Double trouble
A/N: Wow, I am so amazed by the response to the first chapter! And now I'm scared cos I have to follow through and make this story really good ;). Enjoy!
"One's past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged."
― Oscar Wilde
Chapter 2 'Two by four'
Regina called out to her son when he alighted from the school bus in Main street. He hiked up his backpack straps and gave her a dull look when she came over.
"What are you doing here, Mom," said Henry.
"I came to meet you at the bus stop," said Regina with a stiff smile. "I thought we could spend some time together this afternoon."
"Does Emma know you're here?" Henry raised an eyebrow at her and then turned to head for the entrance to Mary Margaret's apartment building.
Regina stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Please Henry. I miss you."
"Right. You just want to get me alone so you can cast that curse to make me love you."
"Henry, you saw me destroy it."
"You probably xeroxed it first," said Henry stubbornly.
Regina knew that the curse was long gone. Curses could only be cast from the words they were originally created from - they could not be memorised or copied. But there was no-one to verify that and no proof. She had hoped her actions would have been enough to convince her son that she was trying to change. But like always, he refused to believe it. She had no idea what more she could do to convince him. Perhaps there was nothing.
"My mother used to do magic on me. I won't do it to you," said Regina softly.
Her son shrugged her off and continued on his way. Regina gritted her teeth and followed after him.
"Henry, I don't care if Emma has to supervise! I just want to see you. We could go to the diner for hot chocolate? Anything you want."
"Mary Margaret will make it for me when I get home," said Henry unkindly, trying to make her go away.
He ran up the stairs to the flat, leaving her behind.
... but he'd learned his stubbornness from somewhere and when he went through the apartment door he saw Regina appear in the apartment in a cloud of purple smoke. No-one else was there and it made him nervous.
"Mom," Henry sighed in annoyance.
"Please, Henry. I need to know." Regina reached out to stroke his cheek gently. "Was it really all bad with me? For ten years you thought I was your mother."
"It wasn't bad," Henry admitted. "But you were. Underneath it all."
"Do you hate me that much Henry?" asked Regina thickly. "What is it about me that you can't love?"
Henry shifted uncomfortably, trying not to fall for what he assumed was an act but he felt guilty all the same.
"How can you even ask that after what you've done, Mom? You know exactly what you are. You've always been bad... I just didn't see it before."
"Regina's still ignoring her phone," said Emma in annoyance. "Or just me."
Emma led the pack climbing the stairs to her parent's apartment. The two teenage girls (the blonde was in handcuffs) were being force-marched behind her with David and Margaret forming the rear guard. They couldn't exactly keep the teens locked up in jail cells indefinitely so in lieu of any better idea, they'd decided to keep them under house arrest in the apartment until they figured out what to do with them.
"Cool," said Em gleefully. "Escaping an apartment is way easier than escaping jail. See ya later, suckers."
"Where are we going?" said young Regina nervously. "It's getting late. I'll miss tea."
Emma twisted the knob of the front door, finding it unlocked and assumed that Henry was already home.
"Henry, are you home yet?"
Emma pushed the door open and was shocked to see her son and his mother talking earnestly.
"Regina," Emma growled. "What are you doing here-"
"I wanted to see my son."
Regina glared at her and then her expression changed to shock as the teens came into the apartment followed by Mary Margaret and David. Though rather familiar with magic and it's use as a disguise, Regina could hardly believe her eyes at what she saw. Henry too was wowed by the sight of the young doubles of his mothers.
"Woah!" gasped Henry.
"What is going on here?!" said Regina.
"So, that settles it I guess. Regina still exists in this world," said Mary Margaret dryly.
"You sound disappointed, dear." Regina smiled darkly with no humour at all.
"Regina, did you have anything to do with this?" asked David, gesturing to the teens.
There were only a few people in town with magic and Regina was one of the obvious possible perpetrators of malevolence/mischief. The former Evil Queen was capable of being a cunning manipulator and star actress but her surprise appeared to be genuine as she went up to the young girls to study them closely.
"No, I didn't do this," breathed Regina. "But where did they come from and how did they get here."
"You're me?" said the young Regina curiously.
Regina looked at her own double for mere seconds and then fixed a look on the young Emma who was staring at her in quite a different way.
"Check it out, princess," Em said in amazement. "You've got an older version here too! Except yours is bangin'. Wow."
