Previously on the OQ AU Project: Episode 1
She wakes to a pulsing in her temple, a dull throb that brings with it a wave of nausea and the strong desire to remain perfectly still. It takes a second for her senses to stir, for her mind to catch up and recall the events that lead to her lying in an ungraceful heap on the ground, and it's only as her fingers twitch, as she swallows a mouthful of saliva and winces that Regina can reassemble the memories in her head into some sort of order. She opens her eyes, blinks away the spots of color popping in her vision and lets out a groan.
Her limbs feel heavy as she gets up, gingerly pulling her weight onto her knees and gripping the edge of the trunk for purchase. Her eyes find the phial, contents puddling on the concrete, a neat crack in the dragon glass, and she feels her shoulders deflate. Any hope she had of fixing David with the draught she'd slaved over late last night is now seeping into the pores of the concrete and evaporating into the air.
What the hell happened?
Regina scans the vault, dull daylight pouring in from the stairs and she briefly wonders what time it is, how long she's been out. It was late when Robin left, the pitch of midnight creeping into the early rays of morning, but she doesn't think it can be all that long ago. If he awoke thinking she was still down here, he'd have left his camp and sought her out. Of that she is sure.
She swallows thickly, the sickness she'd felt upon waking ebbing away slowly, and presses the heel of her hand into the bridge of her nose, fingertips grazing her temple to find raised skin and the sticky remnants of blood. She walks to her mirror, lifts her hair and frowns as her eyes study the angry, red skin that broke when she hit the ground. She waves her hand quickly, straightens up when a small puff of smoke clouds the area and then dissolves into the air, taking the ugly evidence that anything has happened to her with it.
She turns and swipes the phial from the ground, and a frustrated huff leaves her lips as she thumbs the neat little crack that begins at the rim and travels down the length of the glass. So much for indestructible, she thinks before slamming the small bottle back to where she'd so carefully taken it from when its magic had engulfed her.
Unease swells in her belly at the notion; that someone could have tampered with magic in her vault. It's an unwelcome possibility, one that's more likely than unlikely, given her past, her enemies – that particular ingredient wouldn't have done much more than make her feel lightheaded on its own, no matter how long it had festered in its proper place, stored away where it belonged until she needed it. It strikes her as odd, that she's been out cold for god knows how long but aside from the throb in her head and the now-invisible scrape on her temple, all she has to show for it is the stiffness in her limbs and the grogginess behind her eyes. And that's more likely to do with spending the night lying on the concrete at an awkward angle than any magical consequences.
Regina screws her eyeballs shut, thinks back to the moments right before the world went black. It's like clutching at smoke, like reaching out for something in the dark, something you know is right there but you just cannot see it. She'd had her lightbulb moment, her glorious pop of genius in the midst of all her research when she'd finally thought of something that might help Charming in his poorly-timed predicament… She'd begun to brew all the right ingredients…
She mentally goes through the list in her mind, darts her eyes around her vault to land on the bottles before they finally settle on the small amber, crack-clad phial that she'd picked up last, but all she sees is black and all she feels is frustrated. She thinks something had happened when she'd popped open the stopper, but how can she blame it on the useless contents when the reason for her passing out could just as likely be that someone came in and gave her a good smack? Maybe it was Emma. Maybe the blonde decided enough was enough and gave in to her selfish impulses… Maybe she snuck up on Regina, working tirelessly through the night to save her father, and struck her, hexed her, something, before taking Henry against his will. But even as the scenario flits through her mind, Regina knows it's not true.
Emma Swan is too quick to bask in the aftermath of a hero's well done to leave her family in a crisis, smug little witch.
It's the dragon glass that gives her pause. The fracture in amber that makes her think that any explanation she could concoct wouldn't do much to explain away the break in a nigh on indestructible material. Not even Emma is that powerful.
She doesn't exactly feel any different, except for the fact that her shoulders feel like stone. Her surroundings don't seem any different either, her vault looks exactly how she left it when she was here earlier in the week to try and figure out a way to defeat Zelena. Everything is exactly the same. And yet… not.
Regina shakes the anxiousness from her mind, inhales through her nose and grabs her purse. She'll never get any answers sitting in here by herself, so she resolves to go back home, to grab a hot shower and wash the night off her skin. She'll check in with Henry, and then go and see Robin. And if anything is different, she will tell the A-team of Storybrooke what happened.
