I was having a day. When I'm like this, I tend to write awful, angst-ridden stuff. This is something I had in mind for some time, but I was supposed to not write it until I had updated my other stories, and I told myself I wouldn't begin to post it until it was finished... but as I said, I was having a day. And if I don't post it now I probably never will.

This is based on a canon-divergent idea. What if Snow White had witnessed what happened between her beloved father and idolized step-mother behind closed doors? How differently would it shape her, if she was made aware of the abuse and the violence Regina had to endure in that marriage?

This is a dark! Snow fic. And also it will feature romantic Snow Queen, but not before Snow is of age, because this story is already enough twisted as it is.

For the purpose of this story, Regina married Leopold at sixteen, Snow was eleven.

It's not meant to be a one-shot, but I do not know yet when I'll be able to write the rest.

Also, be warned, it's not light, and it deals with spousal abuse and marital rape and all kinds of nasty stuff.

This being said, I hope you'll still enjoy it.

x

Also, nothing belongs to me, yadda yadda.

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This is a nightmare.

There are the pants and the gasps and the grunts and the creaks of the heavy, royal bed, as the rough mating goes on and on, and she doesn't know what is worse, the sounds she hears or the sounds she doesn't hear.

She hears her father but she doesn't hear her stepmother at all. It's like she's not breathing anymore. Like she's not living.

Snow takes a glimpse.

The vision horrifies her so much she feels sick and she is so

so afraid of throwing up

she slams her hand over her mouth.

This is her father.

This. That wrinkled old man with his pale, veiny butt wiggling in the air, pumping erratically between the smooth, creamy, tense legs of his wife. This is her father, the King, her Hero, the great man whose kindness is praised in all the kingdom, the man with the gentle smile and the gentle hands, that man, her father. He looks like the dogs she has seen mating with the bitches in the stable yard when there was nobody around to cover her chaste princess's eyes.

He's an animal.

He looks like the savage soldiers who sometimes do very bad things to women during war, the ones her father, the King, has had executed.

He is a monster.

He is not her father.

This is her stepmother.

She only sees the toes curling in agony on the sheets, the only sign of life of a body that is otherwise limp as a corpse's, legs spread wide, knees falling on the mattress, arms outstreched, motionless, a mane of soft, black hair, glistening with sweat. This is her stepmother. A corpse. A corpse crying under a man who's her father but who's not. Who cannot be.

Now she hears it. The noises she makes. The repressed whines and the soft cries that seem even too loud because there's a smack and he slapped her, his father-not-her-father with the gentle smile and gentle hands, he slapped her because her sounds displeased him.

She wants to cry. She can't.

She'd rather not hear at all. She'd rather see her dead. See him dead.

Her nails dig into her cheeks, lips, flesh, pure, unblemished, white flesh, and she is disgusted with herself, bad, bad daughter (but she is even more disgusted by him, wrong, wrong father), and she cries her first silent tears that only adults shed while she hides again behind the black screen, waiting for it to be over, waiting for it to end, praying for him to finish.

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This is a nightmare.

She had thought she could escape it this time before he went for another one of his countless voyages, as he had been quite ill up until the week of his departure, but of course, he had recovered more quickly than the healers had predicted, fit as a fiddle and of a mind to make love to his beautiful young wife before taking his leave.

A tender goodbye.

Surely, this is what must go through his head when he thinks about it, she hopes, she hopes that at least he doesn't mean to hurt her, that he doesn't do it on purpose (she's not sure whether it's better or worse to think like this). She hopes he is blind to her pain because he genuinely doesn't see it, not because he doesn't care or because he enjoys it. She hopes he is blind to her as she writhes helplessly on the sheets, blind, his beady old eyes filled with romantic lies. But she is not blind and to her eyes, there is no romanticizing this, and she sees it for what it really is: an old lech emptying his balls in the most convenient vessel he could lay hands on. There is no use denying the reality of what's happening to her. She had tried, oh, she had tried, tried to find love, tried to find care, and then, desperatly, a semblance of affection, just a tinge of acknowledgment from his part that he saw her as a human being, as something other than a pretty toy to abuse at his will. But it had all been for naught, and she despises herself for having been so foolish as to try to please him, and for having her heart ache everytime he moaned "Eva" in her ear. But above all, she despises herself for enduring this and not do anything about it, for not fighting hard enough, for being weak. He makes her weak.