Regina sent Emma a sly glance and pointed to the younger version. "I think I like this one better. Can I keep her?"
"Ohmygod yes!" Em grabbed her arm and begged. "Can I go with you? Anything to get away from these hypocrite cops."
"You're not going anywhere," said David firmly.
"Excuse me?" said Regina, taken aback. "What right do you have to take custody of these girls? And why is she in handcuffs? She's a child."
"She's a thief," said Emma dryly. "What's the big deal. She's gonna go to an actual prison in a few months anyway. I did."
"Indeed," said Regina coldly. "I'm sure you enjoyed your Fifth Amendment rights. You don't know prison until you've been locked up indefinitely in a medieval hellhole."
"You deserved that," said David pointedly.
"Hey, don't listen to these jerks," said Em, sucking up to Regina. "Nobody wearing Prada could be all bad. I'm sure you did nothing wrong. Neither did I."
Mary Margaret shot her daughter a disapproving look. "Emma, seriously? It only took Regina five seconds to turn your younger self to the dark side?"
"Hi, I'm Em," said the blonde teen, batting her eyelashes at Regina.
"Regina Mills," she answered with a light smirk.
"More like 'Queen of my heart'," said Em smoothly, making them all groan. "Can I have some food? I'm starving and that dumbass cop took all my candy."
"Let's go. Take my hand?" said Regina, offering her palm.
"Hell yes!" said Em happily.
And before the others could stop them, Regina and Em disappeared into a cloud of purple smoke.
Emma kicked the air in frustration and clenched her fists, unsure if she was angrier at Regina or at her idiot younger self. Now that Em was out of her sight and teamed up with Regina... god knows what trouble they'd get into together, not to mention what they'd tell each other.
"She can do magic?" a small voice came from someone they'd overlooked.
With one stricken look, the younger Regina's face crumpled and she ran out the apartment door.
Em and Regina appeared in a swirl of purple misty tendrils on the porch at 108 Mifflin Street. Regina waved her hand over the handcuffs causing them to disappear from the teen's wrists. Em was curious at the sight of the magic and the fact that they'd just transported halfway across town, but she more taken by the apparent opulence of the mansion.
Em's jaw dropped. "Holy shit, you live HERE?!"
Regina opened the front door and led the blonde teen into the foyer where she started yanking at her boots to take them off. Em looked rather thinner than her older counterpart and not half as healthy. Remembering the girl's complaints of hunger, Regina intended to get a meal into her straight away.
"Follow me to the kitchen?" suggested Regina.
"Um, I dunno," said Emma, eyeing the expensive artwork and antiques. "Maybe I should just stay outside. I totally don't belong in a place like this. I'll wreck something."
"You are not sitting outside on my porch. Why would you think that?"
Regina headed for the kitchen with Em following and taking in everything with wide eyes.
"Because I'm a bad kid. They all say so."
"Who says?"
Regina gestured to the stools at the bench for her to sit while she got out ingredients for dinner.
"Everyone." Em shrugged. "Nobody wants me. I'm a level 5 risk - 'Maximum supervision needed'. I'm a troublemaker. A thief."
"Maybe you're just creative at getting what you want," said Regina wryly.
Em laughed. "Maybe. But you can do magic! That was awesome. What else can you do?"
"Oh, this and that," said Regina vaguely.
Regina waved her hand over a pot of water on the stove and in an instant it began to boil. She dumped a fistful of dry pasta that came from nowhere into the water and caused it to swirl magically until it was covered fully. She preferred to cook properly these days since magical shortcuts weren't quite as good as the real thing but at least this would get dinner on the table more quickly.
"So what's the story with you and Sheriff Skinnyjeans? I don't think she likes either of us much."
"We don't see eye-to-eye on anything - especially when it comes to my son."
"That kid's yours?"
"Yes, but she won't let me see him."
"Bitch," grumbled Em. "You seem alright, god if I had a Mom like you I wouldn't be such an idiot... What's her problem?"
Regina pressed her lips into a tight smile. "I've done some terrible things. But she doesn't think I can change."
"Yeah well, you and me can stick together then and Crankypants can hate us both... Hey, how come I grew up boring and my Regina grew up cool? Not even fair."
Regina whipped them up a quick batch of spaghetti and doled out the steaming pasta onto two waiting plates. As they ate, she noticed Em taking yet another breadroll and stuffed it into her pocket where she'd already hidden a couple of apples.