…
It is amazing what frothy soap and the stream of steaming water will do for one's mood. Just a few short hours and two Advil later, Regina is feeling significantly fresher than she had been upon waking. It's still early—day had only just broken when she'd emerged from the vault and made her way home, the unease in her stomach loosening a little when she'd driven past Granny's and witnessed the early birds going about their usual morning routines; things couldn't be that different if Ruby was still scratching chalk into the specials board outside, her sour mood all too apparent in the furrow of her brow and quirk of her lips.
She's sitting in the kitchen when the doorbell rings (planning her day in her head and neurotically checking her cell phone between sips of strong, black coffee in the hopes that Henry will get in touch) and for a second it catches her off guard. She isn't expecting anyone, she thinks, pulling a face, but her curiosity turns into a sickening apprehension when she opens the door to Emma Swan. Her first thought is that her late-night nap on the ground of her vault isn't as well kept a secret as she'd hoped. Her second, a thought that makes far more sense than the former, is that something in David's condition has changed overnight.
The real reason comes so unexpectedly that you could knock her over with a feather when Emma smiles and says, "Breakfast?"
"Excuse me?" Regina replies, folding her arms and narrowing her eyes at the blonde. She takes Emma in, her hands have gone from being casually slung in her back pockets to folded into her chest, mirroring Regina's stance. She's on guard, Regina thinks. She looks nervous. She has an ulterior motive.
"Breakfast," Emma reiterates, and then sighs at the silence Regina offers in response. "I thought you and me and Henry could all have breakfast together. We wanted to talk to you about something."
Regina feels her jaw clench, a mix of fury and dread flaring in her chest at what this 'breakfast' could possibly mean. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath in and reminds herself that barbecuing Emma on her front porch might not be the best way to get Henry to agree to staying in Storybrooke.
"Smart move," she says quietly, looking down at her feet. "Get me in a public place so I don't make a scene when you tell me that you're taking my son back to New York?" It works for a moment, the calm, steely exterior she perfected during her years as Queen, but as she watches the Savior sigh out in exasperation, the storm of emotions raging in her heart prove too strong to hold back. "I can't believe you have the nerve to come to my home and invite me for breakfast, as though a meal will compensate for you taking my son away from me!"
"Regina—"
"No! I have had it up to here with your excuses," she seethes, teeth gritted and face hardset, hand flying up to her temple to prove her point.
Managing to keep her voice low and steady to begin with, she carries on. "You have done nothing but judge my parenting skills since you showed up and disrupted my entire life; well, now I'm gonna return the favor, Emma. You can't honestly believe taking Henry away from his family, from his home is a good parenting decision?"
It's a genuine question, because she cannot for the life of her understand where Emma is coming from in this insane choice. Regina searches her face, throat growing thicker, and she's far too aware that her eyes are getting wetter with every word she speaks, that she's on the edge of turning into a vicious mother bear whose cub is in danger of being snatched by hunters. If she isn't careful, she won't be able to hold her tongue anymore, and any promises she made to Snow last night about not spooking her daughter any further will fly out of the window. She wants to snap that Emma is being selfish, wants to scream in her face that everyone knows this decision has nothing to do with Henry's well-being and everything to do with her eye-rolling ability to run away at the first chance of a stable home life.
Thankfully for them both, the Savior speaks before Regina can truly explode.
"I didn't come here to have a cat fight on your front lawn, Regina," she sighs. "If you would just let me speak you'd know why—"
"Yeah," she scoffs back. "For breakfast. As though some stale blueberry muffin and a cold coffee from Granny's will cut it."
"Will you stop being so bitchy?" Emma snaps, patience clearly wearing thin. "If you'd shut up for half a second you'd know the reason I want you to come to breakfast is because we're staying."
Oh.
"You're…" Regina breathes out, jaw slackened and speechless in a manner unlike her usual self. Emma raises her brows smugly, wears an expression on her face that tells Regina she's struggling not to say she told her so; relief floods the Mayor's veins in a second.
"Staying put. You can thank Henry's stubbornness for the final call. Pretty sure he gets that from you."
Her mouth twitches, a smile tugging at the corners while her heart melts because her little boy has demanded he stay here with her and not with Emma in the city. "Where is he?" she asks the blonde; right now all she wants to do is squeeze him tightly and smell the top of his head (no mean feat nowadays, she's noticed, the past year has brought with it more than a few inches of growth for her son).