Like mother.

Everytime she tries to keep absolutely still and to fly far away, down deep in her mind, the only part of her that hasn't been trapped yet, she flees and she soars towards the meadows and Firefly Hill and dancing blue eyes full of love and adorable mischief –

Then he bites her shoulder and she holds back a yelp as a trickle of blood runs down her arm. Sometimes she can get away. Sometimes she can't.

She avoids focusing too much on the sensations – but she has always felt things very vividly, even as a child (she doesn't think of herself a child anymore, though she has not reached eighteen yet, how about that) and right now she feels it all, the stench of wine exuding from his puffs and pants, his cold and sweaty skin, his wrist joints cracking as he holds her hands above her head, his member that stretches her so uncomfortably, a deformed worm gliding in and out of her, covered in spit because she is never wet enough for this and sometimes he has to help things along or he can't enter at all, but it hurts all the same. She feels it all, too much, for too long, too many years even if it's only been two and she wants to die, oh why can't she just die, just die, just die, she repeats as a mantra at the pace of his thrusts.

She closes her eyes and bites her tongue till blood spills in her mouth, waiting for it to be over, waiting for it to end, praying for him to finish.

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Snow White is ill.

The simpering, egoistic, sniveling brat is ill.

Regina should rejoice.

The marks on her wrists and thighs and the soreness of her core want her to rejoice and thrive on the child's misery.

One has to pay for the sins of the father.

But for some obscure reason that is quite impossible to figure out, Regina is unsettled and unhappy.

And confused.

Because the girl still hasn't called for her, as she always had the few times she had been taken ill (she has an excellent health, one more thing to despise in that fairy-blessed child), always crying out for her and holding on too tight to her hand as she emptied the contents of her stomach in a basin or shook with exhaustion and fever. She asked for stories, she asked for lullabies, she asked for her smile, she asked for having her hair brushed, she asked, asked, asked until Regina wanted nothing more than to wind her hands around the slender white neck and crush her windpipe and see blood leaking from the bright eyes.

But she smiled and she brushed and she told and she sang.

She waited. Biding her time.

Hey day would come. Her day of glory where she would bathe naked in the accursed blood of this wretched family.

But why hasn't Snow White send for her?

At the end of the day, when the word is spreading that the young princess is getting worse, and Regina is pacing with irritation and impatience in her room, she decides to go and see for herself.

Only to witness her suffering. Only to be thrilled by her sorry state.

Certainly not because she is worried.

The princess's bedchamber is dark and damp, the cloying smell of healing mixtures and fever sweat pervading her nostrils in the most unpleasant way. She rushes past a concerned maid (you'll get sick too, your majesty!) and quickly lifts the blinds and opens the window, allowing in some light and air to ease the thick atmosphere of the room.

"Oh, your majesty, you shouldn't, the wind won't do the princess no good, she'll catch her death!"

"She'll most certainly die if she breathes one more minute this putrid air. You may leave, now, Johanna."

"But... the princess..."

"...shall be taken care of. Your services are no longer wanted. I'll handle it from here. Leave."

The dismissal is final. She may be just reaching adulthood, she may have been a queen for not exactly two years, she may hold no real power under this roof, under the careless, unsympathetic thumb of the King, but she knows how to use her voice. She knows how to give the illusion of power, of a great and terrifying power she is not wielding yet, but will be soon. If her giggly, maddening mentor is to be trusted.

Johanna curtsies respectfully, casts a worried glance at Snow, and then retreats, slowly walking backward toward the exit.

Regina doesn't look at her as she leaves. She settles on the bed next to the still form of the child and waits for the door to close.

