Regina woke to the feeling of something poking her in the stomach. She shifted a bit, only to find thousands of new tiny pokes. What was she sleeping on? Oh right. The straw mattress provided in one of the rooms above the tavern.
The night before was a bit of a blur. She probably hadn't had that much to drink in, well, over a decade. She and Robin had eventually called it a night and he had asked the barmaid for two rooms. The trip up the actual stairs had taken approximately 3 hours by her reckoning, and she had eventually grabbed Robin's hand to increase their chances of making it up the two flights without falling to their deaths. After finally summiting the Mount Everest of staircases they located their rooms across the hall from one another, and he had kissed her hand as way of goodnight before finally letting go of it. Their eyes lingered on one another as they opened their doors, and he smirked roguishly at her as they finally turned away into their respective rooms.
She had been too drunk to do much more than stumble to the bed, shedding hair pins, the dress she wore over her jeweled corset and leather pants, and her shoes before collapsing onto the straw mattress (a bad choice: collapsing onto a straw mattress was a bit like collapsing onto a pile of rocks). Which brought her back to the million tiny pieces of straw that were poking into her stomach, one of which seemed about to puncture her liver. She groaned and rolled over onto her back.
The day outside her window greeted her bright, warm, and beautiful, a small army of birds heralding the arrival of the sun. Her head was definitely going to explode. What she wouldn't give for a BB gun. She groaned and threw the pillow over her face. Another a bad choice: it smelled a bit like a moldy foot. She threw it across the room and decided she might as well get up and begin nursing this hangover away.
Slowly she sat up and got out of bed. It wasn't that her head was going to spontaneously explode; there seemed to be an actual creature inside that was slowly hammering its way out. The thought of putting on her stiff and restricting dress right now wasn't pleasant, and she picked it up from the floor to find it wrinkled and dirty. Tossing it aside she conjured a softer, red velvet dress to put on over the corset and pants. This was simple magic when she was well, but doing magic while ill (whether virus- or alcohol-induced) was a shortcut to losing consciousness or one's lunch. She put out a hand to steady herself against the wall for a moment until the dizziness passed, then put on her shoes, pinned back a few unruly locks of hair with a stray hairpin, and headed out of her room. It was wonderfully dark and cool in the hallway, and she took a moment to close her eyes and lean back against the door as it closed behind her.
Across the hall Robin was facing his own tribulations. His hangover had announced itself before the sun had risen by purging him of everything he had eaten the night before, and he had gingerly sat on the edge of his bed fighting waves of nausea ever since. This time it had passed for a solid half hour and he felt he was ready to make his way downstairs to try to keep some water down. He slipped on his shoes (he hadn't made it out of his clothes at all last night) and opened the door to the hallway to find Regina, eyes closed and leaning against her own door.
He was momentarily awe-struck once again by the beauty that shined through her obvious palor and exhaustion (clearly she was tending to her own hangover this morning). Her hair flowed down past her shoulders in thick waves that he found he wanted to run his hands through. Some of her makeup had rubbed off during the night, and she looked younger and more relaxed. The red of her dress set off the slight color that remained on her lips and cheeks, and, of course, that omnipresent cleavage was still on display. He had never thought of himself as a boob man, but he seemed to be drawn to hers like a moth to a flame. He looked back up at her face and blushed, as he found she had opened her eyes and clearly knew exactly what he was staring at.
"Good morning," he said after awkwardly clearing his throat.
"That remains to be seen," she said. "And if you could keep your voice down I would appreciate it. I've already had it up to here with the God-forsaken birds and sun this morning."
Robin grinned, knowing she hadn't meant to be funny but finding her quite entertaining. He had already seen so many sides of this woman: angry, frustrated, happy, melancholy, and more. He hadn't thought grumpy would be one of the funnier sides of her.
"I was about to make my way downstairs for some water. Would you care to join me?" Robin said, extending his arm.
Regina nodded, gracefully pushing herself off the door and wrapping her arm around his own. "Let's hope those stairs are easier going down than they were coming up."
