Sort of prompt from thisisamadhouse on Tumblr. She wanted a crack!fic with Regina teaching Snow something and this fluff happened instead. Mary Margaret calls Regina for help with mayoral duties during 4a and Regina holds a baby. Set after Marian is frozen. (Snow Queen brotp and mention of OQ)


It's amorphous, this arrangement between Regina and Mary Margaret over the leadership of the town. While the dark curse is designed to place the caster in position as the mayor, all the finer details still have Regina's touch on them, down to the color scheme of the office and the arrangement of the furniture. Atrocious bird paintings notwithstanding. That's all Mary Margaret.

The lack of responsibility is… refreshing. Regina relishes the lightness of not being responsible for the lives of people ungrateful and uncaring of what it takes to be the one making the hard decisions, spends her mornings catching up on comics with Henry before school, her afternoons and evenings dedicated to researching cures for freezing spells.

However. When her former step-daughter calls her as she's pouring over a dusty tome for the third time that morning, and all Regina can hear is the incessant screaming of the newborn prince drowning out his mother, she finds herself unable to stay away.

She's satisfied with their arrangement (most days), but the click of her heels on the marble floors inserts a tiny spring into her step that's been absent, and walking into city hall feels more like coming home than walking into the mansion when Henry's away. Neal's wailing echoes through the empty hallways, and she winces as she rounds the corner and stops in front of the office. She's been here for all of thirty seconds her ears are already ringing. She tugs the sleeves of her black sweater down over her wrists, Mary Margaret having caught her in a rare moment of casual (for her) clothing, and opens the door.

Mary Margaret isn't behind the desk, as she'd expected, nor is she seated at the long conference table or curled up on the couch. Regina walks into the room, her lip curling as she catches sight of the bird print on the wall and then frowning as she sees the mirror she'd broken the last time she'd been alone in this room. She'd forgotten to replace it, but someone has at least swept up the glass. She hadn't noticed when pulling Marian's heart from her icy chest days ago, but that's neither here nor there right now, she tells herself, rubbing her palms along her black slacks.

Prince Neal is easy enough to locate. She walks over to the stroller where the young prince makes a concentrated effort to destroy his vocal cords long before ever uttering a word. His face is tearstained and red as one of her honey crisps, but he's no longer crying, just angry, his tiny body arching against the straps securing him to the stroller. "Mary Margaret?" she calls, undoing the clasps across the baby's chest.

"Regina?"

A hand appears from below the desk. Regina frowns and gathers Neal into her arms as Mary Margaret lifts herself from the cubby underneath the desk. "What are you doing here?" the younger woman asks, running the back of her hands across her cheeks.

"It sounded like someone was being murdered on the phone." Still does, in fact, but she's having no luck finding a cure for Marian, and solving a bureaucratic crisis sounds like heaven right now.

Regina bounces the prince in her arms and sways her hips as she walks back to the stroller to fish around for the pacifier clipped to the arm of the carrier. She holds the orange soother against his lips, but he knocks it out of her hand. The pacifier falls back into the stroller. Unperturbed, Regina reaches back down and this time throws a dash of magic toward the pacifier to chill the rubber. Again he rejects the offering. This time she catches the pacifier before it falls and tucks it into her pocket.

"He's been like this all day," Mary Margaret moans, sitting in the chair behind the desk, one elbow planted on the arm on the chair, chin propped on her hand. "David and Emma are busy on a lead and I have all this paperwork to do and I couldn't find the budget requests for the road improvements, which is why I called you, and no matter what I do he just keeps crying."

A string of body-jolting hiccups interrupt the baby's tirade, and Regina holds her breath, thinking the unexpectedness of this new sensation might distract him. Instead, it only incenses him more, and the crying resumes after the briefest of pauses. "Did you try feeding him?" she asks.

"Of course I did! I walked him, fed him, burped him, sang to him, changed his diaper twice, changed his clothes, changed my clothes, and nothing works. He hates me."

Regina rolls her eyes as the last sentence dissolves into a wail. Surely she hadn't been this pathetic when she'd first adopted Henry. To her surprise, though she finds herself saying, "Finish your paperwork."

"What?"

"I said finish your paperwork." She walks over to the file cabinet near the door and pulls a manilla envelope from the second tier of inboxes stacked on top. "Danielle files the budget requests in the second inbox. Completed forms go in the the third inbox." She tosses the envelope onto the desk with a thwap and shifts Neal to her other shoulder.

"But—"

"This is a one time offer, Mary Margaret."

"O-okay," she says, and pulls her chair closer to the desk. "Thank you."

Regina raises her eyebrows and turns back to the stroller. A soft white blanket with a blue ribbon woven through the edges is folded in the storage compartment, and she rubs her thumb across the cursive embroidery depicting his name. As she pulls the blanket free, a small cooler with tiny newborn bottles is revealed. She grabs both and shifts Neal again so she can pull the cooler's strap up over her arm. The blanket she wraps around him, tucking the extra length around his squirmy body, ensuring all his limbs are snug inside the fuzzy warmth. "We'll be down the hall," Regina says.

Mary Margaret nods, a weary smile on her lips as she pulls a small stack of papers toward her, pen in hand.

Regina closes the door behind her and walks down the hall, rubbing the baby's back and whispering in his ear. "We're going to on a tour of city hall. We're going to walk all up and down these hallways until you have screamed and cried yourself to sleep. Once you've calmed down a little, we're going to have a snack, and then you're going straight back to your mother and I'm going straight back to my vault."

