The window was glazed over white with fog and cold to the touch. The path left in the wake of her trailing fingertips revealed a sliver of the dark street outside and she painted idle swirls and circles across the smooth surface. It wasn't until she realized her traitorous digits had drawn a face, horseshoe mouth curved down sadly, that Regina scowled at her own whimsy and forced her hands back to the tabletop and the steaming mug waiting there. She gripped it tightly, though it was still too hot and quickly grew uncomfortable against the sensitive flesh of her palms. The external sensation was welcomed, even blessed. Anything to distract her from the painful buzzing of thoughts going on inside her head.
It was a quarter hour past eleven and the diner was empty-save Red behind the counter, smacking her gum loudly and flipping through the pages of a paperback novel. Before, when she had been the mayor and the people were just people, she would never have been caught dead in the establishment so late, not with her son sleeping soundly a few rooms away from her and the potential of having to interact with the drunken rabble the diner seemed to attract after dark.
Now there was no son and the only time she could venture outside her front door without being stared at or threatened or otherwise harassed was under the cover of night that kept most of the once again superstitious town folk safely indoors.
Things had improved since word had gotten around town that Regina had "Saved the Savior" but when the too quiet halls and rooms of her too big, empty house inevitably drove her out she still felt safest at night.
Red, atleast, never said anything. They had arrived at some sort of truce, the girl who wore her monster on the inside and the queen that bore hers without.
The little bell over the diner's door tinkled cheerfully and Regina looked up in surprise at the whirlwind of snowflakes and blond hair that swept in from outside. Heavy boots stomped on the welcome mat and the woman reached up to unwind the thick woolen scarf from round her neck while the former Mayor sank down in her seat; As if she could make herself smaller, somehow remain unseen. Of course Katherine saw her as soon as she looked around, she would have had to have been blind not to.
And of course she decided to invite herself to Regina's table. Of course she did.
Because she was good and kind and even though she had no logical reason for it she still thought they were somehow friends.
"Katherine. Or Abigail, I suppose."
"Regina. Fancy meeting you here. Katherine's fine, actually. I'm used to it now." Katherine's smile was tight but genuine, eyes shining with something like warmth as she made herself at home on the opposing booth seat.
Regina didn't ask, she felt she had no right to inquire after any aspect of this woman's life after all she had done, but the blond offered up the information anyway. "Couldn't sleep. Fred keeps calling... I know he's my happy ending and I should be ecstatic but I just... I was feeling really good about myself, you know? Being my own person for a change. I love him but I'm not ready to let that place go yet, you know?"
Regina didn't say anything, still posed on the edge of her seat as though to flee. If she was still using magic she might have considered a teleportation spell, irrigardless of the potential consequences the erratic nature of magic in this world might have had.
"Anyway, even though it never actually happened I have all these memories of midnight runs to the diner in high school. Whenever we were sad, or bored my friends and I would just come have pie. It's silly, but I thought it might make me feel better."
Regina shifted, little by little, closer to the edge of the booth. "I should leave you to it, then. I was just leaving anyway-"
"Nonsense." And Katherine's eyes were hard then, mouth set in a grim line. "I think after everything splitting a pie with me is the least you can do."
The brunette deflated back into the booth's hard cushions, nodding stiffly. "Of course. If that's what you want."
And when Katherine said pie, she had apparently literally meant an entire pie. It was obscene, the whip cream topped chocolatey confection Red placed between them. One giant heart attack just waiting to happen.
Regina twirled the fork she'd been offered around in her fingers while the blond across from her dug in heartily, scooping a bite that was all but bigger than she was directly from the middle.
"I am sorry, you know." She said softly. "It was never-It was never personal."
"I know." Katherine wiggled her own fork, dropping crumbs everywhere. "Seriously, this is amazing. Try it. I was just a pawn. You never really saw me as a person. Seems to happen a lot, actually."
Regina's stomach twisted with discomfort. "No, I-"
"Oh please. It's true and we both know it. But here's the thing- I also know that most people never see you as a person either. So, we're going to eat pie. And we're going to talk about your kid and my dad and how generally suckish our lives are. And we'll probably do it again sometime. Because you may not deserve my friendship but you have it anyway."
It was quite as intense or wonderful as the warmth that had bubbled in her chest when Henry had hugged her but it was a pleasant elation all the same, spreading out from somewhere near the vicinity of her heart and effusing to all her limbs.
"Well then. Let there be pie."