She's flying (she is), the wind whisking her unbound hair away from her face as the storm front barrels onto the castle grounds like so many thundering steeds.
"Come, Josephine, in my flying machine," Regina sings from her balcony, flinging her arms out to embrace her beautiful storm. Lightning waltzes toward the castle from the line of the horizon, the thunder's rumble echoes in her bones, and she brims with magic; why shouldn't she call the thick waves of rain to the palace for everyone to enjoy?
"Enjoy, peasants!"
There's something not right here; sanity worries the fevered edges of her mind like a child fretting with the tassels of a tapestry. Desperate to calm the manic sparking of her neurons, stem the wild rush of magic begging to gush from her fingertips, the quiet part of her mind rails against the sickness invading her body, identifies it, even, but is powerless to stop its course.
And so, the storm.
Strong arms cinch around her waist, yanking her away from the railing. Charming. He smells of good deeds and aftershave, even in this pestilence infested world without cologne. What right does he have to invade her personal chambers and manhandle her in this manner? None, that's what. She kicks off the railing in an attempt to upset his balance and loosen his grip, but he stumbles and then tightens his hold on her as he regains his footing.
"Release me, or so help me god your child will be born with a monkey's tail," she says, pushing down on his forearms with both her hands to little effect.
"We all know you're too sick to do that right now, Regina," Snow says.
"I'm not sick. I've been poisoned," Regina says, shaking off Charming now that they're a good ten feet away from the balcony. "There's a difference, dear."
"Either way, you're burning up." Charming holds his hand up as Regina staggers over to her vanity. "What the hell were you doing? And where's Ruby?"
The wolf, one they'd left to guard her while they scrounged up an antidote. Where had she gone? Regina grips the sides of the vanity harder. "I don't remember," she growls, glaring at her reflection in the mirror, pale, skin slicked with sweat, dark eyes rimmed in red. "Someone came to the door, and then…" She waves her hand toward the courtyard.
Snow sighs, one hand propped on her lower back as the other rubs the side of her growing belly. "I'll stay here for now." She squeezes Charming's arm, pushes him toward the door. "You go figure out what happened."
"I don't need a caretaker; I need that serum," Regina says.
"And we're getting it together for you," Snow says, cheerful as a bluebird splashing in a stone birdbath. "But Hurricane Regina out there suggests a caretaker is exactly what you need in the meantime."
Thoughts slip through Regina's fingers like soap suds, and she grips the vanity tighter, trying to snare them before her presence of mind disappears. She hadn't forgotten the physical sting of the demon's tongue plant after all these years, but the psychological effects hadn't been nearly as bad. Of course, now she has a better handle on her magic, and the demon's tongue is happy to exploit that, eager, even, and that's it, that's why Ruby had been with her, to keep her out of trouble while they got together the potion, wasn't it?
Snow lays her hand over Regina's, gently pries her fingers from the edge of the vanity. "Let's get you in bed before you make good on that threat toward the baby, shall we?"
Threat. What threat? She's protecting this one, not threatening, not again. This baby gets its best chance right out of the gate this time. From the very start. Regina circles Snows wrist with shaky fingers, too tight, and the younger woman squeaks but remains steadfast by her side. "I'm saving this one," Regina says. Snow has no cause to believe her, none at all, but nothing in this wretched land matters if that baby doesn't survive. "I promise, Snow. I won't let Zelena take him away."
A smile like the dawn breaks across her face. "Oh, Regina, I know." Her free hand snakes up to cup Regina's cheek. "I know you won't. Let's get you back in bed and you can tell me why you think the baby's a boy today."
Snow loops her arm around Regina's waist and a dragging-pulling-guiding dance ensues as they make their way to where the covers are scrunched and bunched from the queen's fevered thrashing.
"Charming thinks it's a girl," Regina says, tucking her feet below the blankets. "So it's going to be a boy."
"Sound reasoning there, Regina. We'll find out soon enough." Snow perches her hip on the side of the bed and sighs. "What you did for Robin's son. That was good of you."
Regina dismisses her comment with a weak wave of her hand. "It was necessary."
"It was brave," Snow counters, sliding her palm underneath Regina's. "I remember what happened the last time you fell into a patch of demon's tongue."
"No, you don't."
"I do too."
"Do not."
"Regina," Snow scolds, squeezing her hand tighter and leaning forward, their foreheads a handspan apart. "Do so."
Regina glares, but Snow's smile never falters. Thinking starts to drill tiny holes in her skull, though, so she breaks Snow's gaze and pulls the blanket across her shoulder. "He's young. If he'd scratched himself on a thorn—"
"Like you did."
