Emma watched him from the doorway, seconds sliding into minutes as she braced herself to deliver the news and became increasingly reluctant to wrench Henry away from his lazy afternoon of comic books and math problems.
"Okay, it's getting creepy now. Like, Hallmark-commercial levels of creepy, Mom. Can you just come in already?"
Henry's voice was the perfect combination of annoyance and amusement, something he had undoubtedly picked up from Regina over the years and felt the need to remind her of right now, as if the task at hand wasn't difficult enough.
"Sorry, kid." Emma managed a sheepish smile before wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Hallmark? That bad?"
Henry nodded. "What's up?"
She settled on the bed next to him, gently flipping the comic book under his nose (another thing he shared with Regina, never her) closed, an action that finally made Henry turn and look at her properly, a small frown pulling down one side of his mouth.
"Listen, Henry, there's no good way to tell you this, so…" Emma sighed, then rushed through the rest of the words. "Your mom kind of became the Evil Queen again."
He looked at her, a furrow of confusion pulling his eyebrows together, before letting out a short, snorting laugh. "Yeah, okay. Are you talking about the whole Robin and Marian thing? Because I know—"
"No! Well, not exactly. Your mom wanted to forget everything that happened with Robin, so she used a memory potion. Only it erased a little more than she had planned." A beat, as she weighed the difference between honesty and kindness. "A lot more."
"Like what?"
"Uh, pretty much everything since she cast the curse that brought everyone to Storybrooke."
Henry scrunched his face up as he pieced it all together. "So, she doesn't remember me?"
"No, kid. She doesn't know who I am either, and she's got a serious vendetta against your grandma and grandpa again. She tore up half the town today before we realized what was happening."
"Did she hurt anyone?"
"No, she didn't hurt anyone... not badly, at least." Emma cringed as she said it, squeezing Henry's shoulder in a one-arm, lopsided hug. "I'm so sorry, kid."
He just shook his head a little, looking thoughtful and somehow completely unfazed by the whole situation. She supposed he had seen enough magic-gone-wrong at this point to consider his mother's return to villainy a relatively minor development.
"You're not going to let me see her, are you?"
"I really don't think it's a good idea right now."
"I get it. Mom wouldn't want me to get close to her like that either—you know, not when she's all scary-faced and ripping people's hearts out."
"Hey, she's not ripping anyone's heart out, okay?"
Henry continued as if he hadn't heard her. "It's gonna make Operation Elephant a little harder to pull off, though."
"Operation what now?"
"Operation Elephant. We gotta bring back her memories, right?"
"Right, and…" Emma suppressed the urge to question the operation name—of all things, she never would have picked elephants to represent Regina in any way—because Henry was watching her, impatiently waiting for her to get it while she ran what little she knew about the animal through her mind, finishing with a weak, "…elephants never forget?"
"Bingo."
"I don't know, Henry. Gold made it sound pretty complicated."
"I have an idea."
Of course he had an idea, an operation to fix anything that their fucked-up lives threw at him, and Emma loved his hopefulness, his belief, but she knew there would come a time when whatever cleverly-named plan he had in place would fail or backfire or hurt somebody, and she didn't want to see that happen to him, not ever, but especially not when so much was at stake.
"You know how you needed the book to remember that you were the Savior?" She nodded. "I think I can make a book like that for Mom—all the things from Storybrooke she needs to remember, with pictures, and stories, and everything."
In his mind, he had already succeeded, and Emma didn't have the heart to discourage him, to warn him that Regina was just as apt to fling the book out of a window as she was to read it. It would keep him occupied, out-of-the-way, and it was something to try, no matter how far-fetched it seemed to her. A book had worked on her, after all, despite her resistant skepticism.
So she smiled at him fondly and said, "That's a good idea, kid."
Henry had already rocketed off the bed, darting from one corner of the room to another as he started to gather pieces for his book, poring over his collection for just the right issues of X-Men and S.H.I.E.L.D., smoothing out pictures of himself with Regina, looking for anything that would bring his mother back to him.
.
.
Rumplestiltskin magicked them all—Charming, Snow, Hook, the Savior, and Regina herself—to another location, a house decorated in black and white and silver in a way that managed to be austere and luxurious at the same time.
Her house, they said, and Snow watched her expectantly as she looked around, eyes moving from one expensive furnishing to the next, as if the girl actually believed that the mere sight of the wallpaper would be enough for Regina to reawaken memories of the life she had supposedly built there.
The aesthetic was not quite to her tastes but acceptable, doubly so considering she had spent the night strapped to that infernal chair, aching in places she couldn't put a name to. She had refused to sleep in such an undignified position, especially while in the hands of people who wished her harm, and had wasted hours glaring at Charming every time he had poked his head in to check on her, then at Hook when he had taken over the watch.
"Careful, love," the pirate had called to her from the edge of the room. "You'll set me afire if you glare any harder."
She had only deepened her scowl. "I'm counting on it, dear."
She was paying for it now, of course, her eyes heavy-lidded with exhaustion, burning as she blinked. And she was still chained to that damned chair. She had to crane her neck in a near-impossible angle to shoot a scathing look at Snow.
"If this how the curse interpreted my sense of style, I can only imagine how hideous your hovel is."
There was a bustle of activity around them—Rumplestiltskin muttering and moving his hands in familiar patterns as he warded the house, the others making a point of removing sharp objects with a sense of gravitas that had Regina all but rolling her eyes. As if she would stoop to attacking any of them with the cutlery.
"It's done." Rumple announced, peevishly tugging at the sleeve of his jacket as if he had been greatly inconvenienced by the spellwork. "I trust you can handle the rest."
He strode out of the house without waiting for a response, the clack of his cane loud against the ground even after the door had slammed shut behind him.
"Right. Well."
Charming glanced around at the others, earning a quick nod of approval from Emma, and bent down to fiddle with the restraints holding Regina in place.
"Letting me go?" she purred. "Now there's a good boy. You'll die quicker than the others."
