Regina's Golden Halloween

Snapegirlkmf

A Once Halloween fic

Disclaimer: Don't own, dearies, just playing with them. If I did, Rumple and Belle would be in EVERY episode.

1

Nightmares

Storybrooke, Maine

October 28, 2013

Charmings loft:

Regina Nolan woke screaming in terror for the third night in a row. "NO! NO-O-O! Mommy, Daddy, she's coming to get me-e-e!"

The three-year-old's shrill shrieks woke both her parents up and sent them running into her little bedroom, with its lavender and white rose scheme and ruffled bedspread and canopy of lavender organdy and white pine four poster bed, just like a real princess's, which was what Regina had insisted upon when Snow and David had taken her to shop for a "big girl" bed and furniture for her new room, as David had finally gotten together with Marco and several of the dwarfs to partition the loft so he and Snow could have their room all to themselves at last.

Regina's room had a lovely round stained glass window of roses and a fairy flying over them, as well as a pretty scallop-edged bookshelves, a shelf above that with some collectible dolls, and a child-sized vanity, mirror, and little desk with a chair, as well as a dresser and a closet for her clothes. There was also an antique toybox given to them by Rumple and Belle, which held most of her toys, except for Sofia and Shadow, which she slept with every night and remained on her bed unless Regina was playing with them. A lovely purple rug with a scene from Rapunzel was upon the floor in front of the bed, making the room warm and cozy. A Disney Princess lamp was upon a shelf next to the bed, casting a rosy glow about the room.

A night light was always left on and the door open in case Regina woke during the night and needed something.

David stumbled from his warm bed, rubbing his eyes, and raced across the loft to his baby girl, followed by Snow in her lacy nightgown, trailing him like some specter from the underworld. "Regina! Daddy's here," he called, as he entered his daughter's room.

Regina was sitting bolt upright in her little bed, her dark hair straggling all over, clutching Shadow to her, shivering and crying, tears streaming down her face. "Daddy! She's comin' for me!"

Charming came over to the bed, reaching for his daughter, and as usual forgot to duck and slammed his forehead against the canopy. "Oww! Dammit!" he swore, rubbing his head and then sitting down and taking the little girl in his arms. "It's okay, sweetie. You had that dream again, didn't you?"

Regina's arms wound like a limpet about his neck, nearly throttling him. "Uh huh!" she gulped, sniffling into Charming's broad shoulder. Her terror was slowly fading as she nestled in her daddy's lap. Daddy was a prince in the land they had all come from once, and here in Storybrooke he was the mayor, and to Regina he was her hero, and could send any monster hiding under her bed fleeing with a single well-placed glare.

As David patted her back, his wife came to sit beside him, rubbing soothing circles on her daughter's back. "The same nightmare again?"

He nodded. "That's what she says, Snow."

Snow shook her dark head in dismay. "David, I don't like this. She's been dreaming about the same thing for three night straight now, ever since we saw that fake dummy in the Halloween store of the Queen of Hearts. I thought she wasn't supposed to have any memory of her former life."

The Queen of Hearts, Cora Mills, was Regina's mother back in Fairy Tale Land, before she had been exiled to Wonderland by Regina herself, back when she'd been the Evil Queen of the Enchanted Forest. According to everyone who'd known her back then, namely Rumplestiltskin, Cora had been as evil as they'd come, and had made Regina's life hell, including arranging a marriage between her and King Leopold, Snow's widowed father. Snow had known Cora for a brief time, and though the woman had never harmed her, even she admitted there was something cold and creepy about the woman.

They had since learned that Cora, as the Queen of Hearts, ruled Wonderland with an iron fist, according to Baelfire Gold, Rumple's son, who'd been her slave and page for fifteen years before escaping, and had witnessed the evil woman's countless atrocities upon anyone who displeased her in the slightest. She had tortured and beheaded over a hundred of her helpless subjects, and Bae had watched several of those executions, forced to as a member of her inner court, even though he'd been a mere fourteen-year-old. It had left scars upon the boy's soul that still occasionally tore open and bled, though that happened much less now that he was grown and married to his beloved wild swan, Emma, the savior and sheriff of Storybrooke. But Bae hated the Queen of Hearts with unabated passion, and he had vowed to make the awful enchantress pay if they ever chanced to meet again.

Which was unlikely, as Cora had never yet left Wonderland, and even if she did manage to, would have to figure out how to access this world, which was not as easy as it sounded, since it was considered a land without magic by most other realms. Still, her dreadful specter lingered, and now she haunted the dreams of her former daughter.