They entered the main room of the tavern to find it fairly deserted. The barmaid from the night before was wiping some glasses at the bar, and glanced at them with a strained look as they entered. Was that guilt? Fear? Regina stared at her trying to process. And it was breakfast time- why was the room so deserted? Her brain sluggishly weaved these pieces together a moment too late. "Robin we need to—"
She was cut off as the door slammed open and a group of soldiers filed into the bar. Two of them made their way to Regina and seized her by the arms while the rest leveled weapons at her and Robin. Robin saw the men manhandling her and felt rage boil within him. "Unhand her!" He yelled, pulling one of the soldiers from Regina and punching him in the face repeatedly, as Regina screamed her own "How dare you!" and began to gather magic around her hands to throw the remaining soldier away from her. She stopped short, remembering the experience with the dress this morning and realizing she didn't have the strength to take on an entire squadron at the moment. She was really never drinking again.
"Stop now or you'll both be killed," said a confident voice from the door. Regina gasped and laid her hand on Robin's arm to still his punching, and he looked up to see her, eyes wide and drained of the little color she had.
"Henry," she breathed so softly that only Robin could hear it.
"I hereby arrest you and charge you with the murder of the King and Queen, and the kidnapping of the Princess. By my own authority I sentence you to death: you will be burned at the stake this evening." Henry said as more guards streamed into the tavern, putting Regina in handcuffs and slipping the no-magic cuff onto her arm.
"Listen, it wasn't her," Robin said half-heartedly, trying to reason with the soldiers who were taking her, but knowing it was futile.
"Who is that?" Henry asked a man who stood behind the bar with the barmaid.
The man shrugged. "He spent the evening with her and they made their way upstairs together at the end of the night."
"Arrest him as well," Henry said. "I won't have a new army of her supporters emerging and thinking they can gain strength in this land. He'll burn with her." With that he swept from the tavern, and Robin and Regina were dragged after him in handcuffs.
"I've come to the conclusion that it is definitely not a good morning," Regina said as she was roughly pulled past Robin. He really liked grumpy Regina.
They sat facing one another, hands cuffed behind them, in the jail cart as it made its way to the castle. The bumpy road, swaying carriage, and overall arrest scene had done nothing for either's hangover, and Regina decided this was most definitely the worst hangover of her entire life. "How did he find me?" she asked Robin quietly.
"We weren't exactly hiding at the tavern, were we?" he replied.
"But how did they recognize me?" she asked.
"Milady, you're wearing a diamond-encrusted corset and jewelry that could feed a family of 12 for a year. Even without those things you don't exactly blend into a crowd of peasants," he replied.
"Fair point," she said. "So Regina killed Snow and David while she was here?"
"Yeah. I heard she crushed their hearts," Robin replied.
She grew quiet for a moment, thinking, and Robin saw fire stirring in her eyes. "You'd think the one thing she could have saved for me is the chance to crush Snow's heart in some fantasy-not-real land where I don't actually kill the real her," she said suddenly. "She gets love, I get to live our fantasy of killing Snow. I mean that only seems fair."
Robin chuckled a bit. "I don't think she enjoyed it, if that makes you feel any better."
"No. I would have enjoyed it at least. What a waste."
"Can I ask you something?" Robin said.
"Ask away," she replied, fearing he would try to have a heart-to-heart about why she was a murderer-wannabe.
"Why didn't you just blow the whole tavern to smithereens back there and then transport yourself somewhere else? Why let yourself be captured?"
Right. This wasn't the other Robin, who would have drilled down and had some kind of an impromptu therapy session in this prison cart. She loved that this was a different Robin. Her Robin. Her Robin?! Where had that come from? she wondered, shaking off those thoughts.
"Honestly I was a bit too hungover. Even when you're as practiced as I am, magic still takes clarity of mind and physical strength. I had neither of those this morning. I might have blown the two of us up, or passed out before I could have transported us out of there, or any number of things," she said. "Getting drunk, probably not my best idea for the first night in a new world I know nothing about," she went on, embarrassed.
"And now? Why don't you magic us out of this wagon? That doesn't seem that difficult or dangerous."
"Really? You think that, do you? With all your experience in and understanding of magic, you've put your considerable mental strength to the task and come to that conclusion?" she bit back at him sarcastically. Immediately she regretted snapping at him and sighed. It wasn't his fault she was tired, hungover, and embarrassed. "It's this cuff. It prevents me from doing magic. And I can't take it off myself, only someone else can. That's why they chained us to the bars on opposite sides of this carriage, so you can't reach my hands."
"But if I can get it off you, then you can magic us out of here."