Charming's jaw tightened as he stepped away, loose chains in hand, and he instinctively flicked his eyes over to Snow. They were still wary of her, powerless though she was—good. Regina stood, somehow keeping her balance and an element of regality despite the prickling sensations that ran through all of her limbs, and turned in a close, controlled circle.
"What's next? A housewarming party?"
"The house is under a containment spell. There's no way for you to leave—not through force, not through magic. Two of us will be staying here at all times to keep an eye on you."
"Just for a little while. Just until we're sure…" Snow broke in softly, apologetically. "It's to protect you as much as it is to protect us."
"Like I need your protection," Regina spat back at her.
But it was an effort to keep the venom in her voice, and she no longer had the energy to fight, not now, when she was bone-tired and overwhelmed and surrounded by enemies who looked at her with fear but also with something like pity. Better to retreat and regain her footing, to strike at them later when she knew what weapons she had left in her arsenal.
"I suppose you know where I kept quarters here," she said drily, "us being such good friends and all."
"Upstairs. I'll show you."
"Don't bother, Swan. It takes a special kind of feeblemindedness to get lost in a hallway, don't you think?"
She swept up the stairs before any of them could open their mouths again, passing two doorways before she found the master bedroom. Black and white, predictably, and full of fine fabrics and sleek corners, though a thorough inspection would have to wait until later.
She all but fell into the bed, boots and all, not even thinking to warm herself under the covers but only curling into a small, clenched shape and breathing in the strange air of this world, of her beautifully composed cage.
.
.
She woke with sunlight streaming over her head, cold and stiff and sprawled across a bed much too large for one person. Her makeup had left dark streaks on the fabric under her cheek, some of it looking more like blood than lipstick, and she sighed, knowing that she should clean herself up before any of her jailers found her in such a state of disarray. Of weakness.
They hadn't sought to disturb her yet, surely, or Snow and her bleeding heart would have covered her with a blanket or left her water and bread, or whatever table scraps they expected her to eat here.
She turned over, flopping bonelessly before drawing her knees closer to her chest again, and let her eyes wander across the surfaces of the room. Her vision snagged on the bedside table, on the picture of the boy (Henry, they had called him, and it was a sick joke to use her father's name against her like that) staring down at her, and she was forced back to pondering the truth of every impossible thing they had told her yesterday.
It was impossible, all of it, and yet Regina had believed before in things that others would claim as fiction, as invention, and she couldn't deny that every piece of this world she had been exposed to thus far—every person, every room, every beguiling object—was steeped with an odd familiarity, a frustratingly tip-of-the-tongue sensation that kept answers just out of her reach, though she could feel them there.
Her body recognized this place—deep in its core, in its muscles—even if her mind did not.
More troubling was the idea that this world and her current state were self-inflicted, that she had been the instrument for the magic that had brought her (and all of them) to this point, if not the mastermind behind it all—that title had and always would belong to Rumplestiltskin alone.
The level of magic, the depth and coordination it required, was obviously beyond the capabilities of the two idiots, and as much as she wanted to pin this latest manipulation on the Imp, she knew that any worlds he created would be dark, twisted things and not full of sunlight and pretty houses and sons.
But if she had done this to herself, willingly rendered herself helpless and in the keeping of people she had always considered enemies, what had she gotten in exchange?
What had been so terrible that she had gone to such lengths to erase it from her mind?
.
.
She stubbornly wore the clothes she had fashioned for herself for two days before she felt unkempt and pathetic enough to confront the closet in her room. She had rummaged through it on the first morning, driven then by curiosity and not need, and had been bewildered by its contents, briefly running her fingers over the line of fabrics before it all felt too intrusive, this thumbing-through of a stranger's clothing, though she knew that everything she found would be perfectly tailored to her body.
The second inspection proved no less mystifying. Nothing was as monstrous as the over-large sweaters Snow seemed to favor in this land, but she was less than pleased with the selection and skeptical that any version of herself would choose to dress like this. Not unattractive, exactly, but so… sensible. Common. Some of the pieces were downright mannish, words like jeans and pantsuits (both immediately distasteful) presenting themselves as she looked, everything loose and long and buttoned-up where she preferred to be daring.
Even the dresses that appealed to her—striking colors, dramatic necklines—were strange in shape and cut, and, more than anything, the foreignness of the collection left her uneasy, wondering who she was supposed to be in this place. Who she had been, if the others were to be believed.
She had little choice, though, and in the end she pulled together an outfit almost at random, soft trousers and a simple shirt in greys and blacks, everything comfortable but formal and fitted enough to command attention if she needed to. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, and she studied her reflection in the mirror, noting how easily she had become the woman in the pictures that she had found scattered throughout the house: no longer a queen, but Regina—just Regina, as everyone insisted on addressing her, the name spoken in varying tones of wariness or exasperation as each conversation they attempted to start was met by her sullen silence or snarling contempt.
She felt no different, but the transformation was enough to make Emma do a double-take in the doorway, one hand hanging halfway through the motion as she forgot to knock.
"Whoa. You look like… you."
Regina scowled, absentmindedly tugging at the cuff on her wrist. It no longer made her feel ill, but she despised the sight of it, its constant reminder of how much had been taken from her, and she wished she had chosen something with longer sleeves.
"What, did you come to invite me to your little tea party downstairs?" she snapped as the blonde continued to stare at her, slack-mouthed.
Emma, undoubtedly, had come to remind her (for what felt like the thousandth time) that she had free rein of the house and didn't need to keep to her room. They always sent Swan, as if they expected her to find the woman's presence less grating than the others because they had no shared history. Regina enjoyed making them come to her, their hesitancy as they approached her chosen quarters, so clearly at a loss for what to do with her.
Emma didn't bother with the reminder this time, finally gathering herself and turning away with a childish "Whatever."