"He's at the loft. Hopefully dragging his butt out of bed, because I told him to meet us at Granny's at eight. He wants to ask you something."
"Ask me what?" she asks, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and stepping back to let Emma come in – she's welcome in Regina's home now that she knows she's not about to break her heart with unwanted news.
"I've been sworn to secrecy," Emma tells her as Regina leads them into the kitchen, casually resting on the doorframe while the Queen dumps her coffee down the drain and places the mug in the dishwasher. "You wanna know, you're gonna have to come for breakfast. Stale muffins and cold coffee be damned."
…
The journey is a little awkward, a little strained as they make small talk that she's sure would be cringe-worthy if anyone could see them; they've come a long way, sure, but they're far from sharing secrets and braiding each other's hair. Emma informs her that there's no change with David, that Mary Margaret is worried sick but can't be at the hospital as much as she'd like because of the baby. Regina feels a twinge of sorrow when she learns that, and her mind conjures up the sad image of her step-daughter quietly crying while she rocks her wailing newborn to sleep; a tiny voice in her head scolds that she should offer to look after him sometime.
The Evil Queen disagrees almost the second the thought enters her head.
She'll make Emma do it. She's the baby's sister… if anyone is going to be the extra pair of hands David would usually be, it's her.
The thought crosses her mind as they drive through the streets of Storybrooke that she should tell Emma about her blackout, about the fact she was subjected to something magical at the exact moment she was on the verge of a possible cure for David, but Regina holds her tongue. Lets silence grow thicker in the small space between them and instead casts her eyes out of the window.
There's no point in giving Emma another thing to think she needs to save, and besides, she feels fine now. Tired, her head feels a little fuzzy, but whose wouldn't on next to no sleep and just a few sips of coffee?
Excitement washes over Regina as they pull up outside Granny's, a soft smile gracing her lips as they get out. Henry is sitting in the booth by the window, happily chatting away with Ruby (whose mood seems somewhat brighter than it had when Regina had driven past earlier), and Regina feels her heart swell. Her little prince is staying put, and for the first time in as long as she can remember, she's happy.
...
As it turns out, breakfast is a good idea. Hot coffee accompanied by a stack of pancakes and bacon, sitting next to Henry and listening to him happily telling her all about their year apart. He jokes that she'll tire of the stories, that there isn't really much to tell outside of school, and even when he and Emma were at their happiest, he still longed for a bigger family (evidently, a family he didn't know he already had). Regina tells him that he can repeat the tales over and over and she'll never get bored.
"Hearing these things makes me feel better about not being around," she tells him softly.
"It wasn't your fault, Mom," he replies with conviction in his eyes. She wants to tell him that won't stop her feeling guilty about everything she missed, but she knows it will fall on deaf ears. Henry changes the subject somewhat before she can say anymore, anyway. "Besides, you still haven't told me what happened during the missing year."
She chuckles and throws a knowing look Emma's way, tells him, "There honestly isn't that much to tell. I mostly complained that there was no electricity the whole time." She leaves out all the chaos Zelena brought upon them. "Anyway," she carries on, swiftly turning the subject around before he can press for more details, "Emma said the reason she dragged me here was because you wanted to ask me something?"
"Right," Henry says, and then smiles. "Can I come home? Emma hasn't found a place to live yet and the loft is getting kinda crowded with the new baby, and—"
"Of course you can come home!" Regina beams, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and squeezing him close to her side. "I can't believe you thought you had to ask."
He smiles and tells her, Thanks Mom, before going back to his cinnamon covered cocoa like what he's just asked isn't a big deal at all, and she supposes to Henry, it probably isn't. But to Regina… To Regina, it's like Christmas come early. After a whole year of thinking she would never see her son again and then the shaky few weeks she was terrified Emma would take him away, he is finally going to be with her at home. Their relationship is in as good a place as it's been for years, and as she quietly sips her coffee, finishes breakfast and asks Henry if he wants to come to the forest to meet Robin, the smile never leaves her lips.
…
There should be a certain amount of nerves that accompany the first time your boyfriend and son spend a day together; Regina is pretty sure that if her life were a movie, Henry would be surly and rude while Robin would be putting his foot in it at every other turn. Thankfully for her though, her life is not a movie. Henry is excited, babbling away as they edge through the forest to reach Robin's camp, and she should have known this would be the case. Her soulmate has been a hero of Henry's since he was small.
