Summary: Re-write of the coffin scene from "Welcome to Storybrooke." Golden Queen angst, Rumple's POV. May be followed up with a companion piece from Regina's POV. Inspired in part by wolfenqueenyuri's take on same (because it's not plagiarism when great minds think alike!)
Author's Note: Okay, so y'all know I'm a rabid Golden Queen shipper. Given that "The Miller's Daughter" shows beyond a doubt that Cora and Rumplestiltskin were romantically/sexually involved, I've had to readjust my head-cannon. So first, just let me say given what Cora said in "The Miller's Daughter" about Rumple not getting her child because it wasn't his, and that the episode writer confirmed on Twitter that Regina is not Rumple's daughter, this is NOT an incest fic. Now does the fact that Rumple had a sexual relationship with Regina's mother mean that shipping Golden Queen is kind of creepy? Well, yeah, but … come on. It's Golden Queen. The dark, twisted undercurrent is pretty much already built in. Heck, I think that's why I love them so much. And now, after all my rambling, I give you ….
To Love is To Bury
Rumplestiltskin has committed many sick, twisted and despicable deeds in his long, dark life.
Certainly, he's done far more disturbing things than bed both a mother and her daughter.
So why does that particular act of perversion still bother him?
But really, it wasn't as though he planned it that way.
He told Regina the truth when they first met – or rather, re-met. It was one of the few times he had been completely honest with her. He hadn't seen it. He hadn't seen her mother in her. Regina was beautiful, true enough, but it was a beauty of a different sort. She had her father's coloring, she really did.
Sometimes he almost pitied the man. Almost.
And even in her most dire moments, facing death, Cora had never had the wide-eyed, drowning look that Regina did that night. Cora had been hungry from the moment he met her, hungry for revenge, hungry for power, hungry for him (or so he thought), and oh yes, it had aroused him, her bloodlust, her darkness …
But Regina … Regina had been scared and sweet and helpless. "I don't want to hurt anyone," she'd said. It really was hard to believe they were from the same family.
So innocent she seemed, dressed all in white. So … guileless, so naïve, looking shocked at the idea she could actually be powerful.
Regina was absolutely and utterly ... corruptible.
And Cora never was, never had been. Cora had been corrupt when he met her, but with Regina, he had to draw the darkness out, teasingly, slowly, painstakingly, step by devious step …
And yes, it aroused him. It aroused him even more than Cora's darkness had.
Still, he had never planned on taking her into his bed. He really hadn't. Teaching her, of course, he had certainly planned on – a more thorough and in-depth instruction than Cora ever had, one that spanned years instead of months. Using her to cast the Dark Curse, he'd always intended – why else would he have needed her around for so long?
But he hadn't planned the rest of it. Not gathering her up in his arms, pressing her body to his, pushing his tongue between her lips, dominating, laying claim …
It was not about love. It was never about love. He'd learned that lesson earlier, with her mother, and he'd learned it well. Even as kind and gentle as Regina seemed – well, at least initially – they were treacherous, these Mills women, and you could not trust them, could not believe even the most fervent display of devotion.
Besides which, unlike Cora, Regina had already been in love when he met her. She had loved and lost, and even at the height of their affair, he knew he'd never been anything more to her than a salve to her open wound, a consolation prize.
And it didn't bother him.
It really didn't. It never had.
After all, since he didn't love her, why should he care? This time they were no illusions. He would just take his pleasure with her and enjoy it, without any of those pesky feelings getting in the way.
Still, it was strange, strange. He couldn't help but …
Cora had been talented and vigorous lover, to be sure. She was no maiden when she came to his bed (not that he especially cared). She knew what she was doing.
But Regina …
Well, apparently all she had been able to share with her beloved stable boy were stolen kisses. With her, he was a teacher both in and out of the bedroom, and oh, he'd taught her well, and a very eager student she had been …
Honestly, after all this time, that's the only part that really bothers him. It shouldn't have been him to take her virginity. It should have been that Daniel, that stable boy. It really should've.
