Her Treasured Keepsake
AN: Another drabble, seriously anything angsty with Regina/Jefferson or Hook just seems to pour out of me on days like today! Hopefully you guys will enjoy reading it, I actually had a lot of fun writing it! Also it was written in about an hour so any mistakes are purely human error :p
Disclaimer: I own nothing except angsty feels, otherwise Regina would be much happier *sob*
Her husband, the King, had thought her quite mad when she hired him, and at first she'd almost agreed with him. Regina never revealed quite why she hired Jefferson as the official palace hatter, only that she required him, and requested that he have free reign to come and go as he pleased. More than willing to agree to anything his young bride wanted, Leopold had welcomed the hatter with open arms, never once expecting that Regina would find him more than a common servant. He knew nothing of their history, nor of their spark and flirtations, and his blissful naivety gave them quite an environment for their creativity to grow.
It had been months before he even gifted her with a hat; claiming he needed time to watch her, get a sense of her personality and her flair for style. 'A hat which suits one person may be hideous on another' he'd once said, tracing lazy circles on her lower back as they stood stealthily hidden watching her husband throw yet another party in honour of her young step-daughter. He'd cheekily leant over a few moments later, his lips so close to her ear that his warm breath tickled the delicate skin there, "And although I'm sure her majesty would look simply beautiful in any of my creations, the one I make for you, will be my finest work of art" he'd whispered.
When she was finally presented with his finished work, it didn't have quite the impressive impact he'd been expecting. It was a blue, crushed velvet monstrosity at first sight until he'd pushed past her surprised expression and pulled it from the box. Only then did she see his striking masterpiece. The front left dipped forward with black netting partially shielding her face as the velvet faded from a navy so dark it was almost black, to a blue that conjured images of summer skies and days gone by.
She wore it only once for fear of damaging it; ironically at her anniversary ball, of all times. Her anniversary for four years married to the King, and two years in a passionate, illicit liaison with her royal hatter. She'd just begun learning stronger magic too; plotting a way out of the dreadful palace life she was trapped in. The hat, for she loved symbolism and he knew it, showed both her innocent desire to cling to her past and Jefferson, and also her insatiable desire for revenge and the growing darkness within her.
It lived in a cream and navy striped hatbox, gathering dust on a top shelf, and then for twenty eight years untouched in her vault. After splitting unpleasantly from Jefferson, she'd been unable to bring herself to look at it. The pain had been too raw, and now in the present, she didn't want to rip open old wounds. What was in the past was better left there. Alone. Just another memory of her innocence in what seemed almost to be a former life; definitely a different life to the one she shared in Storybrooke with Henry.
It was only once after their split that she saw the hat, the evening after Jefferson reunited with his daughter in Storybrooke. When she saw him get a glimmer of a happy ending…one without her. She couldn't make him happy, not really. Not any more. They'd grown too far apart, neglected each other too much, and she knew she had to let him go to save them both the heartache.
Deep underground, in her vault lit only by candles, Regina toyed with the frayed, delicate ribbon on the box, fighting inside as to whether she really wanted to open the floodgates for the inevitable onslaught of memories. To be dragged back to darker times, but times when at least she could count on Jefferson to make her feel loved. To show her how things could have been, should have been, between them.
Finally pushing off the lid she stared mesmerized by the silk and velvet creation nestled safely in a bed of crushed tissue paper. It was as beautiful as the day he'd slipped it onto her pile of messy dark curls and pressed a tender kiss to her cheek. As they watched her reflection in the mirror he'd wrapped his arms around her waist, 'I'll never in all my years make another hat so stunningly beautiful' he'd murmured and she'd laughed, a delicate laugh one very rarely heard from Regina, before he'd mumbled, "Nor shall I ever meet anyone else quite so worthy of one."
She blinked back a solitary tear and ran a finger over the darkening scope of azure and navy, over lace and random forgotten hairpins. It was a piece of history, her history, and it saddened her that she didn't have anyone to share the story with. To show this creation off to; no-one who could understand why, after all this time, she clutched at the few remaining straws of what could have been. Of how differently things could have turned out had she walked the path he'd offered instead of running blindly down the other.
She was still as enchanted by it as she'd been then; she'd loved how he'd managed to capture both sides of her complicated personality so perfectly. How he'd seen beneath the emerging image of the Evil Queen and caught her innocence as well as her slide into darkness. Looking back now it scared her at how brutally honest it showed her becoming something she didn't want to be, at how eerily accurate his predictions had been. He'd known she was changing into someone else, and she supposed he'd known there wasn't really any way to stop her. He'd expressed his concerns in the only way Jefferson really could around the Queen; through his hat, hoping only that one day she'd see that he'd been trying to help all along.
Mostly she was still impressed at how intimately he'd known her, understood her, and how his exceptional talent had put it all together in a simple, but unique hat. A token of his affection, he'd called it, and only now did Regina realise the full extent of what he'd meant by the hat. His desire to help her, to save her no matter what the costs to himself, but she'd merely laughed it away, snubbed his intentions, and doomed herself to life as she now knew it.
There wasn't even a chance of reconciliation. She remembered his partial scowl, his wary expression warning her to stay away earlier that day. To leave him and his daughter be. That had been when she'd known things could never go back to the way they'd been. And it upset her. Angered her, she realised, as a small fireball appeared in the palm of her hand. She made to move it towards the hat; what good was a simple hat, no matter how beautiful, if all it did was make her miserable. It held no appeal or sentiment to anyone else and could do nothing to fix the abyss between her and its maker. But as she imagined it going up in flames, the lace melting to velvet and that beautiful fading scope of blue hues turning to blackened embers, she realised that it wouldn't make her happy. It wouldn't change anything, wouldn't bring Jefferson back to her. Instead it would just be obliterating the last thing she really had to remind herself of him, of their time together. And as much as it pained her, she really treasured this hat, loved it even; almost as much as she realised she'd probably loved the man who made it.
Lowering her hand she replaced the box lid and retied the bow, scanning her vault for a suitable spot. One finally caught her eye, just the right place on her shelf of prized, untouchable items. Nestled between the only other piece of Daniel she had left, a book of dried flowers he'd painstakingly made for her, and her mother's treasured bracelet, the box remained untouched for many years to come.
AN: Please feel free to review/concrit/just don't flame me :-)