Regina took up her customary place at the window. It suited her to play the captive once again—it was a role she had fulfilled for much of her life, after all—falling back into her old fantasies of escape and freedom (now rather more firmly edged with ideas of vengeance that settled in the pits of her being, invasive as any hunger) as she watched shadows lengthening, birds flitting through the sky, and the comings and goings of the household below.
As promised, there were always two people in the house with her, and she had learned to identify them by sound alone—the weight of their steps, the hum of their voices through layers of wood and carpeting. Charming, his daughter, and Hook appeared the most frequently in various combinations, but her house had become some sort of meeting place for the town, and there were often four or five people drifting through the downstairs level at any given time.
The man with blue eyes, the hunter, her defender, came regularly but never stayed, never even set foot inside the house as far as she could tell. She watched him (watched for him, though she would never admit it) trudge up to the door, always with a bow slung across his back, always clothed in shades of green and brown as if he carried the whole forest with him. She could almost smell the pine and campfire on his skin despite the glass that separated them.
She heard the deep rumble of his voice beneath her, unintelligible but distinctly accented, trading words with whoever answered the door for a few minutes before he went away again, straight-backed and sure and inscrutable.
Though she never learned what news he brought, odd snatches of conversation had a habit of traveling up through the walls, and she wondered if they knew how much she overheard.
Most of it was boring (Swan and Hook commenting on the unseasonably cold weather) or inane (Snow and Charming's endless exchange of endearments), but sometimes she caught pieces of information that proved far more intriguing.
"We have to acknowledge the possibility that Regina might not be the biggest threat we're facing right now," Emma said one afternoon, shortly after she had arrived red-cheeked and out of breath.
The sound of shushing, and a much quieter question from Snow that Regina had to strain to hear even though she had moved to the top of the staircase to eavesdrop. "Do you think she would help us?"
There was no answer.
They were distracted by something—something more dangerous than her, as unlikely as that seemed—and Regina knew then that she could use any lapse in their concentration to bring them back under her heel. She had accepted their chains passively thus far, and she could already see them becoming complacent, careless. It would only take one slip for her to find a way out.
She told herself that she was waiting for the right moment, reluctant to act only because she was still so unprepared, but there was a curiosity she couldn't quite push down, a desperate need to make sense of this place and the woman they thought she was that overwhelmed her impulse to escape and destroy. She studied every picture and every nook in the house, running her fingers over them as if they would open their secrets to her if she touched them just so. She fed on details, on names, on faces. She listened.
And that was how she finally learned the hunter's name: Robin Hood.
She knew the stories, of course, and had seen the wanted posters that bore his name and face tacked alongside her own images of Snow. He had been beneath her notice then—as if she would waste breath pursuing a common thief when her true prey was still running loose—and yet something seemed to have stuck, for him to keep surfacing in her thoughts, for her to keep counting his visits to the door and the minutes he spent before straying out of her reach again.
Every description of him that she remembered (laughing eyes and a disregard for authority and an unerring bow arm) seemed so unlike the man she watched through the window.
He was so sad, that man. It hung about him like a sickness, and even the straight line of his back could not hide the depth of the hurt he carried within him.
He was one more thing she wanted desperately to understand. To use him, she told herself, as she imagined his heart in her hand and her teeth at his throat. Only to use him.
.
.
The peace was broken before the week was out, after the days had begun to run together and her boredom and restlessness had grown stifling enough to drive her downstairs.
Hook and Swan looked up at her with wide eyes, not bothering to conceal their surprise or their unease and quickly inching apart from each other on the sofa they shared.
"Regina, what—"
"Don't let me interrupt your… whatever-it-is that you're doing." She smirked knowingly as she passed them, delighting in the embarrassed flush that colored both their cheeks like two teenagers caught doing something their parents would disapprove of.
She strode into the kitchen and regretted that she had come downstairs without any particular goal. She couldn't retreat this quickly, at least not empty-handed, so she settled for filling a glass with water she had little interest in drinking. It still unnerved her that she knew which cupboard housed the glassware without checking.
She stood at the sink, eyes wandering over the spotless countertops and to the window that looked out into the yard, and then the glass she had forgotten she was holding was shattering on the floor because she had seen something impossible, something that made her heart jump into her throat and pulse frantically there.
Her tree, her apple tree, was rooted just outside, and the maddening possibility that it was real was outweighed only by her absolute confidence that no one would have thought to bring it here but her.
Three involuntary steps across the kitchen and her hand was already closing on the doorknob when someone seized her from behind, one strong arm locking around her chest and a hook catching low in her belly as she struggled forward.
"Are you mad?" the pirate hissed against her ear, sounding more panicked than angry. "I wouldn't be surprised if Gold rigged the enchantment on this house to kill you if you tried to escape."
She didn't care what he said, barely understood the words as she thrashed in his hold and clawed at the arms that held her pinned, no physical match for him but savage in her anger, in her intent. She finally landed an elbow in his side, and they broke apart, both heaving and wild-eyed. He was between her and the door, and she knew what it was to be trapped like an animal, to be left in that feral space where human understanding was forsaken in favor of instinct. All she saw was metal and leather and glass—things that could be sundered by the force of her need to know that what she was seeing was real.
"What the hell is going on?" Emma demanded from behind them.
The electricity was leaking from Regina's body, the possibility of reaching the tree slipping away as control returned. She had destroyed entire villages in similar outbursts of emotion—now she couldn't even break down a door.
"What happened?" Emma asked again, softer this time, and it was too much, that disingenuous care in her tone, for Regina to stomach.
"That's my tree, and I don't know how it got here, but you have no right to keep me from it," she growled, her voice rising with and punctuating each word, her teeth bared.
"Yeah, well, even if we wanted to let you out, the containment spell would stop you—and probably incinerate you, so…" The blonde shrugged, not unsympathetically, and Regina felt herself tense again at the diplomacy in Emma's words. She was still dangerously close to the edge, and, from the look Hook and Emma exchanged over her head, they all knew it.