"He might not have made it until the antidote was administered. Speaking of which, your idiotic, bumbling clan of dwarves is likely mangling the hell out of it. How long does it take to read an ingredient list and brew a potion?"
"You were out of sunflower leaves."
"Of course."
The door opens, and Charming marches in with the thief on his heels. "We've got it," the prince says.
"About time," Regina mutters, and she should sit up for this, really, she's got to drink that vile potion the thief is setting on the small end table next to her bed, but moving seems an awfully big request right now.
"Apologies, milady." The thief kneels, eye level with her, and she scowls as best she can with her face half smushed into the down pillow. He's soaking wet, dripping rain water onto her bed. "May I?"
Regina's frown deepens. May he what? And why is he brushing her hair away from her face? Not acceptable. For anyone, but especially men who smell like forest and have lion tattoos and small children with an alarming propensity for stumbling into harm's way.
"Your majesty?" he asks, pulling the frown from her face onto his own. It takes a poisoning to have her title respected it seems.
"Regina?" Snow squeezes her hand tighter, cups her other palm over her fingers.
The queen's vision blurs; Snow's voice stretches and warps in her ears. The thief stands, and Charming maneuvers around his wife to help him prop Regina against the headboard. Hands. Too many hands on her, too many voices talking, but one word pierces the haze: open.
Regina tips her head back and someone (Snow? The thief?) thumbs her chin down and tips the potion down her throat. Just as bitter and repugnant as she remembers, but the effect is almost instantaneous. She snaps her head forward, eyes clear once more, ears no longer distorting sound.
"The next person who touches me loses a hand," she growls.
The Charmings and the thief all back away from her. Good. They're listening to her again. Regina scrubs her face with her hands, shrugs her robe back onto her shoulder. The antidote spreads through her body like ice, sharp contrast to the fire of the demon's tongue poison. If this is like last time, she has chills, nausea, and a migraine the size of Texas to look forward to, and they'll start slamming into her one by one any moment—yes, there's the nausea now.
"Unless you're interested in revisiting my lunch with me, I suggest you leave. Now." Regina slides from beneath the blankets, shoving the thief and the prince aside as she stumbles to her ensuite, black spots carpeting her vision. She has the vague sensation of someone hovering in the doorway for a moment behind her, Snow, she thinks, but then the shadow is gone, and she's left alone to heave in peace. As much as one can while evacuating the meager contents of their stomach.
A quick swish of water to cleanse the bile from her tongue, and then she pushes off the sink to give herself enough momentum to stagger to the doorway; from there she'll ricochet her way back to the bed and several uninterrupted hours of sleep if she's lucky.
It would be nice to lucky, just this once.
The thief halts his pacing as she shuffles across the flagstones with one hand pressed to her belly. A year ago, if anyone had asked who the last person she'd want at her sickbed was, she'd have answered Snow White. Given recent developments, she might have to change her answer. "What are you still doing here?" she grouses, clambering into bed, ignoring the hand he holds out to steady her gait.
"That's the second time you've saved my boy." He hovers at the edge of her bed, leaned against the mattress, trapping her blankets. She tugs, and he gets the hint, steps back a pace and allows her to settle. "I am in your debt, again."
"You brought me the serum."
"But—"
"Account paid in full."
He scowls, lips pursed and hands curled, his left fist pounding the outside of his thigh, but he holds his tongue while she swaths herself in blankets. Small favors. She burrows into the bed as chills overtake her, flicking her fingers to extinguish the candles lighting the room, sparing the fire for its warmth against the cold rain still battering the castle. Lightning strikes the grounds nearby, sparking an involuntary wince.
Nausea, check. Chills, check. Migraine, check. It's official; she's cured.
"My services are available should you need them," he says, voice pitched low, and though he's doing it to spare her, she presumes, because of honor, the gesture grates as if he'd screamed in her ear. He takes his leave, boots squelching across the floor and cape slapping wetly against his calves.
"There are dangers even within the safety of these walls," she says. Shadows slip across his shoulders as he turns to face her, mere steps away from the door. "You would do well to keep your son clear of them."
"As you wish, milady."
The door groans with his departure. Regina curls in on herself, knees to sternum and arms pinned and crossed over her chest with her hands clutching her shoulders, willing the thunder and lightning to ease off. Just for a while, until sleep can creep upon her and steal her away. She sighs with her whole body and closes her eyes as the leafy scent of petrichor fills her rooms and swallows her whole.