Part Two
Will shuffles back, rocks on his haunches, "not ideal" he nods.
"Indeed"
"So..." He is thinking hard, brow crinkled, tip of his tongue poking through front teeth, doe eyes popping, he looks very much like a confused rabbit. She schools her face into a neutral expression and bites back the retort threatening to leave her 'careful dear you might hurt yourself'.
"If the dust decides you have light within you, it will do no harm but if dark?"
"Bind it" she replies but its not that simple, the dust cant decide so instead it is tearing itself apart along with her physical form and quite possibly her soul, what is left of it.
"So..." He starts again still rabbit faced.
"Not that easy" she interrupts "I cannot force it one way or another and once it reaches my heart, it's game over"
Will stands, rubbing his arms across his bare chest, she plucks his sweater from it's resting place on her legs, hands it to him "I'm not cold anymore" and its true she's not cold anymore just numb.
"It needs to come out then"
She shakes her head, ignores the black dots that swarm in her vision upon doing so "only a fairy or maybe Gold, can remove it, the dust is in my system"
"I meant your heart love" he replies.
Regina barks out a laugh, how many times has she wanted to remove it but resisted, endured pep talks from the ever optimist and severely deluded Snow White and now this stranger tells her 'just pop it out love'.
"Not an option, not without magic"
"But it would work?" He's not giving up.
"Yes it would work" she muses. It would work, give her enough time to get out of this dark dank hole and to help, assuming anyone would. Tink she thinks, she might help or at least speak on her behalf and hell the bug owes her a favour after the mess she has made. Dust, pixie or fairy seems determined to break her heart one way or another.
"If" she starts and stops weighing the options. Will crouches down again, leans forward, his face level with hers and there's that scent again, musky forest, she turns her face away, breathes in the musty air of tunnel instead.
"Yes?" he prompts.
"Im not sure" she speaks softly.
If she can summon a pure moment, a strong selfless moment and hold on to it then perhaps it will be enough to allow her to reach in and pluck out her heart.
"Whatever it is, it's worth a try surely? What do you need?" He asks.
"To focus on the light long enough to use magic"
"Well then" he smiles "lets think happy thoughts".
She groans, just like that she thinks. Will reaches forward seizes her hand, she doesn't pull away. "Even Evil Queens must have happy thoughts" playful smile on his face.
"Not really" she allows and its true, even the happy memories are tainted, every happy moment she has comes with a side order of pain. Every memory she dredges up is swiftly followed by loss, her father brings a smile but resentment lingers, the first time she felt her mothers love was the last time, her one and only truly selfless act, the act that destroyed her. Even Henry's love comes with conditions, conditions that she try harder, be better. Daniel. Robin, best not to go there, not now not when she hates him as much as she loves him. Loves him because he is love to her, all she ever wanted, love, comfort and strength but hates him just as vehemently for taking it away from her. Hates him for the glimpse he gave her, hates him for the hope he planted, hates him for the plans she has made, plans she has already set in motion, plans to take back what's hers (for he is hers) and she will win this time but the winning yet again comes with a price and just once she would like something pure and innocence but its not to be. She wont walk away from him, not now but its not hope she holds onto but her cunning.
Will sits back down cross legged, absently mindly swirling his fingers in the dust and grit, "You're not my first Evil Queen" he confides "In fact, you're the third I have met, the second redeemed"
Is that he thinks redeemed evil queen? a week or so again she would have agreed, now she'd not so sure, and the dust must agree as it struggles within her. Knows her darkest thoughts, plans she came so close to enacting before deciding on a subtler route and even that decision was selfish. To act on the darkness would cost her Henry and she wont lose him, plans rejected because of him not for him, there's a difference and she knows it.
Curiosity wins and it shouldn't because time is ticking "who?"
Will holds up a hand, grit slides from his palms "one, your mother, two my wife".
Regina mouth opens in a silent oh "I assume the redeemed queen was the second" because her mother was a lot of things but never ever that.
Will nods "she wasn't so bad to me, I was even her Knave for a while, she took my heart"
The knave of hearts surprising, removal of his heart not so.
He chuckles "as far as I'm aware, I hold the dubious honour of being the first to ask for it"
"You asked her to remove your heart?" she repeats.
"Yup" lips smack on the p as he grins up at her "for love of course" of course, what other reason would there be. "She tutored my wife, helped her become the Red Queen, have to confess, felt less ambivalent to her then".
"Wonderland"
Will nods "Red Queen reformed to White".
"Your wife?" Through love, his love. "Thief, Genie, King" she says softly.
Will reaches out his hand takes her, shakes it "Thief, Genie, King" looks at her expectantly. The words leave her blindly "Evil Queen, Mayor, Mother"
She drops his hand, warm though the contact was.
"Widower" he says.
The tears come quickly, fall before she can blink them away, he is her and he is Robin. Robin's past, Thief, Widower and what he could have been but was not - this Knave of Hearts chose his Evil Queen.
"You loved her" the words scratch her throat.
"More than anything, all of her, good and bad".
It stings, she is jealous of a dead women for the second time, jealous of somebody else's love again, its sour and bitter and the dust steals closer to its goal.
"Everyone has love in them, even the darkest of souls" Will speaks quietly. Yes even the Dark One himself loves.
"Love is not the problem" she says and its not, she loves deeply with all her soul but hate runs just as deep. Its a ceaseless battle she wages within herself, silenced oh so briefly in his arms.
Will wears compassion on his face, not pity.
This man she thinks, brave, she barely knows him but somehow feels a connection, compassion is not a selfish emotion, compassion for another is within her, she feels it now, its not a happy feeling but its not dark or bitter either. She holds onto it, compassion for Will, Will who gave up his shirt to stop her bleeding, Will who sits on the cold hard floor with a her when he has no reason to stay. Will who calls her redeemed although he knows her not, Will who loved and lost his Queen, lost not tossed away.
Will who urges her to try, thinking of another while his own grief torments him and she can see it now. Now that she steps out of her own misery, she recognises his, so its with compassion for him that she reaches inside her chest and draws out her heart.
"Well done your Majesty" grinning as he unties shoe laces, pulls off his boot, wriggles out of a woollen sock and flops it in her lap.
She stares at the sock unmoving. Heart removed the dust is quiet inside, lies dormant for now, still chews on her magic, her side still hurts, her heart still broken but she feels a little less bruised, less battered, she has time now, time to consider perhaps and perhaps for the first time she has made a friend, one that comes with no history.
"Clean on today" Will tells her gesturing to the sock. Gingerly picks up the sock, surely he doesn't mean for her to...
"Keep it clean, probably not that hygienic" he shrugs "but better than getting grit on it.'
Regina looks down at her small hard blackened heart, red glow less than a week ago but still red there, still beating, still resilient, places it into his sock and laughs.