"You can't keep me in here forever."
She meant it as a threat, but her voice trembled with something other than fury, and it sounded more like begging, like a frightened girl who had been locked in the darkness for too long.
.
.
Twenty-two steps along the path to the front door, twenty-two steps back to the street.
Robin had them memorized.
It had been agreed that he shouldn't have any contact with Regina, everyone reaching the sort of mutual conclusion that didn't need to be said aloud, and he was spared the torture of sharing such an intimate space with her, of pretending they were nothing more than acquaintances. The others still depended on him for patrols and updates on the Snow Queen's movements, and so he made the trek to Regina's house more often than he would have liked, always stopping on the front porch as he relayed his news as if daring to step into the place where she slept and breathed and paced would ruin him.
It probably would.
In the seconds before the door swung open upon his knock, he held his breath, always expecting that, this time, it would be her on the other side. Waiting for him with that smile that made him feel like a boy again, unsteady and eager as he reached for her hand and asked to come in.
It was Mary Margaret, or Emma, or David, and he forced a tight smile of his own as they waded into small-talk that was painfully uninteresting for all of them. He never asked about Regina, couldn't bear to, but they all had their ways of slipping updates of their own into the conversation.
"She started dressing normally again."
"She found some of Henry's old artwork and stared at it for hours."
"She threw the coffeepot at my head this morning, but her heart wasn't really in it."
"Oh," he would nod, focusing on his boots instead of the gentle understanding in their faces. He didn't want kindness from anyone. He didn't deserve it.
Twenty-two steps there and back, and he was never sure which was worse: drawing close enough to feel her presence, like a physical weight, in his chest or walking away again.
Sometimes, deep in the night while Roland muttered in his sleep beside him, he would stare down at the ink on his wrist, the tattoo that he had gotten on a stupid, vain whim that had somehow become tied to his fate, his choices, his happiness.
He could show her the tattoo. He could force her to recognize who he was to her, and maybe it would break the spell or maybe it would break her mind, but it would do something, of that he was certain.
But Regina had made her choice, and she wouldn't thank him for taking that away from her. He told himself that it was better this way, more honorable—how he had come to detest that word—to let her start afresh and build a life with someone who wasn't burdened with a past like his.
He had Marian and his son and a good life with his men, and that was enough, more than enough to be thankful for. He knew that. In time, maybe, he would be able to accept that version of the truth without his head traitorously reminding him that he loved another.
Regina was fine, she was whole without him, while he was breaking apart—damned by the promise of his tattoo, damned by his own reckless heart, damned for wanting her, wanting everything she was, beyond the bounds of reason.
.
.
The walls of the castle suddenly dropped away, and Regina pushed through the dense undergrowth that pressed closely around her. She didn't know where she was, but one forest tended to resemble another even across worlds, and she felt strangely at peace, unconcerned by this inexplicable transition between tower and nature. Her eyes closed as she tried to engage her other senses, a draft stirring up the smell of damp soil and something muskier nearby.
It was soaking through the bottoms of her shoes, then: the field of blood she was standing in. It mixed with the dirt and the short stems of grass and fern underfoot, the colors unnaturally rich and terrible and beautiful at once, and a scream rose in her throat as she backed away, tracking wine-red mud with her, but there was no outrunning the storm of half-formed images that played in front of her eyes, under her eyelids—purple magic spilling out of a well, a little boy laughing as he chased after a flock of geese, her mother on the floor, her mother dying, someone gently and hesitantly pressing her heart back into her chest, apples, blood, and no telling which was which—and Regina gasped back to wakefulness, shuddering as the blankets fell away from her.
She was cold, shaken, and though the images had already faded to muddled impressions of color and shadow, they felt intensely real, alive under her skin in the stuttering, hammering skip of her pulse.
Her door banged open without warning, and a panting Emma stood braced against the frame, looking half-asleep herself. "You screamed."
Regina smoothed the blanket over her lap, trying to calm her hands. "I did not."
"Uh… okay. I must have imagined it then. My mistake." The response was steeped in sarcasm and disbelief, and Emma's face was creased with a troubled frown as she began to pull the door closed again.
"Wait."
Emma paused, raising an eyebrow at her.
"If this is my house, I must have a stock of spirits somewhere."
It was a concession that she was loath to give, this admission of need, but she wouldn't sleep again tonight, and the tranquilizing effects of a stiff drink were worth braving the company and scrutiny of a woman she barely knew.
Emma's face had relaxed into a crooked smile. She was amused about something, but not mocking, and her voice was light when she asked, "How'd you like a glass of the best apple cider you've ever tasted?"
"Something stronger, I think."
Emma's face paled a little then, as if Regina had said the wrong thing, but she nodded and jerked her head towards the stairs before walking away, letting Regina follow in her own time.
When she made it down to the sitting room, Emma had already procured a large decanter of something—whiskey, she guessed from the color—and poured generous amounts into three tumblers.
Hook watched her through half-lidded eyes (and, gods, he insisted on lining his eyes with kohl even while he slept) as she took a glass from Emma and knocked it back in two long swallows.
"Oh, good, you're here. Scream like that, one expects to find you being murdered in your bed, and it's not like you have a shortage of people willing to do the job."
Regina briefly contemplated throwing her glass at him—a pretty face like his was asking for a few more scars—but she settled for a venomous look as she poured herself another drink, this one to be sipped more slowly.
"Keep your mutt on a leash, Swan, unless you want to see his heart extinguished in front of you."
"Forgive me if I don't feel more threatened, Regina. What are you gonna do, dig it out with a spoon?"
"Would you like to—"
"All right, all right," Emma broke in, stepping into the rapidly shrinking distance between Regina and the pirate. "Can we all just sit down and have a drink? It's been a long few days for all of us."
"Aye, love, that it has," Hook sighed resignedly, and the amorous way those two looked at each other made Regina want to gag. "I'll try to behave."