But truth be told, the fact that Regina had been a maiden had excited him too. She had been corruptible in every way…
He needs to stop thinking about this.
Especially now.
Regina doesn't even hear his approach, so focused is she on her grief. She's placed a rose on Cora's coffin, and starts at the sound of his voice.
"Black always was your color."
Regina looks up at him with a tear-streaked face. For an instant, she is the sad, scared young woman who first called his name, all those years ago.
Then her eyes fill with venom.
"I'm here to bury my mother. So if you've come to gloat –"
"I came to pay my respects," he says, and puts his own rose on top of Regina's. "We had our differences, but Cora will always have a place in my heart." The place that she hollowed out. Your mother carved out a piece of my heart and left a gaping hole, just like Milah did.
Just like …
Regina gives him a look that seems to be equal parts incredulity and disgust. "You killed her to save your own life."
"Sadly, desperate times call for desperate measures."
"Like getting Mary Margaret to trick me into killing my own mother?"
Well now, that's hardly fair, he wants to say. You sent Hook to kill your mother once already, and then you and I nearly blew up the well when we thought Cora was going to come through.
But he lets it go unsaid. Because however twisted and dysfunctional Regina and Cora's relationship had been, he knew that Regina had loved her. Regina had loved her mother through it all, and had wanted her love in return. And she had craved Cora's approval; she'd craved that until the very end.
More than she had ever craved his.
And he supposes Cora loved Regina too, in her way. To the extent that she was capable, without her heart.
Did you ever really love me?
Why do you think I had to rip my own heart out?
She should have put it back in. For Regina, if not for him. He's done more awful things in his long life than he cares to remember, but the thought of taking out his own heart, of not being able to feel love for his son, but instead, having only the vaguest, faintest flicker of affection for his own child …
Whatever else she does, that will never been Regina. She will never take her own heart out, not even to end the pain. If Cora didn't feel enough, then Regina feels too much.
Regina feels too much of everything.
"You may be able to hide behind your dagger, but she can't. She is going to die for what she did."
He tries to talk her out of it, of course. Tries to talk her out of revenge. It's a rather pointless exercise, given that he's the one who talked her into – or rather, manipulated her into – taking a whole curse's worth of revenge in the first place.
Regina, for all her magnificence, doesn't seem to learn much from her mistakes. She still thinks she can have everything.
But then, so does he.
"Get out," she says, and turns back to her mother's grave.
"Regina …"
"You really must being enjoying this, Rumple." Regina says bitterly, although she doesn't meet his eye, "Watching your live whore mourn over your dead one."
"That's not –"
"That's what we were, weren't we?" She snaps, turning to look back at him. "Two generations of your whores? My mother told me –"
"Whatever your mother told you is a lie." He has no doubt Cora twisted the truth of what happened between them to cast herself as the victim. "I never thought of her as – I never treated her like –"
"A whore?" Regina hisses. "Are you afraid to say the word?"
He's still afraid of more things than he can name. "I'm not afraid of anything. I never treated your mother like a whore." Though perhaps I should have.
Her lips twist in a sneer. "Oh, you didn't? So that was just something special for me then?"
He stares at her. She can't really believe that's how he thought of her when they were together.
Can she?
"Why would you even –"
"You used me!" Regina screams. "You took – you took everything! You took my –" She stops short, and he knows that now she's the one who's afraid.
Your virginity.
"Your what?" He taunts her. "Are you afraid to say the word?"
He feels the anger rise him, lets it take over, lets is smother the guilt and the shame and all the other feelings he will not name.
Regina glares at him, humiliated, angry, terrified. He gets right in her face.
"Oh but I didn't have to take that, did I dearie?" He hisses. "You gave it to me. Gave it quite willingly, as I recall."