Back then it bugged her, that he admired the thief so much (particularly because she'd spent so much time trying to track him down for stealing her taxes), but now it warms her heart.
The Merry Men's camp is busy for the early hour, she notes as they approach. Alan is busy skinning a turkey while John and Tuck fumble over building another tent; she snorts at the image, guesses they're struggling with this realm's appliances just as much as Robin is when she hears one of them yell, Why are there so many bloody poles for this thing?!
It is Will Scarlet who approaches them first, offers a warm good morning as they scan the camp for Robin or Roland.
"Alright, yeh Majesty?"
Regina can't help the corners of her mouth tugging upwards as she spots Henry standing up straighter, puffing out his chest a little next to her. "Will," she greets back, her purse hitting her knees as she holds it low in front of her body. "Where's Robin?"
"Taken the little 'un to get more firewood. 'Supposed to drop right cold tonight."
"Oh."
"This your boy?" Will asks, nodding towards Henry and then offering him his hand.
"Oh! Yes. Henry this is Will Scarlet; Will, this is Henry," Regina says, smiling as the two exchange pleasantries. She feels proud as Henry makes small talk (despite his idolisation of the Merry Men), that she's raised such a polite young man.
She leaves the two talking, wanders over to Little John and the Friar, who are still struggling with the tent, and before making herself known, waves her hand through the air in one lazy motion. The tent disappears in a cloud of smoke—causing the two men to jump back in alarm—and then re-materialises in perfect working order.
"You looked like you were about to hurt yourselves," she sniggers.
"Regina!" the Friar exclaims. "You gave us a fright."
"What's with the new tent?" she asks after smirking at his remark. She knows for a fact they have more than enough to go around, David made sure of that when they first ended up back in Storybrooke.
"We needed something a little warmer," John tells her, standing back and admiring her handiwork. "I was told at the store this material was built to withstand the coldest of weathers so I… acquired it." He looks embarrassed as he says it, like he's internally cursing himself for even starting the sentence to begin with. Regina rolls her eyes, makes a mental note to go and pay the guy at the outdoor supply store when her name reaches her ears.
Her heart jumps with happiness at the sound, the smile springing easily onto her face as she turns and sees Roland bounding towards her, the little firewood he was carrying tossed on the ground. She makes haste to carry her purse on her shoulder, leaving her arms free to wrap the little boy in a big hug as he reaches her and throws his arms around her neck.
"Good morning, little guy," she tells him when she sets him back on the ground.
"You know, Roland, when I tell you to stay put until I've caught up that generally doesn't mean throw the firewood aside and run off."
Robin's voice sounds just to her right, and Regina chuckles as she looks up to see a faux sternness in his eyes. He greets her good morning and places a sweet kiss on her cheek, his hand brushing against the small of her back in a way that has her shivering even underneath her trench coat.
"How was your night? Any luck with a cure for David?" he asks as they wander back over to Henry and Will. Roland is in the middle of them, excitedly swinging off of their hands like a little monkey. Regina has a flash of how she woke this morning, sprawled across the concrete with no real memory of how she got there, and she's almost positive he can see her hesitate, can see into her mind's eye at the debacle that last night ended with. So she does what she knows will distract him from any lie she's about to tell, and insults herself.
"Please, that would actually mean I'm helpful."
It works. He lets go of Roland's hand and frowns, reaches over to rub her back. "Love, you are helpful. You spent the whole night slaving over your grimoires looking for a cure, and you can do no more than that. Snow and Emma wouldn't expect any more than that."
She murmurs under her breath, That's what you think, and then swiftly changes the subject. "I have an ulterior motive in coming here."
"Oh?"
"Can Henry stay here with you today? He spent all day yesterday with the pirate and I really think he could use a good male role model as opposed to… Hook."
Robin laughs and tells her of course Henry can stay, though he's not entirely sure there's much difference between a pirate and a thief. She tells him that at least he has integrity, and as the three reach her son, any conversation that might have sparked him quizzing her further on last night's events gets dropped.
Henry is over the moon to be spending the day with Robin (a prospect he tries his hardest not to show in front of said man, but the beam on his face lingers just a little too long for it to go unnoticed by either adult), but no one seems more thrilled at this arrangement than Roland. When he realises that Regina is going back into town but leaving Henry with them, he practically squeals with excitement. His reaction has the others laughing and Henry feeling a little smug, she's sure, and Regina can't help but feel happy for Roland that he's finally spending more than an hour with the elusive son she's been telling him about all year.
