Chapter Two
She was standing in front of her mirror perfectly nude when the door opened without warning to reveal Snow. Grabbing a nearby shift the woman covered herself while the girl skipped to the bed behind her stepmother.
"I didn't mean to disturb you." She spoke as if she were not disturbing her at all. "You can keep dressing."
'As if I need your permission to dress' Regina thought crossly before pulling the shift over her head.
"Will I ever look like you?" Snow questioned, the tone of her voice changing from royally entitled to shyly curious.
"Since you're not my biological daughter I doubt-"
"Not like that." The princess quietly cut off.
Regina appraised her with skeptical eyes while the girl dropped her head, suddenly shy. The room echoed only with the pop of the fireplace attempting to warm the autumn air that snuck into her balcony and slithered into her room. Outside the door the guards gossiped lazily with flirtatious maids and though the words themselves could not be heard inside, the sound of voices could be, assuring them that they were not alone. Still Snow did not look up.
"You mean have breasts? And hips? You want curves, don't you?"
Her pale skin had blushed pink in acknowledgement, but she nodded affirmatively. "I want to look like a woman." It was a confession, a secret desire, Regina could tell by how weighty the words felt when they broke from her stepdaughter's lips.
Forcing herself to be tender instead of sarcastic she sat on the edge of the bed and gently pushed Snow's chin up. "All in due time. You're only eleven. I'm nineteen."
"But when?"
"I imagine you'll start developing quite soon. I started changing around your age." It felt like a personal statement, but she could remember asking her own mother similar questions around the age of ten and being denied, told 'it would happen someday' and nothing more. She wished her mother had shared more with her. No matter how much she despised Snow, she could at least pretend to be the mother Regina had wished she'd had for her.
"Will I look like you when I'm pregnant?"
Her pregnancy was a new fact, something that made her glow when referenced, and in answering this question she could not feel bitter due to this special buoyancy. "Every woman is different for that. They grow different because they're different bodies. And it depends on the father and the baby too, not just on the mother." Thinking of Leopold as the father was the worst part of the pregnancy, but when she reminded herself that he was too old to really be a part of its life, she relaxed. She would get to raise this baby, not him or a servant, her.
"Okay." She smiled. "I hope I have lots of children."
"One at a time dear." She stood to continue dressing when she felt the pressure. Pressure similar to this was what made her strip in front of the mirror in the first place, searching for a sore spot or bruise. But no, now she was sure that the pressure was coming from her inside. "I need to lie down."
Snow moved over, her small face scrunched in concern as she watched Regina suck down a breath and lower herself to the pillows. Beats of silence followed as they both hoped that everything was alright. The maids had passed, making the halls quiet. Even the fire seemed to decrease in volume as Regina waited, terrified. Another squeeze of pressure tightened around her lower abdomen, right where the baby was growing.
She sucked down another breath. "I need you to go get a doctor."
"Why?"
"I think I'm miscarrying. Now go!"
She was indeed losing the one piece of hope that had blossomed over the year trapped in the palace. By the time the royal physician dropped to his knees at the queen's side she was pushing out the half-grown babe with a scream and a sob. He caught it, wrapped it in a blanket Snow had fetched, and placed the blue creature in its mother's arms.
"A girl, your majesty." It was not a question whether or not she was already gone.
They left the room out of respect, so that Regina sobbed in solitude. She named her silently, merely thinking 'Princess Daniella Rose' before pulling a corner of the blanket over the blue face and commanding the two to re-enter. Handing the physician her child, she pushed her face into the pillows to sob. A baby girl, a baby girl she had begged the stars for, had been abused for, had instilled so much hope in, gone, because her body was broken. It must be broken. There was no other reason for the loss.
"I'm sorry." Snow's voice was quiet and truly apologetic, dripping in the loss that she would not have a sister, would never have that particular sister. The child stroked her stepmother's hair, wondering what it must feel like to lose a child so permanently and completely before even getting to fully appreciate her, until they fell asleep from emotional exhaustion.
Snow never mentioned pregnancy or babies or even her own growing body again, too afraid to allude to the terrible event and break the woman she loved so dearly.
"Some. At least you can find her again. At least she's alive." She ducked her head away, reeling in the memory that she had not revisited in so long. "I know you would prefer things another way, but you must always remember that she is alive. There is a possibility of her coming back, even if it's not as destined as when you put her in the wardrobe."