Revenge is Sweet
Summary: The real reason Regina imprisoned Belle is because she found about Rumplestiltskin's deception regarding the resurrection of Daniel. It's about revenge, and nothing else. At least, that's what she tells herself. Super-angsty, you have been warned.
It's about revenge, and nothing else.
Rumplestiltskin conspired to deceive her, and so he deserves to pay.
At least, that's what she tells herself, when she lies alone in the dark.
After all that time, it had been Jefferson who tipped her off to the truth. He'd gone to her to have his passport renewed, and he'd made a thoughtless, offhand comment about Dr. Frankenstein's "failed" procedure that made gave Regina pause.
After that, it didn't take much magical interrogation to get the rest out of him. She could be very persuasive when she wanted to be.
She'd been taught by the best, after all.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Jefferson screamed, though Regina had barely wounded him. "B-blame Rumplestiltskin, he was the one who set it all up, he made me do it!"
"You mean he paid you do it!" Regina screamed.
"I'm sorry –"
"Take your 'sorry' and choke on it!" Regina brought her fingers together, and suddenly he was clutching at his throat, unable to breathe.
"My Daniel … I could have had him back …" Tears blurred her vision, and her fingers unclenched. Jefferson slumped to the floor, gasping for breath.
"I'm sorry," he wheezed. "Regina, I really am so … sorry. For … for what it's worth, I … don't think the procedure would have brought him back to you, even if the doctor had really gone through with it. At least not the way he was."
Regina looked at him through a haze of grief. "What do you mean?"
"Victor … he used the heart … to bring him back … his brother … his twin …"
"You mean it worked?" Regina gasped. "You mean it could have worked on Daniel?!"
"Please, listen –"
"You have to get him back, make him really do it this time –"
"Y-you know that portal's closed, Regina –"
"You will find a way, or I'll –"
"No, no, you don't understand! Even if I could … yes, Victor's brother came back, but he was a monster! Mindless, soulless …" Jefferson had a haunted look in his eyes, and he shuddered. "Regina, believe me, Rumplestiltskin did you a favor … you wouldn't have wanted to see your true love like that …"
"A favor?" She gaped at him, and then, she began to laugh. It was a wild, dark, evil laughter, and it frightened him more than her rage ever had. She laughed long and loud, and when she finally stopped and caught her breath, she seemed strangely calm. She looked at him with cold, glittering eyes.
"Regina … y-your majesty … please, spare me, I … I have a family now … please …"
She leaned in towards him, smiling coldly. "Oh Jefferson, don't worry. I don't blame you at all. You're quite right; it's my dear Rumple that I owe for this favor. And I intend to repay him in kind."
When she confronts him, he reacts as she expects. He scoffs, he makes excuses.
"I told you no magic can bring back the dead, dearie."
"You had no right –"
"Oh, I had every right." In a flash, he's by her side, gripping her arm tight enough to bruise. "You're mine, Regina. Your mother made a bargain, and she thought she got out of it, but I knew … I knew I'd have you eventually."
Have her. And how many times had he done just that? His mouth on hers, his hands moving all over her body, having her, having her in his bed or on his workbench or anywhere else that took his sick fancy …
And she, moaning in his arms, meeting his desire with her own, loving every moment she could steal with him, every moment that would make her feel alive and wanted and powerful and would take the pain away …
She shrugs off his iron grip on her. She's strong enough to that do that now. Her face betrays no hurt, no weakness, and he knows he's truly made her hard now, hard and cold, just as he needs her to be.
And he knows that now, she will truly hate him.
"I am not yours, Rumplestiltskin," she whispers. "I'm not the king's, or my mother's, or anyone else's. I'm mine."
Somewhere, deep down, he's proud of her.
He wishes he could tell her that.
Instead, he smiles at her, coldly and cruelly. "Well then dearie, in that case … I believe your time as my student is at end. There's no better lesson I can teach you than this truth: that you can rely on no one but yourself."
"I will never forgive you for this." The intensity in her voice would make anyone else quake.
He leans in then, their faces so close that their breaths mingle. "Your forgiveness is something I neither need nor desire."
When she flinches, just a bit, he has a glimpse of the pain he's caused her, a pain as sharp and fresh as the day her sweet simple Daniel died.
If anyone could ever break him …
"Regina –" Without thinking, he reaches for her. "Regina, my wicked one –"
She slaps his hand away. "Don't call me that! Don't you ever call me that again!"
Before she leaves, she makes him a promise. She promises to defeat him, and to be more powerful than him.
To make him weak.
"You'll never be more powerful than me, dearie!" He shouts after her.
The most important promise she makes, though, is the one she mutters under breath, as she stalks out of the room.
"One day, I promise, you will know my pain. You will love someone, as I've loved someone, and you will have them ripped away from you. Not by death, but by deception."
In the end, she doesn't even have to plot all that much.
In the end, her revenge literally falls into Rumplestiltskin's arms.
It's been years, and she's gotten rid of her unwanted husband, and now she's on the hunt for that stupid girl, now a woman, who ruined her life because she couldn't keep her mouth shut. She and her former teacher are now on what might be called reasonable terms. Or reasonable for them at least.
But Snow isn't her only target, and Regina has not forgotten the other promise that she made, the one that Rumplestiltskin didn't hear.
"What did you do, nail them down?"
She's been watching through one of the smaller mirrors he forgot to cover up. She does this periodically, checking in on her teacher-turned-rival. Sometimes he's making one of his stupid little deals, but more often he's just spinning at that damn wheel.