Butterflies flutter in her stomach when Robin chastely kisses her lips goodbye, a reaction that still happens despite all their history, and after making plans to go back and collect Henry at dinner time, Regina makes her way back into town.
…
Her first stop is the hospital; a quick check that David hasn't made a miraculous recovery in the hour it's been since she and Henry left Emma at Granny's before heading over to the library. She'd agreed to meet Snow and Emma there earlier to get cracking on more research into what could possibly be the cause of David's sudden memory snafu.
Much good it does them.
The hours of the morning while away, fade into afternoon with Regina complaining that the library won't exactly be helpful if her vault wasn't. Emma is getting snippy with her, Mary Margaret is yammering on about how much faith she has that they will find something to help, and when the baby starts grumbling (an emotion Regina very much wants to express herself), the headache she'd left long behind this morning starts creeping back.
She sits at the table, ankles crossed over, elbows propping her up while she tries to drown out the baby's gurgles and knead her knuckles into her temples. Her efforts to concentrate and come up with anything tangible are failing miserably, and she keeps reminding herself of Robin's words to her this morning, that no one is expecting her pull a cure out of thin air, that they know she's doing her best… but it doesn't particularly ease her low self-esteem.
Mary Margaret sits opposite, an old, leather-bound potions book open in front of her (Regina is sure it belonged to Sidney at one point before she trapped him in her mirror), but the pixie-haired ray of sunshine hasn't done much in the way of helping. She's too busy rocking Neal in her arms. Emma is standing just behind her, brow furrowing as hard as possible as she scans a heavy, dull-looking textbook that tells the reader all about memory-loss, and Regina finds irritation building in her belly that the blonde is nose deep in a god-damn medical journal rather than anything magical. Which David's situation clearly is.
"Maybe he's having some sort of adverse… post traumatic stress from the whole… you know… the Wicked Witch stealing my newborn thing?" Emma suggests after a while, slamming the book shut and wriggling it back between the other textbooks on the shelf.
"Don't you think if it were anything scientific the doctors would have figured it out?" Regina snaps.
Emma sighs, plonks herself down on the spare seat next to her mother and replies, "I'm sorry, I'm just trying to think of every single possibility."
"No, what you're doing is thinking up the most idiotic solutions to what is clearly a magical problem."
"Regina!" Snow scolds.
"Well! I'm the only person here who's looking into anything worth a damn. We're not going to find any answers looking in Black's Anatomy whatever," Regina glares at Emma and then darts her eyes over to Snow. "Or idly ignoring the book sitting in front of us!"
"Alright," Emma says calmly, but firmly enough that Mary Margaret's open mouth shuts away the retort it had been about to speak. "I'm sorry you feel we're not being helpful, Regina. But Mom and I aren't exactly magical experts."
Regina feels her shoulders deflate and squeezes her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose hard, the pressure of her fingers relieving the ache in the center of her head. "I know," she tells them quietly. "The two people that might actually be helpful right now are the two I didn't think I'd ever want around."
"Gold and Belle?" Emma guesses, and Regina nods sadly.
"Does anybody know where they are?"
Snow shakes her head, pulls Neal from the cradle in her arms up to rest against her chest. "We asked Granny to keep an ear out for if she hears anyone say anything, but no one's heard from them. Belle's father never knew they were even going on a honeymoon."
Silence falls on the three women, a hollow hopelessness going unspoken between them, and Regina wishes she wasn't here, wasn't with them. Longs to be in the forest with Henry and Robin, where she can't feel any worse about herself than she already does. She needs help, can't do this on her own, but admitting that to Emma Swan and Snow White is something she'd rather do over her dead body.
"Maybe we should just call it a day," Snow says sadly. "I told David I'd take Neal to visit him this afternoon anyway."
It's the defeat in her voice that gives Regina a new resolve, and the Queen hardens her jaw, straightens her spine and tells her step-daughter, "No."
"No?"
"No. We are not giving up. I don't want to ever hear that tone from you again. We are going to fix this, I promise."
She's not sure she should be promising anything like a cure, she could never know if they're ever going to get the old Charming back (and lest she actually admit it out loud, she found the old David far less irritating than the Storybrooke version), but in that second, as Snow gives her a watery smile, the hope in her eyes restoring, Regina knows the promise of her trying is the truest thing she's said all day.