And she had. She'd offered it up to him on a silver platter, her maidenhood. Not in a gesture of love, but in an act of desperation. She'd offered it to him because Daniel was dead and Leopold was bound to get around to bedding her eventually. And she hadn't wanted the king to be the one who claimed her virginity, so he, Rumplestiltskin would have to do.
Yes, it had all been very romantic.
He'd tried to stop it, tried to put her off, and she'd … laughed at him. Taunted him about wanting her, as if any man breathing could do otherwise. Mocked him for balking at bedding her, when he'd done much darker deeds. The bitterness rises in him at the memory, but he makes himself smirk instead of scowl.
"In fact," he whispers, his face inches from hers. "I seem to recall you practically begging me to fuck you –"
The space echoes with the sound of the slap. Rumplestiltskin barely has time to register the sting before she's ready to strike again, but he stops her, grabs her hand. He overpowers her despite his limp, pushes her until her back is against the wall, and pins her body with his.
"You bastard," she gasps. "You took, you took –"
"You gave it to me," he repeats, as Regina struggles pointlessly in his grasp. Damn her, she doesn't get to blame him for taking her virginity. For everything else maybe, but not for that. It was her fault, her fault, he never meant to –
"No!"
"You gave it me." This close, her scent surrounds him, invades him, overwhelms him.
Cora smelled liked flour, like straw spun into gold, like sex and ambition and greed.
Regina smells like pain, like sorrow spun into rage, like sex and loneliness and a desperate desire to be loved.
And apples, of course. Regina always smells like apples.
"You gave it to me," he whispers. His thumb brushes away a stray tear from her cheek. Regina has stropped struggling, and now she's trembling instead.
"Yes," she whispers back. "Yes, I gave it to you. I gave it all to you. Just like my mother did. And look where that got her."
Cora gave me nothing but empty promises. "Your mother left me, Regina! She left me … just like you did."
Regina stares at him. "Left you? I – you lied to me about Daniel!"
"I told you no spell can bring back the dead –"
"You lied to me about everything! You wanted me to leave! You wanted me to hate you, to have nothing, to have nothing left to love, so all I would care about was revenge, and casting the Dark Curse for you –"
"What do you mean, 'nothing left to love?'"
Regina freezes. "I … I didn't mean – I didn't say that –"
"Yes you did."
"Let me go!"
He reels back from her as if he's been scalded. "Get out!" Regina screams. "Get out, get out and let me mourn my mother in peace! This is not supposed to be about you!"
He turns and hobbles away as fast as he can.
He doesn't know what makes him do it, but he stops at the entryway. He doesn't look back – he can't he won't – but at the same time, he can stop himself from saying what he says next:
"If I had … if I had asked you to say with me … would you have done so?"
"That's a pointless question." Her voice comes to him, faintly, as if from a great distance.
"Because you never would have stayed?"
"Because you never would have asked." Her voice is clearer now, and strangely steady. "You never would have asked for me, asked me to stay with you, so please don't insult me by pretending otherwise. There are two kinds of people in your life, Rumplestiltskin. People to be loved, and people to be used. I know exactly which one of those I am to you. Which one I've always been. My mother may have pulled my strings quite sharply, before you came along to pull them softly, but at least I had her love, for that brief moment, before …" Her voice finally cracks. "So if you have any shred of decency left in you, leave me. Leave me to mourn."
The room falls silent as … well, a tomb. The thought occurs to him, as he departs, that if Cora appealed to his evil side, and Belle appealed to his good side, then Regina …
Regina appeals to both. She is both the monster and the maid, the darkness and the light, is his Regina.
His wicked one.
Except that she isn't his. She was her mother's perhaps, or Daniel's, but never his.
She never was, and she never would be.
It's only after his made his way out, into the light and the air of an obscenely cheerful Storybrooke morning, that the sound reaches his ears. It's so faint he could be imagining it, but somehow, he is certain he hears the echo of Regina's sobs.
