It's four days later, when the rain has just cleared and while there's still stormy clouds swirling and Regina's cleaning her neglected patio that she receives a life altering phone call.
The unfamiliar number indicates it's the out of town hospital.
Regina removes her gloves before touching her phone. "Hello?"
"Miss Mills?" Her doctor inquires. "This is Dr. Johnson from Cedar Hills Hospital. I have your test results from last week."
"Okay," she doesn't realize she braces herself.
"Again, Miss Mills, our tests have come back positive for pregnancy. If before you were unable to carry a child, I'd like to get you in for thorough testing. I can set up an appointment with an obstetrician. Would you be interested in that?"
Regina's swallows thickly, a million thoughts travelling through her mind at once. There had been a time the King's personal doctor had declared her barren. He'd tried, and tried, and tried to conceive with her. Snow had wanted a younger sibling, someone to treat as a doll, but no matter how often he tried, he could not get Regina pregnant.
When she'd been declared barren he'd simply looked elsewhere for a poor unsuspecting young girl to carry his child but then Snow's insufferably demanding 'I want a sibling now!' phase passed.
Regina had been ready to kill him then when he looked to Johanna's youngest daughter Cecilia. She'd bared a striking resemblance to Ava that intrigued Leopold and she knew that she wanted to protected that young girl more than anything. Protect her in the ways she had herself hadn't been protected.
But she had been barren, right? She'd asked Rumpel to-Regina's nostrils flare as the theory slams into her like a freight train.
"Miss Mills? Are you there?" Dr. Johnson's voice pulls Regina back from her memories.
"I-I'm here. I'll call to schedule an appointment, there's something I-I must attend to something." She explains before abruptly hanging up in the woman's face.
##
The door to the pawn shop slams close in Regina's wake and Belle looks up from her book with a frightened expression. "Regina?" She rises quickly out of her chair to meet the former mayor at the counter.
"Where is he?" Regina demands, not bothering with even returning a forced smile at the woman.
"H-he's not here. He-"
"It's alright, Belle. Regina's practically harmless." Rumplestiltskin limps from the back of the shop, his cane supporting him as he places himself between Regina and Belle, effectively protecting her.
"What did you do to me?" She demands, her tone brooking no lies.
"I haven't done a thing to you, dearie." He smirks
"You and I are possibly about to be executed for what we've done. There's no need to continue lying, Imp. What did you do to me?"
"What is she talking about?" Belle whispers.
"I'm talking about the fact that I'm somehow pregnant when thirty-eight years ago, I couldn't even conceive. You did something to me then or now. Which is it?"
Rumplestiltskin relents, inclining his head toward Regina. "I owed your dear mother a favor."
Regina's eyes darken at the mention of her mother, the loss of her mother is still so fresh even though it almost feels as though it happened months, maybe years, ago. "What are you talking about?"
"I owed your mother a favor and when your engagement to King Leopold was official she asked me for a potion to make a man infertile. You were never barren, dearie. And anyone that ever told you so was too afraid to tell the king he was the problem."
Regina blinks. "So...when I came to you...crying about…"
Rumplestiltskin merely shrugs a single shoulder. "You seemed relieved."
"That wasn't your decision! You should have told me!" She lunges towards him but catches herself, clenching her hands into tight fists and taking deep breaths. It doesn't help much, she still wants to rip his heart out of his chest and crunch it to dust.
"I didn't owe you the truth, dearie. I needed you to cast my curse and telling you the truth might have prevented that." He explains with no remorse, as though his crimes against her were ages ago. As if she has no right to be upset or hurt or disgusted.
Regina's eyes focus behind him on Belle. "This is the man you love. He has toyed with my entire existence from the moment he met my mother all to rectify a mistake he willingly made. This is the man you are in love with." Her eyes adjust on Rumpelstiltskin's face again. "I hope they burn you."
She leaves just as abruptly as she arrived.
##
There's only one way two women can conceive from sex alone. Both women have to have essence magic; which is a form of magic that's coded into their DNA, unlike Rumpelstiltskin. His offspring after he inherited the Dark One's magic would have it but his magic is not his, he just possesses it.
Both women have to be each other's true love.
Regina might not have even suspected Emma Swan, considering that night was more of celebratory, I hate myself, I hate you, I hate my life, but god I'm glad I have my son back sex.
However, other than Emma she hasn't had sex with anyone since Graham and considering he's been dead for nearly a year, it's hard to imagine her pregnancy now catching up with her even after being tortured and wounded severely in Neverland.
It's hard to even imagine Emma as her true love. Which begs the question, how could Emma be her true love when she'd specifically seen her true love in a tavern nearly forty years ago?
That leads Regina to knocking impatiently and demandingly on one of the door at the B&B that houses Tinkerbell.
It's the middle of the night so she understands why Tinkerbell answers with a knife to her throat. She resists the urge to merely flick the knife out of the woman's grasp with her own magic.
"You lied to me." The light behind Tinkerbell obscures her face but Regina can see the telling lines of confusion wrinkling the other woman's face. "You said the man with the lion tattoo was my true love."
Tinkerbell scratches her head after taking the knife away from Regina's throat, her blonde tresses shaking lightly. "He...was…" It was clear the former fairy was having difficulty trying to understand the reason behind this unprompted visit.
"Either you were more inexperienced than I originally thought or you're lying to me, Green." The use of her title recedes any progress they've made as friends but Regina's never really been good with friendship anyway.
"Regina, what would make you believe I'm lying to you?"
"Because he's not my true love!"
"Well...no. He's not. Not now, anyway. He was." Tinkerbell moves back, opening the door wider, and gestures for Regina to come inside.
Once they're settled on the futon serving as a couch, Tinkerbell sighs and rubs her tired eyes before continuing.
"You're not the same woman you were when I used the fairy dust on you. At that time, had you chosen him, he would have been the man you could have spent the rest of your life with. He would have understood all of you. All of who you were then. But now, there's no possible way your soul could be compatible with his. It's darkened significantly since then and transformed in ways that would be considered regenerated and while I didn't and don't know him, I'd have to believe you wouldn't want him now anyway. You're almost an entirely different woman with different standards and different needs. He may not be able to fulfill all of those now."
"So I'm to believe this new...true love...of mine is supposed to be all that I need now?" Her lips curl in disgust at the prospect. Emma can hardly eat a meal without staining her shirt. Meanwhile, it's midnight and Regina still looks as impeccably well put together as she always does.
Tinkerbell's eyes brighten. "You have a new true love?"
"No."
"Do you, Regina?" She almost sounds like she's scolding a child for lying.
"No."
"Regina." The blonde fairy sighs tiredly.
The former mayor clenches her jaw, considering how honest she should be. She doesn't trust Tinkerbell but then again she doesn't trust anyone. "There's someone...I think. I...I recently discovered we experienced something that would only require the essence magic of my true love and...and I don't understand how it could be them. I don't...we're not...I don't even…" She growls in frustration.
"Who is it?"
Tinkerbell receives a glare as a response.
"Okay, you don't trust me. I can understand that. Well, Regina, if this thing that happened can only be done by your true love and their magic, then I think it's safe to assume they're your true love...right?"
"It's impossible. I don't even like them."
"Not yet. But your soul recognizes theirs and somehow theirs has attached to yours." Tinkerbell looks thoughtful for a moment. "You may not have feelings for them but have you considered they have feelings for you?"
Regina realizes then; she hadn't.