"Why don't we go back to your vault? I can help you look over your grimoires while Mom goes to see Dad?" Emma suggests. The question has Regina taking pause.
She should tell them. About her blackout, about being on the verge of a cure for David. Her promise to help won't mean anything if she's lying to their faces about her only good lead being snatched from her mind and left to seep into the ground of her vault. She's about to do it, takes a deep breath in and readies herself for their reaction when the door to the library yanks open, and the blinds rattle as it slams shut.
Ruby is breathless, frantic in a way that has Emma standing up.
"It's happened again," Red tells them.
"What?" "Who?" Voices clash in the air as they throw their questions Ruby's way.
"Grumpy. Sneezy came to tell us just now. He… he thinks he's Leroy again."
The three women exchange dumbfounded looks before making their way back up to the hospital, where the dwarves had taken Grumpy, and Regina decides that telling Emma about her blackout is a problem best left unsaid.
…
The waiting room of Storybrooke General Hospital is chaos when they arrive. Six of the seven dwarves are arguing with Dr. Whale, their voices too loud for the little ears of a newborn, and within seconds Neal's screams join all the sound polluting the air. Regina feels queasy, focuses on taking deep breaths because her headache is far from easing up; she can't bring herself to join Emma in her attempts at calming the dwarves, or Snow in her efforts to shush the baby, so with one motion of her hand, the whole room falls silent.
Everyone looks around helplessly, horrified at the sudden loss of their voices, and the sudden quiet of the room makes Neal's cries fade away. Regina smirks at Emma who rolls her eyes and tells Regina to give them their voices back.
"I'll give them back if they promise to speak quietly," she shrugs.
"They promise, Regina, give them back," Ruby barks.
She knows it was a little dramatic, but her head is bordering on pounding, and the last thing she needs are six munchkins and the Charmings' offspring making her eardrums explode. She waves her hand again, sighs at the audible breath the room gives at having their voices returned, and Emma holds up her hands and gives one of the dwarves (Regina isn't sure which one) a warning look, as if to say do not start yelling again.
"Dr. Whale, can you tell us anything about Grumpy?" Snow asks, voice full of concern as she rocks her son back and forth.
Frankenstein sighs and shakes his head, tells them, "I'm afraid, it's just like with David. Physically, he's perfectly fine, but… he has no idea who he really is. I think he's a little overwhelmed and confused with the way these six have been going on at him." He glares at the men, and Regina guesses their persistence was probably the root of all the shouting she just stomped out.
"Emma, can you help?" one, asks Doc, she thinks. He steps up to the Savior with pleading eyes, and despite the fact she's never been overly fond of Snow's little lap dogs, Regina can't help but feel a twinge of sorrow for the man. He looks truly upset.
"I'm so sorry," Emma tells him quietly. "We've been looking all morning, Regina's—"
"Regina?" one shouts up, and suddenly she feels on edge. The tone of his voice isn't laced with kindness as he bites her name. "What has she been helping for? She's the one that probably did all this!"
The dwarves all yell in agreement, and Regina watches as Emma's shoulders drop and Mary Margaret's pretty face begins to scowl. It's an expression she's unused to on her step-daughter, and she supposes that while she herself is used to the nasty conclusions this town is prone to drawing on her behalf, this is probably the first time Snow has experienced the accusations when knowing without a shadow of a doubt she's innocent.
"Sleepy! How could you say such a thing, Regina has been working tirelessly since yesterday trying to help David—your friend—get better! I'm shocked at you!"
"Oh come on, Snow. You don't really believe she's trying to help, do you?"
"I do believe her. She has nothing to do with this."
Emma jumps in, "Guys, I know you're all upset but there's no use in pointing the blame here. Regina is on our side now—"
"You said yourself you were thinking of going back to New York. How do we know this isn't all an elaborate plan to get you to stay here, hm? Hex everyone in town and then come up with a cure so that she seems like the Savior? Doesn't it all seem a little too easy to you?"
The words sting as the dwarf says them – Happy, she thinks, and if it wasn't such a low blow to her self-esteem she might just laugh that he's the one with the nasty streak.
Emma, however, never gets the chance to respond, because before any of them know it, Snow is yelling in their faces.