They sat in a loose circle, each sipping at their whiskey in silence, and Regina had finally begun to relax in their presence, letting her mind wander lazily, when Emma interrupted her.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"With you? Are we going to hold hands and braid each other's hair, too?"
Hook choked on a mouthful of whiskey, spluttering through his laughter and earning a disapproving glare from Emma as she muttered, "I think you're confusing me with my mother."
"Well, Swan, the apple never falls far from the tree," Regina replied sweetly. "What kind of ridiculous name is Swan, anyway?"
"Let's see, the name you cursed me with when you poofed everyone into this world?"
"It was your parents who put you in that wardrobe, not me. I just wanted to kill you."
"That makes me feel so much better," Emma mumbled back. "You could call me Emma, you know. You used to."
Regina pointed to Hook, who had been watching the exchange with poorly concealed amusement. "He calls you Swan."
Emma fixed him with a look that clearly said this is all your fault, and Regina couldn't resist needling the blonde even more—her temper pricked easily, and it gave Regina some small measure of control, one of her few powers that didn't depend on magic. "Perhaps you would prefer 'love'?"
"Why do I even bother?" Emma asked sulkily, draining her glass with a speed and ease that marked her as an experienced drinker. Not quite like her mother then, no.
They lapsed again into silence. It wasn't comfortable, but it was somehow less awkward, less threatening, than she had expected. The nightmares that had driven her downstairs in the first place were held at bay—still lingering at the back of her mind, and she would have to confront what she had seen (remembered?) sooner or later—but for now she was content to sit and drink, even if she had to share the space with Hook and Swan.
"So, we've been talking. Not just us, but Mary Margaret, and David, and—"
"Yes, dear, I do know the names of the people who have imprisoned me in my house."
"We think you should have some time to go outside. See the town, you know, and maybe that will help you remember. You won't be alone, of course, but there are worse things, right?"
Regina glowered at the blonde. "I'm not a dog. You don't need to walk me."
"Do you want to leave the house or not?"
"Fine."
The required supervision would likely chafe just as much as a physical leash, but it was something. A small victory that thrilled up her spine before settling back in her stomach as nerves, as if her body was trying to warn her that she wasn't going to like what she found beyond these walls.
.
.
Perhaps it was the anticipation of being able to leave the house or her anxiety about the nightmares returning, but sleep eluded her for the second night in a row. The sky was just beginning to quicken with the greys and pinks of dawn when she pushed the covers back and stole into the darkened hallway in search of something to occupy her hands and mind.
The downstairs was dimly lit by two lamps, but no one was in sight—unusual for Charming, who had been there only hours before and made a point of sitting up all night when he was on duty. There was a stillness, an emptiness, to the house, and Regina couldn't help wondering if they had finally left her alone, as unlikely as that was.
That mad flicker of hope drew her towards the kitchen once again. The light from the other room barely touched the shadows in there, and the world outside was just as dark, lost to the night in those last moments before the break of day that seemed to stretch into an eternity. She could not see it, but it was there: her tree, such a silly thing to hold such meaning for her, but there it was, on the other side of the glass, and if she could only feel its living strength under her hands…
Her step quickened over the tiles, a sudden delirious impulse driving her forward as she realized there was no one to stop her this time. She didn't care about the magic locking her in, she didn't care if the Imp's spell ripped her apart—anything would be better than staying within these walls for another minute, and she would welcome death, she would welcome freedom in whatever sick form she could find it—and so caught up in her flight to the door as she was, she would have missed the man leaning against the kitchen island if he had not turned his head to watch her, the subtle movement stopping her short as if she had been grounded in quicksand, and they stared at each other.
Robin Hood looked just as taken aback by her presence as she was by his. There was a steaming mug poised halfway between the counter and his lips, its motion disrupted or perhaps forgotten because of her intrusion. Regina's eyes had adjusted well enough to the darkness to make out the broad features of his face, and she was surprised—pleased—to see that there was no evasion this time, simply a steady return of her gaze as they regarded each other with equal curiosity.
In seconds Robin had broken the pause by bringing the mug to his lips again, drinking deeply, and returning it to the counter with a calmness that she would not have expected from a man whose solitude had been so unceremoniously interrupted.
"Milady," he said, with a slight dip of his head.
"At last, someone addressing me with the respect I deserve." She bared her teeth in something that fell between a smile and a sneer. It wasn't your majesty or anything resembling proper etiquette, but it was more than Regina, and this man was proving far more interesting than she could have imagined. "Astonishing that it should come from the lips of a thief."
"You know who I am, then?"
"I've heard the stories."
"Is that an accusation?" His tone was light, wry, and he cupped his hands around his drink, stroking the sides with distracted fingers. "I assure you, the silver is safe from me, should you care to count it."
She closed the distance between them, circling slowly around the centered island, and he turned with her, never dropping his eyes from her face and, more tellingly, never letting her get behind his back. For all his posturing, his casual words and gestures, he did not trust her for a second.
"Why did you come here if not to steal from me?"
"The others needed to leave early, and I was close." He shrugged slightly. "They lured me in with the promise of good coffee—which, if you have tasted the dreck my men make, is rather too much too resist."
Without asking, he reached for a second mug and the coffeepot (one of the few things that seemed out-of-place in the kitchen, presumably because she had broken the first one against the wall with a mistimed throw at Charming's head, and he had replaced it with no regard for style or color) and slid it gently across the counter to her. She took it—merely to stave off the chill that was working its way through her thin nightclothes, of course, though the warmth and spice of the liquid was comforting in other ways as well.
"You've never come inside before. Are you afraid of the Evil Queen?"
His eyes narrowed a little, creating a deep furrow in his brow as he cocked his head. "Is that who you are?"
She couldn't read him then, whether he was serious or amused, and so she settled for a stiff "That's what they call me."
"And they call me a thief with honor, but that doesn't make it so."