"Regina, can you tell me what you dreamed, honey?" asked Snow softly, stroking her child's curly hair, which fell to the middle of her back.

Regina turned around, still hugging David with one arm about his neck, and said quietly, "I dreamed the bad queen was chasin' me again, Mommy. She was comin' after me, yelling she was gonna punish me 'cause I was bad, and she had a . . . a pointed stick in her hand. I ran fast as I could, Mommy, but she was gonna get me and hurt me . . ." she started crying again, obviously terrified.

David and Snow exchanged worried glances over her head. Such terror was not normal, especially since the toddler Regina was now had never even encountered anyone like Cora, and had been protected and loved by her new parents since the day Rumple had de-aged her and she had walked out of a magical cell into Snow's arms six months ago.

"Sweetie, nobody's going to get you," Snow reassured her. "The Queen of Hearts is just a storybook character, she can't hurt you." Or at least she was in this world.

"But Mommy, she was after me!" Regina insisted. "And if . . . if she caught me . . . she was gonna rip out my heart."

David felt a chill go through him at Regina's pronouncement. This was the first time she had ever said what was going to happen if Cora caught her . . . and it was something she never should have known. In Alice in Wonderland, the Queen chopped off people's heads, but only the evil magic wielders of their land took people's hearts . . . and Cora had been the foremost practitioner of that discipline in Fairy Tale Land. She collected hearts, kept them in boxes, and used their owners for her own sick amusement. When she tired of them, she killed them by crushing their hearts. As she had done to the stableboy Daniel, who had dared to fall in love with her daughter.

"Baby, where did you get that idea?" he asked. "The Queen of Hearts chops off people's heads."

"And she takes people's hearts too, Daddy," the child insisted with an uncanny prescience. "I know she does! And then . . . she kills them."

"It was just a dream, baby," Snow soothed. "She's not real and nobody's going to crush your heart or kill you. You're safe here with Mommy and Daddy."

"Forever n' ever?"

"Yes. We promise," David said, rocking her back and forth. He began to sing a lullaby in his rich tenor, until Regina fell asleep against his shoulder.

"This isn't good, David," Snow said after they had tucked their sleeping daughter back in bed and left the room, returning to their bed. "It's like she's remembering bits and pieces of her old life."

"I know. I just don't know why," her husband said, his blue eyes dark with concern.

"We should call Rumple tomorrow morning," Snow said decisively. "He was the one who erased her memories, he ought to know why she's remembering things now that she shouldn't have. I can't take this, David. She's terrified out of her mind by these nightmares."

"I know, love. But Gold should be able to fix it," David said confidently. Rumplestiltskin Gold was the most powerful sorcerer in all the realms, and if anyone could help Regina, he could.

"Okay. First thing tomorrow I'll call him and see what he says," Snow told him. Then she wrapped her arms about her husband's neck and murmured, "But right now all I want to do, love, is go to sleep."

Charming put his arm about her and she curled up with her head on his chest, falling asleep listening to his heartbeat. Within moments, he too was slumbering, and the little family slept peacefully until their alarm woke them at six o'clock the next morning.

Page~*~*~*~*~Break

The phone rang just as Gold was fixing his new Ferragamo tie on his shirt, preparing to go to work at his pawnshop. He quickly grabbed it, not wanting it to wake his sleeping wife, who was now almost twenty weeks pregnant with twins, and had been having trouble sleeping recently. "Hello? Snow?" he , taking the cordless phone into the hallway and shutting the bedroom door behind him. "What's the matter? You sound stressed. Regina's been having nightmares . . . of Cora? For how long, dearie? Hang on a minute . . . I need to wake Alina up for school . . ." He knocked on the door of his daughter's room. "Alina, dearie, rise and shine!" he called loudly.

He heard a muffled thump, and then Alina's voice, "Okay, Papa, I'm up!"

There came the sound of a cat meowing.