"You don't have to hide food. You can have as much as you want - now and later," said Regina.
"Oh, yeah," said Em, embarrassed both by what she was doing and for being caught. "Sorry. Force of habit. Thanks for dinner by the way. The only thing my foster mother ever cooks is meth."
After a while, Em slowed eating to ask something that had been bugging her. "Regina? When you were younger would you have - I mean - do you think she would ever-"
Regina looked at the blonde carefully. The teen was shaking her head in annoyance at herself and stabbing at her pasta.
"What do you want to know, Em?"
"Nothin' - it's just that you're- she's so pretty when she smiles. Or anytime really."
Emma chased after the young Regina, knowing that the girl was from Fairytale Land and was just as likely to run into traffic as not. She was prepared for a long chase, but she found the young brunette standing on the kerb only feet from the apartment building's entrance. The girl was looking left and right anxiously, as if wondering which way to go.
"Which road? I don't know which way is right," said the young Regina fearfully.
"Er, that way is right," Emma frowned and pointed in that direction. "But neither way leads home for you."
"I'm going to get in so much trouble."
"Hey," Emma said, softening her tone. "No you're not. Don't believe everything Em says. We will look after you and help you get home alright?"
That seemed to mollify the girl's fears substantially. Em had warned her not to trust anyone but her in this world, but that hadn't quite sunk in with the naive girl and she was inclined to let any adult take over her care - especially one promising to get her home.
"I suppose I believe you. You are her, aren't you? An older Em?"
"Lay off calling me old and we'll get on just fine, k?" said Emma with a smile. "Call me Emma."
"Why did Em leave me, Emma? Are you going to stop me seeing her?" said the young brunette worriedly.
"Uh-" started Emma. "It's complicated. The woman she went with -"
"Me?"
"-Yeah. She and I don't really get along."
The young Regina looked confused. "That's strange."
"Why is it strange?"
"Because of how I feel about Em," said the young brunette, starting to blush.
Emma had to force her jaw not to drop and hid her shock at the girl's words and what they meant. Hadn't the girls only met today?
"Come on, Mary Margaret's going to put dinner on. Let's go back upstairs."
During dinner, the adults all kept stealing glances at the girl, hardly believing that it was really a younger version of the Regina they knew. First she had asked when 'Cook' was serving and if she could help, then she would jump a mile to get out of anyone's way as they passed, and now she was thanking Mary Margaret for dinner over and over - as though she hadn't expected to be given that much.
"I'm Henry," he said to the girl sitting at the dining table next to him.
"That's a lovely name. It's my father's name too," said the young Regina fondly.
"I'm eleven. How old are you?"
"Eighteen."
"That's so weird," giggled Henry to himself.
"I think my mother would agree with you. She wishes I were already married, eighteen is far too old to be unmarried she says."
"You have to get married already?" cried Henry.
David, Mary Margaret, and Emma all shared wary looks, knowing all about Regina's history of being forced into marriage and also knowing the young age of brides in medieval times. The true depth of that fact and what his mother had likely endured had gone over Henry's head.
"I suppose. My mother will find a prince or another high-ranking noble. But if I had my choice - I really wish I could marry for true love," said the young Regina wistfully.
"The stable boy?" guessed Henry.
The brunette looked confused. "We don't have a stable boy. Our stable master is getting frail though, he is searching for a youth to take his place but has been unable to find a suitable candidate."
"She hasn't met him yet," murmured Mary Margaret.
"There is someone I really like though..." admitted the young Regina, her face colouring rosily. "Did you ever meet someone and just know you wanted to be together, to know everything about them?"
Mary Margaret looked at Emma in alarm and they hastily went to the kitchen under the auspices of getting dessert.
"Emma, who is she talking about?" Mary Margaret hissed, afraid of the answer.
"It's Em! She has a massive crush on her I think," whispered Emma furiously.
"We have to stop this, Emma," warned Mary Margaret. "She can't fall in love with the younger you. She has to meet Daniel and fall in love with him - his death starts it all. Or otherwise, Regina won't grow up to cast the curse, Storybrooke won't exist... and Henry will never be born!"
"That's not the only reason," said Emma darkly. "Em is a bad kid. We have to keep her away from Regina. Or that girl in there is going to get her heart broken."