As soon as it does, she reaches for the matted hair sticking to Snow's forehead, brushing them aside in what could be called a tender manner. The girl is paler than her name. It's a bit concerning. When Regina speaks, her voice takes that soft intonation she can never seem to discard entirely when she's around Snow White. A cruel and persistent reminder of a slowly dying gentleness.

"My dear, you look positively disastrous. Have you been running barefoot through the castle again?"

Slowly, the eyes open as her voice washes over her. Snow blinks a few times, deep lines of confusion etched on her forehead, and she croaks as she mutters with difficulty:

"What are you doing here? I didn't send..."

"I know you didn't send for me. But you can't blame me for caring about you, Snow. I must confess I was a bit wounded by your silence. Did you not want me here?"

She is stroking the young princess's cheeks, a beautiful smile on her lips, one that usually makes the stupid child's face light up with joy while she bleeds and rages inside, but tonight that subtle weapon of hers fail. Snow is looking at her with an increased worry and something she can't quite define, and she tears her eyes away as she whispers:

"I was hoping you wouldn't come. Really, I was..."

It is Regina's turn to frown at this most unusual behavior. There hasn't been a day in the life of Snow White since she had met Regina where she hadn't wanted her. Something must be terribly wrong.

"My dear, I'm afraid I don't understand..."

"I saw."

Even before she can figure out what the child means, even before she realizes the horror of that statement, Regina feels something dark and cold and heavy settle on her heart at Snow's uncharacteristic gravity. The child is looking at her again, and her eyes are so huge in that sickly face, so troubled and blurry with feverish tears, it sends shivers of dread down her back and in her stomach.

"What did you see?"

There is no softness in her voice anymore. There is an edge, a razor sharp edge, cutting, deadly, smooth, but it ends on a knife point. Snow trembles, and Regina doesn't know if it is the illness or the fear, and her voice is shaking too as she admits in a petrified whimper:

"I was in your bedchamber's yesternight."

Regina stills.

Everything in the room stills with her.

"What?" she rasps, between gritted teeth, her eyes two black holes of pain and shame and fury.

Snow struggles to lift herself on one elbow, suddenly wanting to get as close as Regina as she can get, to hold her hands and her face and begs for forgiveness and she wants to tear out the monstruous eyes that doesn't belong to her sweet, loving step-mother, and she is horrified at herself and her thoughts – she's no better than father – and she starts to cry and sob and choke.

"Please, Regina! I didn't mean to! I wanted to surprise you, I had a gift for you and I wanted... surprise... and I... I thought father was only coming in to wish you goodnight... so I hid... and... and... I'm so s..."

Regina's hand slaps her across the mouth as she tries to shut her up. Snow swallows back a yelp and submits willingly, her eyes pleading and frightened, but she doesn't try to pry off the hand from her mouth, even as the nails dig uncomfortably in her plump cheeks.

"Don't."

Her step-mother has spoken so low she could have mouthed the word instead of actually saying it out loud.

But never her word has released so much power.

When Regina slowly pulls her hand from off her face, Snow stands agape, deprived of will, dried out of speech, mad with fatigue, heartsick. Regina is unreadable, recomposing herself, fractured shard by fractured shard. When her voice echoes in the room again, she isn't looking at Snow White, and her head is held high.

"You shall never speak of it again. You will wipe that memory out of your mind. It has never existed."

With excruciating slowness, she raises from the bed, hands clenched over her belly, looking like claws.

"Regina... p...please..."

Her prayer isn't heard. Her goddess is furious with her. She is disgraced. She is unworthy. She aches. It burns like the fever blazing in her veins. It burns in her heart. She sobs quietly as Regina turns her back on her and walks to the door, flat heels still making brisk noises on the floor. Her hand on the handle, she speaks one last time:

"Now, heal, Snow White. And forget."

"No... no please, I'm so... I'm sorr..."

The door clicks gently behind Regina.

She is left alone in her room.

When Johanna enters, she is in shock, her eyes staring unseeing at the wall while the woman fusses over her.

She stares at smooth, olive-skinned, creamy thighs smeared with blood.

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Thoughts? Reviews? I'm curious about the reactions for this one.