Gold opened the door, and a black kitten came out, rubbing against his ankles and purring fit to wake the dead. "Okay, baby, Papa's going to feed you," he crooned to Nala. "Huh? Oh, sorry, Snow. No, I wasn't talking to Alina, I was talking to Nala. Right . . . the nightmares. No, dearie, that's not supposed to happen . . . she shouldn't have any memories of her former life . . . unless . . . sometimes with deep psychological trauma, latent memories can surface." He knelt and stroked Nala while listening to Snow. "I'm not talking about a few bad childhood memories here, Snow White . . . what we're probably dealing with is some sort of child abuse," he said darkly. "That's the only thing that would be resistant to my regression spell. And considering it's Cora, I'm not surprised, dearie. That woman was a first class bitch before she ever married Prince Henry, before she ever contracted me to teach her magic. I taught her how to spin straw into gold and a few other spells before she terminated our contract, saying she knew enough to snare her prince and she didn't need me anymore. No, I didn't teach her how to take hearts . . . she learned that on her own. I'm telling you, Snow, she was dark long before I taught her, she sought me out as a way to gain power, and once she had what she wanted, a prince of the realm, she was quick enough to wash her hands of me. It was goodbye Rumple, so long farewell, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out of the palace. I never saw her again until the birth of her daughter, when she called me to ask if Regina had inherited her magic. I told her yes, and she laughed and said, blood will tell, eh, Rumple, then dismissed me as if I was nothing more than her page. She was a piece of work, that one."

He made his way downstairs, Nala upon his shoulder, the phone on his ear.

"Arrogant, power-hungry, with all the morals of a tiger shark, that was Cora for you. With her for a mother, I'm not surprised poor Regina has nightmares. The way to stop them, dearie, is to bring her to me. I'll need to have her stay here for a few days, so I can monitor her sleep patterns and walk her dreams again, see where these memories are coming from, and then remove them. It's a rather delicate process, so it'll take me more than a single night, but I can do it. Don't worry, she won't feel a thing. And hopefully with the removal of whatever memories are buried in her subconscious, she'll quit having nightmares about Cora. So bring her by my shop around five thirty, dearie, and I'll take her home with me, okay?"

After Snow had agreed to his request, he hung up, and then began making a pot of coffee. He shook his head sadly as he plugged the percolator in the wall, and then summoned a can of Fancy Feast for a begging Nala and opened it and put it in her dish.

As the cat ate, he refilled her water and put more dry food in her other bowl. By then the coffee was done and he poured himself a cup.

A sleepy Alina had made her way downstairs, dressed in her uniform, her backpack slung over her shoulder. Yawning, she came and hugged him good morning, then went to get out a bowl and make herself some apple cinnamon oatmeal for breakfast. "Want some, Papa?" she asked.

"No, I think I'll make myself some ham and eggs this morning," Rumple told her. "Thanks anyhow, Alina." He summoned a bowl, the carton of eggs, and some ham from the fridge.

He spelled the ham to cut itself into cubes as he scrambled up two eggs and put some toast on. He wasn't a chef like Alice, but he could cook decently, and these days found himself doing so more than usual since Belle was sick almost every morning and couldn't stand the smell of food until dinner time.

"Regina's going to be coming over here tonight," he told his daughter as he heated a sauté pan with some spray butter.

"For dinner with Snow and David?" Alina asked, putting the kettle on to boil.

"No, she's going to be staying here for a few days. She's been having nightmares and I need to dreamwalk with her and remove a few nasty memories she has of her mother Cora," Rumple told her.

"She's been dreaming of Cora?" Alina gasped. "That's terrible, Papa!"

"I know. Cora gave me nightmares way back when," her father stated, pouring the eggs and ham into the pan and stirring with a silicon spatula. "Poor Regina must be scared to pieces. But I should be able to rid her of them with a few sessions."

"How do you do that, Papa?"

"Very carefully, Alina. Dreamwalking is a very difficult spell, even for a master magician like me. It's good thing Regina's a child and that she trusts me, because I'll need to go deep within her mind to find whatever memory she had buried there and remove it. And I'll probably need more than one night to do so, since it's a delicate process."

"Can I watch?" his daughter asked eagerly.

"You can, but you won't see much, since you haven't learned to travel astrally yet, dearie," Rumple replied. "That's another reason why this spell is so difficult, the caster needs to be able to walk the dreamscape safely in order to enter the subject's mind. It's tricky, but I've done it before."

"With who, Papa?"

"Bae," he answered, transferring his ham and eggs to a plate.

"You dreamwalked with Bae?"

"Yes. It was just before we went to Manhattan, he'd been having flashbacks again, and he wanted to be free of them, but didn't want conventional therapy. So I offered to dreamwalk him and help him resolve those issues. And it worked . . . but that's another thing Cora has to answer for with me," Rumple declared angrily, buttering his toast.

"I'm glad I never knew her, Papa. I think I'd turn her into a slug or something," Alina said softly, her brown eyes glinting.