"That is enough! I trust Regina has nothing to do with this, and if you trust me then that's all that should matter! It's not just Grumpy whose memory is at stake here, it's David's too. And if I thought for one second that Regina was the cause I certainly wouldn't be entrusting my husband's life with her. How many times am I going to have to tell you that she's changed? That she's my friend? I appreciate it isn't easy after everything," she says, voice getting shaky as she throws a look Regina's way. "After everything the Evil Queen did, but please believe me when I say she isn't here anymore. The Evil Queen has been gone for a long time, and I'm sorry that you can't see that, but… just have a little faith."
The room stays quiet with shock, the only noise spilling in from the busy corridor outside. Everyone is looking at Snow, who's looking at Regina, who for the first time that afternoon is focusing on something other than the pulsing in her head. She smiles at Snow, grateful for her words, but doesn't let on how much they've touched her heart. She called them friends. Hm… she guesses that's what they are now. A weird little family who have all tried to murder one another but would never let any other force touch a hair on their heads. Regina supposes it is Henry they should thank for that. For bringing them all together, for forcing them to set their differences aside, and all of a sudden she wants nothing more than to hold him close and tell him how lucky she is to have him in her life.
"I think I'm going to go and check on Henry," Regina says quietly after a moment, breaking the tension in the room. Mary Margaret nods, smiles and tells her she's going to see David, and she'll call Regina in the morning.
"Tell him I'll see him tomorrow?" Emma asks. "I'd better stay here tonight."
Regina bobs her head, feels her body let go of a breath she wasn't aware she was holding at the prospect of going back to Robin's camp and forgetting all about the day she's had. As she makes her way to the elevator, she hears Emma shout after her.
"Hey, Regina? Good job today."
…
It still amazes Regina how comfortable she feels in the forest. How at home the firelight makes her feel and how relaxed the sounds of crickets sends her. This is what she's most aware of later that night, as she and Henry sit with the Merry Men around their campfire, bellies full from the turkey Tuck had been plucking earlier that morning, and her headache finally easing off. She feels sleepy, eyes heavy as she listens to the lazy conversation being passed back and forth. Nothing of importance, general small talk that joins the sound of those crickets, and she sighs happily as she stretches her back.
"Alright, my love?" Robin asks from beside her, nudging her shoulder with his.
She hums, nods, and then yawns. "I'm just tired," she tells him with a laugh after throwing her hand up to her mouth in a lame effort to hide her doing something as human as yawning in front of him.
"I don't imagine you got much sleep last night," he reasons, and her head screams that actually, she was out like a log due to the blackout.
"Not really. I've had a headache all day," she offers, the only bit of information she'll let him glean from her night in the vault.
Robin's mouth stretches into a thin line as his brow furrows and he leans back to get a better look at her. "You ought to see someone about those headaches of yours," he tells her softly.
"I get them when I'm stressed," she shrugs, and then feels her shoulders relax as she finally lets down the guard she's trained herself so well at keeping up. "I don't think I can figure out what's wrong with David on my own. Emma means well, but she just doesn't know enough about magic to really help." She keeps her voice quiet as she speaks, telling Robin all about her afternoon and how the dwarves blamed her for the whole situation, of how overwhelmed she feels and under pressure to find a cure or she's worried Snow might think she's holding out on them on purpose.
Robin listens intently, hums in all the right places, bites his tongue whenever she chastises herself; waits her out while she reveals everything she's afraid of, and while it's still relatively new to Regina, a bit nerve-wracking, this sharing your thoughts and feelings, she also finds it rather freeing.
"Regina," he starts once she's finished her tale; the rest of the camp oblivious to their private conversation. "I need you to hear me when I tell you that you're not on your own with this. You'll never be on your own whilst I'm around." He pauses for a moment, taking care to choose his words before turning as much as he can on the log to face her head on. "I understand you're feeling overwhelmed, anybody would with the amount of pressure you put on yourself to live up to what you think Snow White expects of you, but that's just it, love. It's pressure you put on yourself."
Regina lets go of a breath as Robin take her hands in his and meets his eyes as he carries on.
"I may not have known Snow long, or Emma for that matter, but I don't believe for one second that they think you've had a hand in this. You've just said yourself that the princess stood up for you in front of the dwarves."
"I know that," she mumbles. "It's just difficult sometimes. To really believe she's forgiven me."
"I understand that. Trust has never been an easy thing for you, has it?" It's a rhetorical question, but she shakes her head all the same. "You've had a long day, Regina, anyone would feel a little beaten down after it. The difference between you and anyone else is that I know you are strong enough to overcome your fears. And if you ever doubt yourself again, you come and tell me and I shall be more than happy to tell that part of your beautiful mind to be quiet."
