. Emma and Hook are staying though."
"Is she still staying with them?"
"Yes," Regina said. "I think they're looking to make her adoption permanent."
"That's good," Robin said. "I don't think we'd have room for another."
"Oh hush," Regina said smiling. "Seriously, will you be able to survive Wednesday alone?"
"Not a problem," Robin said. "Will you be able to survive court? Or should I say, will you be able to make sure the defendant survives?"
"He'll get what's coming to him," Regina said.
"That's the kind of dubious answer that scares the shit out of me," Robin said. "You'll do brilliant."
"I hope," Regina said.
"If you get the proper sleep," Robin said.
"Sleep is the last thing on my mind," Regina said.
"What happened to being exhausted?" Robin asked. Regina could nearly hear the smile in his voice.
"I can't be tired with all of this," Regina said flipping to her side. "These are just children. Appointments. Practises and classes and workshops."
"Nothing there but pure chaos," Robin said.
"Admittedly," she said. "But it's a chaos of our own."
For once. Nothing as horrible as curses and six-leaf clovers and imposters and destiny and magical boundaries and intercepting marriages and corruption. Not even a single flying monkey on the horizon. Despite the chaos, the complications, the scheduling, the mismatched gene pool, the puzzle-like aspect of every single day, the weight of responsability, the energy spent exhausting two year olds, the car seat fumbling, the wild personality splits within the family, the unpredictability of the average toddler... this was relaxing. This was sacred and Regina would protect the ongoing fatigue, the occasional frustration and the constant vigilance with her life. See: this wasn't a competition between the fates to see who could ruin them more anymore. It was a mix of what they did best, bringing out the outlaw in Robin and the audaciousness of the Evil Queen, putting those skills and those energies in a good place for a good reason. It was their destiny in their hands, and what they'd managed to make of that.
"That it is," Robin said, smiling, leaning over Regina so that his hair nearly flopped over his eyes and all she could see was the devonnaire grin and the crinkles by his eyes. "A beautiful chaos."
"The best," Regina said.
Robin leaned down and kissed her. Regina looped her arms around his neck. In this moment she saw the slick, trickster's twinkle in his eyes that threw them back to the Enchanted Forest where he was a thief (and she didn't know, but to him she looked regal enough to be the Queen of everything and anything).
"It's a good thing we're very good at chaos," she said quietly.