His easy dismissal of the identity she had worn for years stirred her temper, and she set her mug down (nearly cracking the bottom) almost as sharply as she spoke. "People fear me for good reason, thief. I've slaughtered peasants and burned villages to dust and, apparently, cursed an entire land. I won't begrudge them their petty titles."
"I've heard the stories," he said, the echo of her earlier words infuriating in its insolence. "But I was not slaughtered or burned or cursed by your hand, and so stories they will remain." He saw that Regina was about to protest and pressed on. "I prefer to make my own judgments, milady, and I see little that can be called 'evil' in the woman standing in front of me."
"Then you are a fool."
"Perhaps I am, but I stand by my word. Whether you accept it is another matter entirely."
"You speak as if you know me."
Robin paused, perhaps weighing his answer on his tongue, and finally flicked his eyes away from her. "You remind me of someone I used to know."
"Oh?"
She waited for him to elaborate, sure that he was speaking of someone he had loved, someone now dead, someone she sensed she could use against him. But he did not speak or raise his head, and she was left to watch him as the sun rose, the changing colors of the sky illuminating his frame an inch at a time as the world gradually lightened.
For the first time, Regina could see the deep lines of his face—deeper than any man his age had a right to wear—and the protective hunch of his shoulders and the way his hands were bruised, yellowing trails along the outsides of his little fingers and down the blades of his hands, reaching almost to his wrists. It was strange, she thought, for an archer to be so careless with himself.
"Were you planning on going somewhere?" Robin tipped his head towards the door, and there was a flippancy in the question that angered her again as she was pulled away from her assessment of him. He knew very well that there was nowhere for her to go.
"That is none of your concern."
"The tree, it means something to you?"
He looked at her knowingly, and there was nothing for her to deny, for he had witnessed her desperation to reach it not an hour ago.
"It's mine," she growled, and that should be enough, but she couldn't stop talking. "It's the only thing I have left, and I don't even know if it's real." For all her anger, her voice caught on the last word, and Robin's hand twitched away from its hold on his mug, feeling for her across the counter, and she was too busy trying to bring herself back under control to think about pulling away.
The front door banged open, loud enough for Regina to startle backwards as Snow called out, announcing her entrance. Those few seconds provided enough distraction for Robin to slip away, and Regina turned back to an empty kitchen, his presence marked only by the empty coffee mug across from her.
She mumbled something unpleasant in response to Snow and Emma's greetings, pushing past them to get up the stairs, back to her lonely bedroom, confused by her own behavior and by how unsettled she felt in the wake of her conversation with the thief.
All of his questions had touched something deeper than they should have, a part of her that he should have no access to. Her pulse jumped wildly at the base of her throat, like the beating wings of a bird as it struggled to stay aloft, and she sank down slowly with her back against the door of her room, breathless even before she saw the gift that he—the thief, the outlaw, Robin—had left: a single apple, red as blood, balanced on the inside of her windowsill.
.
.
"I still think this is a bad idea," Charming muttered to the group as they watched Emma pour the last vial of sand across the threshold of the front door.
"I think they heard you the first nine times," Regina snapped back at him, though she was pleasantly surprised that everyone continued to more or less ignore Charming's repeated objections. It was happening. They were actually going to let her out.
She was still wearing the cuff, of course, and her captors had turned out in force today—the Charmings, Emma, Hook, and half of the thief's men, though not the man himself—to mind her while she walked the streets. Though the presence of so many people tasked with, essentially, making sure she played well with others during the excursion irked her to no end, humiliation was a price she was willing to pay for freedom, however temporary it might be.
"Okay, we're ready," Emma said, stepping back from the doorframe and motioning Regina forward with a small smile.
Regina hesitantly approached the threshold, trying not to visibly flinch as she crossed the barrier of Rumplestiltskin's spell and waited for it to throw her backwards—it didn't—and then she was flooded by the colors and sounds and tastes of the afternoon. Her eyes drifted shut as she breathed it all in, letting the sun and the air and the shadows play across her skin until the moment was broken by her flock of followers closing rank around her.
"Where do you want to go?" Emma asked.
"How should I know?"
"Right. Well, pretty much everything is along Main Street, so we'll see Town Hall, maybe stop in at the diner—"
"Don't tell me: if I'm good, you'll buy me a hot chocolate."
Emma's face lit up. "Hey, you remembered something! That's great."
"Wait, that's something you actually do?" Regina wrinkled her nose in disgust. "That's something I did?"
"Nevermind," Emma sighed, pulling away slightly to take charge of the party.
They walked in silence as Regina swiveled her head from side to side, letting her brain put names to all of the buildings she saw and trying to feel if any of them held importance or recognition for her. The residential neighborhoods stretched on longer than she had expected, and the clock tower that marked the center of town was still another street over when the screaming began.
The sounds of fear, of people panicking, were clear even from a distance, and the shouts were underscored by a deep rumbling—and grating and tearing—that signaled a startling amount of destruction.
"What the hell is that?" she asked the others, wondering if they had led her out here simply to leave her at the mercy of whatever was on the loose, and she was only slightly relieved to see that Emma and everyone else looked just as perturbed as she felt.
A short, round man suddenly came barreling around the corner, running full-tilt and not slowing down even as he approached, then passed, the group. She recognized Grumpy by his voice as he yelled over his shoulder, "It's the Snow Queen! She's tearing apart the town!"
"We need to get her back to the house," Charming said, wrapping his hand firmly around Regina's upper arm and starting to pull her away before Emma stopped him with a frantic shake of her head.
"There's not enough time—we need you and everyone else and as much manpower as we can find, now. She's coming with us."
If Charming was displeased by being undermined by his own daughter, he didn't argue, though he also didn't loosen his grip on Regina's arm as they all began sprinting towards the commotion. Regina, for once, found herself maddeningly in agreement with the prince—she didn't particularly want to be dragged headlong into a battle that she knew nothing about and had no way to protect herself from. She supposed they were all fortunate that everyone considered her such a threat; each of her guards had come armed, and heavily at that.