In their rare quiet moments together, she used to just sit and watch him spin. It was soothing …
He's at the wheel now, but there's someone else there, this Belle, this girl with a heart-shaped face and shining eyes who doesn't seem to be afraid of him. She's trying to pull open the curtains.
The girl doesn't know that he never leaves them open anymore. He used to, back when she was still under his tutelage. He'd leave the curtains open, and they'd work at magic until the sun went down.
And when the moonlight streamed through the window, he'd draw them closed, and then he'd pull her eagerly into his arms …
"Yeah," he nods at the girl now, as if nailing curtains down is the most obvious thing in the world to do. She gives him an exasperated look, and tugs at the fabric harder …
When she falls, he catches her.
Regina feels her lips form a sneer. "Gallant as ever, I see." Then she closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath, trying to think, trying to plan. If this is headed in the direction she thinks it is, she may finally have her chance to get her revenge.
When he lets Belle leave, Regina is ready, and she meets the girl on the road. She really is quite a pretty little thing, all unblemished and wide-eyed …
So kind, so gentle …
She brushes the memory of his words aside, and she puts her arm around the girl as they walk together. "So if I'm right, you love your employer, but you're leaving him."
"I might love him. I mean could, except … something evil has taken root in him."
Taken root, she says. Oh, but that evil has been there far longer than this naïve young girl knows. Can she really be so blind? Regina might have pitied her then, if she had the capacity left within herself to do so.
And so she tells her that true love's kiss can break any curse. It's a win-win scenario, she reminds herself, as the girl with the shining eyes runs back to him. If the kiss works, and she breaks the curse, well then, after that he's just an ordinary, defenseless man, and she can take his true love from him whenever she wants.
And if the kiss doesn't work … well then, that would mean he'd lost his capacity to love, and … and …
And then what?
Well damn it, then she'd figure out another way to hurt him! Even more than Snow, he had to hurt him. She had to reach him –
Regina shakes her head, as if to clear it. "Run along, dearie," she whispers. "You true love awaits."
She watches them through her mirror, and when the kiss happens, she gasps. Not because of the kiss itself, but because of what the kiss does. Cearly, it's breaking his curse, but that face …
That face, that human face …
She knows that face.
"No," she whispers.
But soon enough it fades away, and now he uncovers the mirror, the large one, and he's screaming at her. He can't see her but he knows she's there.
"You think you can make me weak? You think you can defeat me?"
Regina closes her eyes. She hadn't known precisely what was going to happen when Belle returned, but she thought it was going to go one of two ways, and this is neither. For the first time in a long time, she doesn't know what to do.
She doesn't know what to feel.
"Shut up!" He's yelling at the girl now. The poor innocent girl, except that nothing is innocent.
"This means it's true love –"
"Shut the hell up!"
"Why won't you believe me?"
"Because no one, no one can ever, ever love me!"
"That's right, Rumplestiltskin," Regina whispers. "No one, no one can ever, ever love you."
It's only when she touches her hand to her face and her fingers come back wet that she realizes she's been crying.
She lets out a shriek of rage and directs a blast of magical energy at the mirror, shattering it to pieces.
But in the end, she gets what she wants. The turn of events was unexpected, but it still works to her advantage. She meets Belle on the road again, after Rumple casts her out, and this time, she isn't so nice.
Did he tell you that you were kind and gentle too, sweet child? Did he tell you that you were powerful? Did he tell you that you could so much, if you just let yourself?
But Regina doesn't ask her any of those questions. Actually, she doesn't ask her anything, or say anything to her at all. She just locks her up.
Really, all things considered, she's being merciful. At least Belle, unlike Daniel, is still alive.
And unlike Daniel, she may even have a chance of staying that way.
The Evil Queen puts her sneer in place, and she goes to see him on the pretext of business, to deliver the news of Belle's untimely "death."
"Your little deception failed. You'll never be more powerful than me. You can keep trying, dearie. But you're never going to beat me."
If you think this only about power, Rumple dear, then you're not nearly as clever as you imagine yourself to be.
So she mocks him, pretends she doesn't even remember the girls name, the girl with the heart-shaped face and the shining eyes that she now has locked away.
"Belle," he corrects her, and something in his tone makes her stomach twist itself in a knot.
"Right." So she spins her tale, and when she gets to the part where Belle "dies," she sees the pain in his eyes, as clear and searing as if he were truly human after all.
Somehow, it doesn't feel nearly as good as she expected.
"We're done," he manages to get out, and the doors open at his command.
Regina sips her coffee. Outwardly, she's the picture of calm, but inside, she wants to scream. We're not done. We're never done, Rumplestiltskin. All this deception, all this cruelty – come on Rumple, aren't you proud of me? She wants to shout it at him, claw at him, beat her fists again his chest until he breaks, until he shatters right in front of her. Come on, come on, aren't you happy with the monster you made?!
But no. That's not right. She needs to own this.
If she's a monster, then she's her own monster.
He may believe otherwise, but she was never his monster to make.
So she leaves. But before she goes, she can't resist getting in a parting shot.
"The place is looking dusty, Rumple. You should get a new girl."
She sweeps out the room, head held high. Oh, she hopes he loses it now. She hopes he cries bitter tears over his sweet, simple Belle. She hopes that shriveled up little black thing he calls his heart breaks into a million tiny little pieces, the ways hers did, when her Daniel died.
She hopes his heart breaks, the way it never would for her.
It's about revenge, and nothing else.
And revenge is sweet, and tears are bitter, and so for him, she sheds none.