"Slug's too good for her, dearie. A pile of horse dung would be better," Rumple said coldly. "Or a rug, so I could take a paddle and beat her." He took his breakfast and sat down at the table to eat it.

Alina stirred water into her oatmeal, poured some into her mug and made herself some tea, then went to sit beside her father. "I can't wait till Halloween. Henry, Grace, and I are going trick-or-treating with Hans this year."

"What are you being again?" Rumple queried as he ate.

"Uh . . . a unicorn rider, and Grace is the unicorn," Alina said. "Henry's being a spinner, you know, with Bae's old clothes you gave him, and Hans is being a zombie skateboarder."

"Sounds like fun, dearie. But before you go out, I want to cast a protection spell on all of you. Halloween's the time when the door between the living and the dead opens . . . so it can be dangerous for young magicians, as magic attracts magic," Rumple cautioned.

"Should we be worried?" Alina asked nervously.

"No. But I'm just being cautious," Rumple soothed. "Nothing will touch you once I put my protection on you." Though he was no longer the Dark One, his aura was still strong enough to give any evil spirit or ghoul pause and send then running off back to hell rather than tangle with him if they tried to harm someone under his protection.

"Okay, Papa. I'll remember," his daughter said, then she put her empty bowl and cup in the dishwasher and started to pull on her jacket.

Gold finished his coffee and put his own dishes into the dishwasher and then pulled on his overcoat before going out to warm up his Cadillac. He would drop Alina off at school before going to work. "Got your lunch?" he asked Alina upon returning to the house.

"I'm buying lunch today, Papa. Today's pizza," she reminded him, showing him her wallet with five dollars in it.

"Okay. Do I need to sign anything?"

"Nope. Our field trip's not till November," she said, then stuffed her wallet back into her sweater and went to brush her teeth before getting in the car.

Page~*~*~*~*~Break

"Hiya, Unca Rumple!" Regina grinned as she shoved open the door to his shop and ran inside, making the bell jingle.

Gold looked up from dusting a shelf with some knickknacks on it, smiling. "Hey, Regina. You all ready to have a sleepover at my house?"

"Yup. Daddy's bringing my bag," she said, scampering across the floor to hug him about the knees. She was dressed in a cute denim skirt set with a purple cardigan and matching knee socks and her purple light up sneakers.

Rumple knelt to hug her, saying softly, "Did your mommy or daddy tell you why you were coming to sleep over, little imp?"

"Uh huh. Mommy said you was gonna fix my nightmares of the bad Queen of Hearts," the child said seriously, kissing his cheek.

"That's right. I'm going to make it so you don't ever have a nightmare of that nasty lady ever again," the pawnbroker told her, tweaking her nose.

"You gonna magic them all away?" she queried, half-leaning on his knee.

"I am, dearie," he nodded, standing up to greet David, who had just entered the shop with a large pink duffle slung over his shoulder and Sofia, Regina's rag doll, under his arm. "Hello, David."

"Hey, Rumple. I've got all her stuff here. Her car seat's outside by your Cadillac," Charming said.

"Okay, then let's get this in there," Gold said. He stared at the bag, frowning. "She's only going to be at my house two days, not two weeks."

"You know how Snow is, Rumple. She always overpacks," Charming laughed. He followed Gold to the door, saying to Regina, "You wait here for Uncle Rumple, okay, Regina?"

"Okay, Daddy."

"We'll be right back, dearie. You can look at the toys in that box there, but don't touch anything else, all right?" Gold said, and went outside to put Regina's bag and seat inside his car.

"'Kay, Unca Rumple," the toddler said, and went to see the toys he'd indicated in the box beneath a shelf in a corner of his shop.

Rumple returned in five minutes, calling as he entered the shop again, "Regina, dearie, let's go. Auntie Belle's waiting supper on us." He glanced around for the child. "Regina? Where are you?"

He didn't see the child at first, and assumed she'd gone into his back room for a drink, since he kept iced tea and water in his mini fridge back there.

"Regina?"

"Comin'!" she called, and then he saw her, perched precariously upon a ladder he sometimes used to reach his highest shelves, her little hands reaching for a red leather ball with a blue star on it lying on the shelf next to the two voodoo dolls.

"Regina! What part of don't touch anything except the toys don't you understand!" he gasped. "Get down from there immediately!"

"Lemme get the ball first," she said, and her little hands closed over it.

As she did so, she leaned most of her weight on the shelf . . . and it fell off the brackets and knocked into the ladder she was standing on.