The main street still bore signs of the damage she had inflicted during her own rampage, but those scars were now hugely (and literally) overshadowed by the three creatures smashing through cars and sidewalks and the occasional building with enormous white fists. They were made of snow—or ice, perhaps, given the hardness of their bodies—and though somewhat crudely constructed, their blocky, boulder-like forms were making quick work of everything in their path.
"Stay here, Regina, or so help me…" Charming hissed at her, pressing her roughly against a streetlight before running to join the others, drawing a sword that looked like it would be as useful as a toothpick against the snow creatures.
Her entire party had spread across the street, taking up defensive positions based on the range of their weapons. A girl in a blue dress was already battling the creatures, creating walls with streams of ice magic that were easily broken down, one after another, as the monsters swung their fists. Emma hurried to the girl's side, and Regina was startled to see that Emma had magic of her own—weak, chaotic sparks that spit out of her hands and burned brightly before bouncing uselessly to the ground, but magic nonetheless.
Regina barely had time to wonder if the girl in blue was the 'Snow Queen' responsible for the mess before another woman caught her attention by stepping out from the shadows that the enormous creatures cast. Her smug expression and the intricate jeweling of her gown—Regina almost could have mistaken it for one of her own, if she hadn't destroyed every white dress in her wardrobe long ago—left little doubt as to her identity, and Regina watched her curiously as she approached Emma and the girl. Whatever words they exchanged were lost in the cacophony of ice hitting ice, and so there was no warning for the rush of magic that the Queen used to hurl the blondes backwards, sending them rolling and scraping across the pavement for a good ten meters.
Hook beat her to Emma's side by a few paces and set about helping her up, and Regina didn't even know why she was running until she got there.
"Take off the cuff."
"What?"
"Take off the cuff."
"Why would we do that?" Hook asked stupidly, and Regina rounded on him.
"So I can stop her, you handless wonder." She turned back towards Emma, one finger stabbing to point at the girl in blue standing shakily beside them. "She can't fight ice with more ice, and I don't know what you're doing, and it looks like you don't either."
"How do we know you won't—"
Regina wasn't about to make a long, heartwarming speech about trust and hope—not ever, since she wasn't as foolishly naïve as the two idiots and their daughter, but particularly not now, when three snow monsters and their mistress were bearing down them all with deadly intent.
"You don't," she cut in sharply, and after a moment's hesitation and a searching look, Emma nodded to her.
She missed most of the mechanics of the removal of the cuff, darting glances at the placid but unmistakably malevolent face of the Snow Queen while Emma bent over her wrist, finally stepping back with the circle of leather in her hands, and Regina was free.
She caught Snow's face in the edge of her vision and turned slightly to look at her head-on. There was fear there, and it twisted something in Regina's gut, something with claws and teeth that wanted to sink themselves into that perfect white skin, and, oh, how easy it would be… but that madness passed, her eyes refocused on the snow-white monsters that had moved close enough to crush her under their limbs, and she breathed out, knowing what she needed to do.
Regina flexed her fingers, waiting for the familiar surge of her magic, and felt nothing. Nothing had happened. Her magic was gone, perhaps irretrievably, and the weight of that realization almost dropped her to her knees. She must have staggered slightly, for Emma reached out to steady her, one hand brushing against her elbow—flint striking steel, she was sparking, she was exploding, and the flames of her magic burst out of her with enough force to send Emma diving for cover.
The first blast tore the arm off of the nearest monster, the great mass of snow and ice avalanching to the ground and cracking through the top layer of concrete. She unleashed another wave of fire, reveling in the sheer power of it, letting her magic run over the snow creatures and seek out the vulnerable points of their bodies. They groaned, glaciers breaking apart, as she melted and dismembered them each in turn before she thought to target the Queen herself. By then it was too late, the Queen having retreated the moment the fight had soured for her.
Regina lowered her arms cautiously, surprised that the effort had not left her more winded, and remembered that she was not alone. Everyone left on the street—mostly the group that had accompanied her, though Robin and a few others had shown up at some point—had been there to fight, and now that the action was over, they stood around awkwardly, swinging unused weapons over their shoulders or in slow arcs by their sides.
Snow was the first to approach her, skipping nimbly around and over the debris scattered over the road, followed closely by Emma.
Snow grinned at her brightly, joyously, looking like the child Regina had saved all of those years ago. Wonderment battled with mistrust in her voice when she asked, "Why did you help us?"
"This is my town." Regina cocked her head at them, baffled to hear the hint of pride that had crept into her own voice. "Isn't that what you keep telling me?"
"Well, not in so many words…"
Emma was grinning too, obviously pleased that her gamble had paid off, but Regina saw that the cuff was already in her hand, she was already reaching to snap it back around Regina's wrist, and that was enough for Regina to wrench herself away, staggering backwards as her magic thrummed through her in response to her fear.
She would not let them tame her again.
Emma and Snow were looking at her with concern, and Emma had just opened her mouth when Regina's defensive magic slammed into her, sending the blonde flying across the pavement for the third time in about as many minutes.
As Regina wheeled on the others, ready to fight anyone who came near, two small hands pulled at the fabric of her dress, and she looked down into the wide brown eyes and trusting smile of a child. He barely came up past her knees and put up no protest when she lifted him to her hip—in fact, his smile brightened, and as he threw his little arms around her, she smiled in return, reserving the triumphant edge of it for the adults ranged around her.
She heard the dismayed call—"Roland, no!"—before she saw the thief push his way forward, and she realized exactly who she held in her arms. His son. Her grip around the boy tightened, and she felt more than heard the crowd's collective intake of breath, but her eyes never left Robin.
"The cuff for the boy."
She would not hurt the boy (she didn't think she would), but it was clear from the tense jaws, the placatingly raised hands that they all believed she would snap his neck in an instant. Robin was unflinchingly calm, his hands held loosely at his sides as he regarded her, and if it hadn't been for his eyes, she never would have guessed how frightened and how terribly, terribly angry he was.