Regina chuckles, leans in (despite their audience - is it an audience when no one is really paying them any attention?) and rubs her nose against his, catches his lips in a loving kiss and tells him Thank you. She's about to kiss him again when Will shouts his name, pulling them from their little moment in the midst of all the noise that the Merry Men carry with them, and as Robin gets engrossed in the men's conversation, Regina feels decidedly lighter than she had when she'd arrived.
...
"Thank you for dinner, Robin, we've had a wonderful time," she tells him a while later, when the wine has been drunk and the food devoured. She inches closer to his body and hooks her arm beneath his, anything to warm herself through; it's dropped cold in the past hour.
He leans in and presses a kiss to her temple, the sweet gesture is something she would have longed for earlier, when her headache was at its worst, and then tells her the pleasure was all his. "Henry is more than welcome to join us any day. Roland's adored having him here to play with today. I feel he's a bit of a novelty, you see."
Regina chuckles, says, "I'm sure Henry feels the same about you."
"He's a wonderful boy, Regina. You've raised him so well."
She smiles wider at that; it's the one compliment she'll genuinely believe. Henry is so amazingly good that it's hard to believe she had a hand in raising him at all, let alone doing it solely by herself. She should probably be coy, be modest and tell him that being well behaved is probably in his genes, with a family like the Charmings. But this is Robin she's talking to… modest isn't something she's ever had to be with him.
"R'gina," a voice to her right says, pulling her attention from her little moment with her thief.
"Yes, Roland?"
"Can you do that thing like when we were at your castle?" He beams, excitedly bouncing on the log they're all perched on.
Regina laughs, shoots Robin a look because they know instantly what he wants her to do. Henry frowns, asks her what Roland is talking about when she tells the little boy to come and sit on her lap.
"Alright, ready? You have to shout the colours out though, remember?"
Roland nods happily as he wiggles back in her lap, taps Henry's arm repeatedly and tells him, Watch, watch, Henry! It's so good! Regina smiles at her son warmly, and then brings both hands up in front of her and Roland, beginning to softly move her wrists and call her magic to her fingertips.
"Purple!" Roland yells suddenly, and Regina shoots sparks out of her hands, turning the flames of the fire purple. Henry laughs besides her, watches the embers dance in the dark as Roland shouts more colours and Regina obliges happily, changing the flames in all kinds of patterns. Sometimes the colours start from the bottom, right at the wood and rise up, sometimes the fire just bursts into a fresh hue, and she's reminded of all the times she and Roland would do this in her chambers in the castle. On the nights it dropped too cold for the Merry Men to say outdoors and she longed for the company of someone who didn't see her as anything but Regina.
That had always been Roland.
Robin too, of course. But by the time she'd realised that, she's already spied the ink in his skin, and she'd have been damned if she was going to do anything that might have had her getting closer than she thought she deserved to at the time.
She's not sure how long they spend engrossed in the kaleidoscope of colours before Roland's shouts get less enthusiastic and more sleepy, and after a while, Robin decides it's time for them to retreat to bed.
"Thank you," she tells him a while later, when goodbyes have been exchanged and Henry is sitting in her Mercedes waiting for her to get in. "For today, for everything."
"You don't have to thank me," he tells her, and leans in to capture her lips with his own before she can argue back.
It's a sweet kiss, one that's laced with promise and anticipation, one that makes her feel warm from the hairs on her head to the tips of her toes. One that also, unfortunately for them both, cannot get more heated than a few more pecks.
The last thing she needs is Emma attempting to ban her from Henry for getting inappropriate against the car window.
"Are you sure you'll be alright here? Will Roland? It's cold."
It's cold, is somewhat of an understatement. Regina can see her breath.
"We'll be fine. Now go. Sleep well, my love."
She kisses him one last time, their fingers lacing together in the small space between them; the only playful action they can manage in eyesight of his camp and her son, and not for the first time that night, Regina has to remind herself that taking things slowly was her idea. She hums softly against his mouth, reluctantly lets go of his hand, and climbs into the car beside Henry.
He tells her all about his day as she drives, and she nods and smiles, ohhs and ahhs in all the right places. When she collapses in bed later that night, Regina has never been more ready for sleep in her life.
She'll feel so much better tomorrow.
She hopes.