Regina screamed as it started to topple over . . . but a purple mist encased her, holding her securely until Rumple came and then the mist released her.

She fell into his arms, still hugging the ball to her. "Unca Rumple! You saved me!"

He frowned at her. "Young lady, you almost broke your neck! You're lucky I came in when I did. What did you think you were doing?"

"Gettin' this ball," she answered, showing him it.

"That used to be Bae's when he was a little boy," Rumple told her, recognizing it. "What happened to staying right there and looking at the toys?"

"Uh . . . I forgot," she said, unrepentant.

He snorted. "Sure you did. And I've got a bridge without trolls I can sell you. You nearly scared me to death, you little daredevil," he shook a finger at her in reproof. "Next time you climb anywhere without permission, you're going to be in serious trouble. Am I understood?"

Regina nodded. "I'll be good," she said quickly, one hand going to cover her bottom. "No spanking, Unca Rumple."

"You just remember what I said, dearie, and you won't need to worry about it," he told her firmly. He almost never resorted to that punishment, unless she acted like a royal brat or did something totally forbidden. He shifted her in his arm, she still was holding the red ball, and gestured at the broken shelf.

It repaired itself and the dolls floated back upon it.

That done, he said, "Okay, let's go home." Before something else happens, he thought balefully, carrying Regina out to his car and putting her in her car seat.

"What's for dinner?" she asked as he pulled out onto the street. "I'm hungry."

"I think Auntie Belle was going to make macaroni and cheese and coconut chicken," Rumple answered, braking for a red light at the corner.

"Yum!" Regina cried. "I love that! Hurry up, Unca Rumple! Drive!" she ordered impatiently.

"Hold on, Little Miss Bossypants," he sighed. "The light's red, that means stop."

"It's green now, Unca Rumple!" she shouted. "Green means go!" She grew so excited that she threw the red leather ball she was holding . . .

. . . and it hit Rumple in the head just as he put his foot on the gas.

"Oww! What the hell?" he snapped, jerking his head, and the Cadillac lurched forward and almost hit a blue Taurus parked on the curb. "Regina! Quit throwing that ball around. We almost had an accident."

"Sorry. It slipped," she said, giving him a pleading look from her large dark eyes. "I didn't mean to."

He sighed. "I should have made you put that ball back. You're a catastrophe waiting to happen."

"Nuh-uh. I ain't a cat trophy, Unca Rumple. I is a little girl!" she stated, rolling her eyes. "Dontcha know anything?"

"Hey, don't you sass me, young lady," he snapped.

"But I'm not a cat trophy! I's a girl!" she insisted, her lower lip sticking out.

"You're a pain in the neck, is what you are," he muttered, thanking God when they arrived at his Victorian in one piece.

"I'm telling! Auntie Belle, Unca Rumple's calling me names!" Regina yelled.

"Why me?" Rumple groaned as he unbuckled Regina from her car seat. This was going to be a long two days, he thought, grunting sharply as the toddler jumped right on his stomach as she climbed out of the car. "Regina, I'm not a doormat!"

"You was in my way," she cried, then she ran up to the front door and yelled, "Auntie Belle, I'm here!"

Belle opened the door and Regina ran into her arms. "Hi, honey! How are you?"

"I'm good. But Unca Rumple's being mean to me. He called me a cat trophy and a pain in the neck," she told her aunt.

"He called you what?"

"I called her a catastrophe, because she hit me in the head with a ball while I was driving and almost caused an accident and before that she almost gave me a heart attack climbing up on a shelf in my shop," Rumple explained, coming up the walk with Regina's bag, the red leather ball, and Sofia.

"Oh my goodness," Belle exclaimed, her lips twitching. "Regina, why don't you go and say hi to Alina?"

"Okay! Alina! I'm home!" Regina shrilled, and ran inside.

"Anybody would think this is her house," Gold snorted. "How are you feeling, Belle?"

"Okay," she put a hand to her tummy. "I think they just woke up. They're starting to get restless."

"Hello, dearies," Rumple greeted the twins, patting his wife's belly. "Let's hope you're better behaved than your imp of a cousin there. Come on, Belle, let's get inside before Regina wrecks the place. She can do more damage in ten seconds than an entire wrecking crew in one hour."

"Oh, Rumple! She's just a little girl," Belle chuckled.

"Famous last words, dearie," he said, following her inside.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who requested more of this family! Please note, in this AU Rumple was never in love with Cora or had any kind of affair with her, he was just her teacher in magic.