Try as he might, Robin couldn't seem to reach her arm. The guards never let Robin and Regina stand or walk next to one another, and they were immediately deposited into separate cells when they arrived in the castle. Rough stone formed all the walls of each cell, with a heavy wooden door containing a small bar-covered window towards the top. Although they were in adjacent cells, there was no hope of Robin reaching Regina.
"Sorry I dragged you into this," she said softly through the bars of her door.
"It's ok," she heard back.
"I heard that Henry saw Regina crush Snow and David's hearts. He must be absolutely distraught. Maybe killing me will make him feel a little better," she mused aloud.
"Are you saying your death will be ok because an imaginary-realm Henry will feel a little better?" he asked. The woman was an enigma. One moment casually discussing how much she regretted not being able to kill the fake Snow, the next being willing to die herself to comfort the fake Henry.
"I mean I don't want to die. But at least there will be some good that comes from it?"
"Do you think killing you will make Henry feel better?" he asked her.
"Killing people made me feel better sometimes," she said. "I guess not really better though. It was a way for me to express the anger I felt towards… myself I guess. So I wasn't really moving forwards towards actually being happy in the world. But I was moving forward in my plans at revenge, so at least I was moving forward in some way."
"Do you still think that if you completely got revenge you would have been happy?" he asked, not baiting, but genuinely curious.
"I don't know. I mean Regina was obviously able to move on without revenge. And when I think about how all that love and acceptance feels, I kind of understand. When other people love you and you love them so freely, it's impossible to hate yourself." She paused then. "But I do still wonder if there would have been a type of happiness in total revenge. If I could have gotten rid of Mary-Margaret and David and Emma and just taken Henry away and built a little life for us," she admitted quietly. "I guess that's the part that makes me the 'Evil Queen' that Regina ripped out."
"I think about it as well, with Marian. If somehow I could have gotten revenge on everyone who had a part in her death, maybe I could feel better. Or feel normal again, and move on with my life."
"Do you think you had a part in her death?" Regina asked quietly.
He took awhile in answering, but finally she heard a soft "Yes."
"I think that's my problem. No matter how many people I punish for things that happened, I'll never be able to get away from myself. And I'm part of what happened in the past. But Regina was able to move past that to happiness."
"And you think Regina and my other half were able to be happy because they had learned to live with themselves?" he asked.
"I guess? They certainly seemed pretty damn self-satisfied most of the time. It drove me up the wall watching it. But maybe they were onto something."
Their conversation was cut short by the sound of approaching footsteps. Two guards unlocked the doors and roughly hauled them out, cuffing their hands behind them once more. They were led down a long passageway and out into a large sunset-lit courtyard, where two stakes were set up on top of a large pile of brush and wood. A small stage had been erected facing the stakes, and Henry and a number of people from the court were seated. As they approached the stakes, the guards removed the cuffs and replaced them with tight rope, tying their hands behind them around the stakes. Regina looked into the crowd and saw Henry's face. He looked so grown up, but in his eyes she could still see the little boy. And he looked… scared. She saw sadness and fear and doubt, and she knew.
Regina looked over at Robin with a panicked look. "You're right it isn't going to make him feel better. I don't want him to watch us burn. No 16-year-old should have the weight of leadership thrust on him, and no 16-year-old should have to watch another human being die to prove his strength. Get us me out of this cuff!"
"I'm working on it," he said. And indeed she saw his hands frantically working on the rope knot behind him.
A line of ten guards stepped forward at that moment, setting arrows to their bows that were set on fire by a second set of guards. The leader looked at Henry, who nodded his head, and the lead archer yelled "Ready! Aim! FIRE!"
Ten flaming arrows flew through the air and landed in the dry brush at their feet. The flames immediately lept to life, licking ominously at Regina's feet.
The smoke was beginning to billow up around her face in clouds and she began to cough. Through the haze of the smoke she looked at Henry again and saw a new feeling coming alive in his eyes: despair. "Robin," she hissed.
"I know!" he replied.
The flames had begun to lick at her dress at this point, and Robin's cloak was fully aflame. The heat from the flames was beginning to burn, but it was nothing to the burning in her lungs. She was going to lose consciousness soon. She could hear Robin hacking next to hear, could see Henry's face wavering in the smoke, could hear the sickening cheers of a few in the crowd as she began dying in front of their eyes, and suddenly could feel a hand roughly clawing at her arm as Robin pulled the cuff off of her. "GO!" He yelled, and she carried them both away in a purple cloud of smoke.