His eyes burned into her, twin wildfires that were almost hypnotizing in their intensity, and she wondered how anything so blue, anything so like sky reflected on water, could be so fiery.
Roland began to squirm, and she turned her attention back to him, angling her head close to his mop of curls so she could whisper to him without the others overhearing.
"Roland, does your father ever tickle you?"
He nodded enthusiastically, and she pressed her fingers into his ribs, feeling out the right spots, until he began to squeak and shriek in discomfort, pulling away from her and letting out a muffled, choked-with-laughter "No, stop!"
Her eyes swept back over the crowd, and she registered the horror there, understood how the boy's cries could be mistaken for sounds of pain and fear from a distance. She watched as Robin's face paled, his hands tightening as he struggled to still himself, and she knew she had him.
"The cuff for the boy," she said again.
The thief wordlessly took the cuff from Emma, who had risen to his side, and came forward. He held it out to Regina, and there was a strange sadness in the gesture, as if he was giving up more than a piece of leather. As soon as her fingers brushed the cuff, he tore the boy away from her, taking (nearly sprinting) several large strides before he crouched and leaned back to check his son for injuries.
And she read the confusion in his frown as Roland looked up at him questioningly, already whining in his father's arms and pointing to her, stretching his arms out to her in a gesture of want. Robin snapped his head around to stare at her, studying her intently, demanding something from her, but she was already gone, disappearing into a cloud of purple smoke.
.
.
"I suppose it was too much to hope that she would come back here," Emma sighed, plopping herself down on one of the sofas in Regina's living room.
"What do we do now?"
"I think we all know what needs to be done." Gold's hands folded over the head of his cane, and though his expression remained serious, there was no mistaking the undertone of satisfaction in his words.
"I'm not so sure about that, Gold."
"Emma, she threw you across the street," Mary Margaret chided gently, as if her daughter was likely to forget the bruises already forming over her arms and back.
"I know, and I was fine. She didn't hurt me, and we all know she could have. Hell, she could have let the Snow Queen save her the trouble and kill us all."
"But she didn't," Mary Margaret said slowly, earning an exasperated snort from David.
"This time she didn't. We don't know what she's capable of, and her magic seems stronger than ever."
Emma frowned. "Yeah, has Regina been holding out on us this whole time? That little display was some no power in the 'verse can stop me-level shit."
Hook clapped her on the shoulder and smirked when she yelped at the contact. "You're not helping your case any, love."
"She's not Regina, but she's not the Evil Queen either," Emma insisted, looking at each of them in turn until they dropped their eyes or nodded in agreement. "And we're not killing her."
Gold, clearly unmoved by her reasoning, shrugged as he limped to the door. He paused before crossing the threshold, fixing Emma with a look that chilled her to the bone.
"Suit yourself, dearie, but next time don't come running to me when she sets the town on fire."
.
.
Regina sat miserably in the mausoleum in which she had first awoken. Returning to the house was out of the question, and this was the only other place she knew in this world, the only other place that felt like hers, and so she had fled to it out of necessity, though she felt all the more exposed for being underground.
She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling less with the cold than with the magnitude of what she had just done. She had won, she had been freed both from her makeshift prison and the cuff, and she should be happy. Happy and vengeful, but she was neither of those things, and she wasn't sure what was wrong with her. She had yearned for freedom, clawed her way to it, and now that she had it, she felt like it would drown her. She was adrift, and alone, and cold in a way that had nothing to do with the sinking temperatures outside.
The scuff of boots against stone made her stiffen, and she pulled her magic to her fingertips, ready to strike as soon as the intruder made himself known. A head bobbed into view first, the rest of the body lost in the shadows of the hall, and she caught a flash of green as he stopped beneath one of the sconces along the wall.
It was Robin.
His mouth was set in a grim line, but he raised his hands chest-high when he saw the expression on her face.
"I wouldn't have hurt the boy."
The words slipped out of the sides of her mouth before they were fully formed in her mind, her desperate desire to explain herself to him overriding the usual scorn that ruled her tongue. "He was…" safe would be too much of a lie, she supposed.
"Leverage," he said darkly.
"Yes. Leverage."
"And that makes it all right, then, to frighten a child? Just to get what you want?" His voice filled the chamber, its strained note of exasperation ringing in her ears even after the echo had faded.
"Did he look frightened to you?" she challenged. She rose with one practiced movement and watched his cheeks color, his teeth biting into his bottom lip as he looked down, and she didn't know if the gesture signaled shame or arousal on his part. "I wouldn't expect you to understand, thief."
"Oh?"
"People throw a tiger in a cage, toy with it, forget that it's something wild, and then everyone wonders why they get bitten when they set the tiger free."
"And in this analogy, you're the tiger?"
The question was arch, the corner of his mouth twitching, and Regina couldn't bear his mockery, as gentle as it was.
"You made me helpless!" she snarled, alarmed to find that tears pricked at her eyes, threatening to break loose. "You put that cuff on me and didn't care that it hurt, and then I saved this damn town, and you were all so ready to lock me back in my box, like I'm nothing more than a disobedient pet. Like you don't owe me anything."
Her voice was rough with emotion, and though Robin already looked stricken by her outburst, she couldn't help spitting, "Where's the honor in that, thief?"
"I don't suppose there is any, milady."
"I wouldn't have hurt him," she said again quietly.
"I know."
There was a long moment of silence as Robin ran a hand through his hair, then his eyes wandered up to touch hers. "The others will be looking for you, milady. What should I tell them?"
"Whatever you like."
He nodded, awkwardly lingering in the doorway as if measuring the distance between them, as if wondering if he should risk the passage. Then he turned on his heel and left her.
She needed to find somewhere else to take shelter, to plan her next move, but all she could think about was what might have happened if he had dared to cross the room and what Regina would sound like on his lips, for, more than anything, she wished Robin would call her by name, just once.