Hello there! Thank you for opening this story so that you can discover the adventure my mind has created during our OUAT hiatus. I was doing so well with it until Comic-Con, then a blitz of posts came and my addiction was reborn at full throttle. And this story is the product of that rebirth and my partially sunken Outlaw Queen ship. So before the new season starts (September 28th!), here's a bit of my imagination and hope. Enjoy. :)

Hope Ever After

Chapter One

She wasn't pregnant. Was. Not. Pregnant. No baby in there, no bun in the oven, not so much as a thought about conception. Except she was thinking about it, because this was the seventh day- in a row mind you- where she'd vomited a completely appealing breakfast into the bathroom at work. Granted it wasn't exactly 'work' anymore, but no one had claimed her black and white office, so on lonely days she still sat in her chair and did governmental stuff like order books for the library and set a monthly budget. Which, she reminded herself now as she wiped her mouth with toilet paper, needed to be revised to include the Zelena damage to that barn. Or Emma/Hook damage, depending on how you looked at it.

"Oh, and we scheduled a family portrait for tomorrow. Since you technically don't 'work' anymore we thought it was alright."

"A family portrait? Seriously?"

"We had family tapestries back home. You can't imagine the torture of sitting still while someone embroidered your image. But they always were very pretty and documented generations of royalty."

"Can we talk about this in a minute? I came to the bathroom for a reason."

"Of course, I'm sorry. I'm just so forgetful-"

Regina sighed and pushed the stall door open, officially silencing her step-daughter. "You always were forgetful."

"Hey-!"

"I wasn't talking to you Emma."

"I don't care, that was extremely rude."

"Organizing a family portrait without telling me is rather rude too, don't you think?"

"I was going to invite you as soon as we found you. Obviously I came to tell Emma and I was going to tell you too, but you weren't in your office-"

"Save it. I burned our family tapestry anyways." She marched out of the bathroom, getting a pump of hand sanitizer in her office before grabbing her bag and starting the walk home.

Oh, she remembered burning that tapestry. Sparks tingled in her palms just thinking about it.

As soon as Rumple pronounced her fire conjuring satisfactory she'd known what she wanted to do. The first open night she had she snuck from bed and found the welcome hall that housed the current family tapestry. Two open hands on the fringe and a soft glow started. Slowly, the small blaze crept up the cloth, devouring her family's feet and the grass of the garden their stitched forms were positioned in. She stood back and leaned into the shadow of the unoccupied privy doorway, listening to the fire pop, watching the tiny shadows it threw on the stone walls. If a guard came by she could pretend she was just exiting the tiny room after a late-night stroll. But no guard came and she watched as the magical fire licked its lips around the top fringe and disappeared without a whisper of ash.

"Regina?"

She stopped short of running into Robin and his son. Marian, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen, but the couple still had confusingly icy relations and as she stood blinking at him, the awkwardness began in full.

"I was considering coming to see you, but, well, with all that's happened-"

"You got busy." She substituted for him. No doubt enjoying the wife he'd barely gotten back in the Enchanted Forest.

"I missed you." Roland spoke up sweetly, clutching his father's hand but blinking up at her with large brown eyes.

"Goodnight Mummy." Roland had whispered after Robin's bedtime story and her lullaby.

She stood immediately, stepping back from Henry's old bed with fear. "He can't call me that Robin. It's not right."

"You adopted Henry. It's practically the same thing. He doesn't have one anymore." He turned her so their eyes met. "I love you. Why shouldn't he call the woman I love- the first woman in his life that he can actually remember- his mum?"

She crouched down to his eye level, squatting as elegantly as possible in her stilettos and designer dress. "I missed you too. Has Daddy taken you on any adventures?"

"We showed Mummy the ocean. She liked the sea gulls."

Salty tears sloshed into her eyes and coated her vocal chords. She straightened and looked down. "That's very nice." She turned her eyes up to Robin. "I have to go."

He took her forearm before she could run. "I was hoping-"

She stepped out of his loose grip. "Don't."

"Please Regina."

You should probably go with him, at least so you can tell him about the baby. A voice inside her chimed.

There's no baby. She responded, doubting her sanity. Or at least there won't be for long, not with my track record.

You could still hope. Her feeble good side giving her a pep talk, of course.

Don't. The part of her that Rumple and her mother had created spit back. Just don't.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment so I can improve my work or correct any mistakes. Have a blessed day.