Hi! This is my first attempt of long-fiction for Once Upon a Time and it could not be Hooked Queen of course! I hope you like this first chapter... Thanks in advance for reading!:)
P.S. The title comes from Aenead by Virgil and it means "I recognize the signs of that old flame". I just thought it was a perfect sentence for these two... Hopefully in the next chapters I'll make you understand better:)
Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae
Chapter 1.
The timer rang as a sign that the cake had finally finished its cooking time. Regina stood up and took the hot pad, opening then the oven: a cloud of heat reached her face, forcing her to close her eyes for a moment, but when she opened them again a pleased smile appeared on her lips verifying that she had created a real work of art. The inviting aspect and the strong smell of apples that had been given off all over the room, made imagine that this time the woman had get the better of herself and it was with evident satisfaction that she was looking at the cake which was now on the table.
"It has your smell…" a voice behind her back commented, making her slightly jump.
"Hook" she said turning her head to glance at him "I think I had told you to wait for me in the dining room" continued in a cautionary tone, breaking off with that simple sentence what seemed to be one of the captain's usual attempt of flirt.
"Okay, as you want, Your Majesty" he replied with a smirk, putting his hands – a hand and the hook, actually – as a sign of surrender.
The lady of the house shook her head with fake annoyance and then gave him her back to go towards the fridge and take the different drinks.
"Do you need a hand?"
Leaving it open, she turned back again hearing that question with two bottles in her hands, and looked up to his guest with a glance hat seemed to say "Are you still here?". She bit her tongue and stayed silent for a moment, then she gave him a smile which seemed to have, maybe unwillingly, a mischievous shade in it. It was one of the tacit rules of their sort of friendship: he made a provocation and she answered to it, it always happened like this, even before Neverland.
"You have only one" she pointed out ironically, closing finally the fridge with a movement of the arm.
"Yes, but it's all yours, love" he answered, taking some steps towards her and taking one of the bottles from her hand "Apple cider, it's your handwriting" he said then inquiring, looking at the elegant tag.
Regina simply nodded and, taken a tray, she disappeared without a word to the dining room where the big table was unusually completely set; it had happened only three other times in about thirty years and all the three times had been in the last six months. She sighed at that thought and let her eyes pass on every dish, they were nine as the commensals of that dinner… Snow and her Prince, Henry with his father Neal and her other mom Emma, even Rumple with his Belle and of course Hook: all under the same roof, her roof. She fixed some details and with a last look, she left again the room, going back to the kitchen, but the scene that welcomed her at her return made her wish to have never done it.
"What the hell are you doing?"
The tone of the question turned out to be even higher than she wanted and she found herself practically yelling. The pirate looked up to her with an amused expression and then went back to his apparently profane attempt of mixture of Regina's apple cider with the little flask of rum that he always took with him.
"It's not bad" he commented having a sip of that drink from the glass he had poured it in "Really, you would be surprised, love" he added moving it towards her with a gesture of the hand, inviting her to taste it too.
Regina moved her eyes from the glass to the face of the man a bit hesitant, then she extended her hand on the table and took the drink to her lips.
"Mmm… It sucks" was the predictable final verdict that followed the sound of the glass meeting the wood again, but the slight hesitation between the moment of the taste and the pronunciation of that two forced words didn't pass unnoticed.
"I thought you were better then this at lying" he teased her, with an open smile.
She shook her head and crossed her arms to the chest "I'm asking why you have come in advance" she said then with an exasperated sigh, but making a complicit smile too.
"It's not my fault if the others are late" he simply answered.
The woman nodded and looked up to the clock on the wall, releasing the umpteenth sigh: eight thirty-five, thirty-five minutes late. It was not unusual that someone had some set back, Neal and Emma more than the others, weren't exactly champions in punctuality but thirty-five minutes were thirty-five minutes and none of the guests, except for Hook, had shown up yet. While she started to feel a natural worry – for Henry obviously, since he was with them – the ringtone of her phone interrupted the stream of her thoughts.
"Hallo, David? Where are you?... What happened?... Oh, of course, I under stand… Let me know and congratulations!"
Killian watched in silence as different expressions were passing on the major's face while she was speaking in that little electronic box, which still remained for him a mistery: worry, disappointment, fake indifference and then a forced joy pronouncing that last word. And it was exactly that last word to suggest him what had happened.
"What did the prince say?" he asked when he saw her removing the phone from her ear.
Regina looked up to him and made a face that let finally reveal how much the news had displeased her "They won't come, Belle is about to give birth" she explained bluntly, falling tiredly on a chair, then she looked at him again to spy his reaction, that on the other hand didn't waited too long to be showed.
"Amazing" Hook murmured concentrating in that single word all the still not faded rancor for his eternal enemy "The crocodile is finally having his complete happy ending" continued articulating every word.
"It's the proof that after all even villains can have it" Regina added with a tone full of irony.
The captain shook his head and sat down too.
"It's in moment like this that I feel more than ever my desire for revenge" he confessed more to himself than to her, clinching unwarily his fist.
"Then let's take revenge finally" she whispered after some moments, but the unsuale sweet expression that had lighted up her eyes was quite a contrast to that apparently violent intent "Let's eat all the dinner I prepared for nine, jus the two of us… Included the apple cake" she added in fact smiling openly and glancing at her culinary masterpiece.
"It sounds like a good plan" the pirate answered pretending to be serious "And why don't we drink also all the apple rum?" added then winking at her and offering again his attempt.
Regina tilted slightly her head and pressed hr lips together, as if she was pondering the proposal, then she approached a bit to his face, letting their eyes meet.
"Do we have a deal, dearie?" she asked then in a accurate imitation of Rumpelstiltskin.
A surprisingly warm laugh was the answer to that joke and the woman remained to look at him gladly amazed by that sound. It was strange, but during all the time of their long acquaintance she had never heard him truly laugh, maybe because it had been centuries since he did. And it was not just a metaphoric expression.