The building isn't large by anyone's standards, but there are plenty of rooms and nooks and crannies to explore. They walk from room to room, Regina keeping a running narrative of the function of each room they're in, grateful it's a Saturday and no one else is working. Once they've visited all the offices, ducked into the women's restroom to check his diaper, and walked up and down the stairs twice, Neal's cries have subsided to a much lower decibel.

Henry would work himself into fits like this, and she'd taken him on this very tour many a time, trying to soothe the colicky tears away between meetings. As she remembers those long days and nights, the shadow of previous migraines triggered by the overwhelming helplessness and fatigue presses between her eyes. She's not that woman anymore, still trapped in the clutches of darkness, a single mother struggling to love as felt she had never been loved, pacing up and down hallways at three in the morning, rocking a fussy infant to sleep with one hand as she tries to wolf down her lunch with the other. Now her boy is grown, almost, and the darkness still clings to her like a spider's web, delicate and sticky against her skin, but she's learning to work around what won't come free. No, she thinks as they round another corner, another hallway, she hadn't been any better than Mary Margaret.

There. Neal's cries begin to die off. He rubs his face against her shoulder, leaving a gummy trail of snot and saliva shimmering against the black cable knit pattern. If he'll take a bottle from her, she might be able to nudge him into the nap he's fighting so desperately against.

For a moment, she considers going back to the office. The couch will be more comfortable than standing or sitting in the stiff backed chairs that line the hallways, but if Mary Margaret has had any luck getting through the paperwork piled on the desk, she doesn't want to distract her. There are days she itches to take the title from her, to sweep in and reclaim her position and fix the mess things have become in her absence. But she won't. Because right now, she is just the Woman Formerly Known as the Evil Queen, and her only obligations are to be a mother, save her true love's wife, send the prince off to sleep. Easy.

She settles for sitting in the expansive chair behind the information desk. The arms are well padded and adjustable, and the seat is wide enough she could sit with her legs crossed beneath her if she wanted. As she considers the chair, she decides to do just that, and slips her boots off as she sets the cooler on the desk. Within moments she's crosslegged in the chair, Neal propped against her right arm, his bottle held up with three fingers from her left hand. The silence as he eats relieves most of the pressure in her head, though her ears continue to ring.

"You are lucky, little one," she says, quiet enough that Mary Margaret won't overhear through the the thin walls (though if she has any hearing left it would be a miracle). "You have a family who loves you."

Prince Neal is focused on the bottle, blue eyes almost cross-eyed, glassy in the haze of eating. Is it too soon for him to be able to focus on objects as far away as her face? It's been so long since she's held a baby this small. He even looks a little like Henry did at this age.

"Your mother and I have a complicated history, but I know she's doing what she feels is her best. You and me," she says, gently pulling the empty bottle away from his mouth, his tiny pink lips still smacking, trying to suckle the air, "We have a chance to start fresh with each other. You promise to give her hell every now and then, and I'll keep away the curses, the wicked witches, the things that go bump in the night, and the darkness that lurks in the daytime. Deal?"

She places the pacifier in his mouth and sighs when his eyes drop closed and stay that way. She brushes the last evidence of his tears away from his face with her thumb and stands up, careful to not jostle him too much. When she returns to the office, still sans boots, Mary Margaret has made it through the first two stacks of paperwork.

"You did it," she says, pushing herself up from the chair.

"Of course I did."

"How?"

Regina sighs. "I just did," she says.

"You make it seem so easy."

"That's because it is." Regina places the prince back in the stroller, taking care with his limp, sleep heavy limbs as she straps him in. "He's crying. You're his mother. It's your job to figure out why and do something about it besides calling me and hiding under your desk."

"I wasn't hiding. I dropped my pen," Mary Margaret protests, but when Regina raises her eyebrows at her she looks away. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Regina. I know you're busy."

Regina lifts a hand as if she can diffuse the apology like a foul odor in the air.

"No, I mean it. And I'm sorry I broke into your house during the blackout."

"I changed the locks."

"Oh, good. I like a challenge." They smile at each other for a moment before Mary Margaret sobers as she looks down at her son. "Regina, you're closest thing I have to a mother."

Regina cringes inside, but manages to keep her face neutral as she waits.

"You've done all this before and I haven't and I still don't know how you did it."

Regina shifts through several different responses before deciding what to say. "You have something I didn't have, though. You have David, Emma, even, to help you. Use them."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't lose him again, not after…"

"Zelena," Regina finishes. "And me." It no longer stings, the seemingly constant reminder of her misdeeds and their long-reaching consequences, has subsided to a slight ache beneath her sternum, the flare of pain in acknowledgement of sins that while one day may be forgiven will never be forgotten. "You're going to burn yourself out trying to be everyone at once. Have Emma watch Neal for a few hours. Or Belle. Or Granny. Anyone. Not me," Regina says, cutting off Mary Margaret's hopeful smile. "I have my own problems to deal with right now."

"Right. How's the research going?"

Regina purses her lips. "Not well. I should be getting back to it, as a matter of fact."

She turns to leave, but Mary Margaret tugs on her sleeve. "Thank you," she says. "For everything."

"You're welcome." They don't hug. She's not a huggy person aside from Henry and a certain other someone, but she clasps the younger woman's upper arm and squeezes, smiling. "You know, Ashley, the cinder girl, she has a first-time mothers group. I approved community grant funding for it before, well, before. You might want to try it out."

"Really?" Mary Margaret smiles, but it's short lived. "But I'm not a first-time mother. What would Emma think?"

"Emma's a big girl. She can handle it. And you could use the support."

"I'll think about it."

"Do. And I don't want another call from you tonight unless the Snow Queen is line dancing down mainstreet with more of those cursed ice cream cones. I'm not ripping the hearts of the entire town out for this psychopath's entertainment."

"You'll find something soon. I know it."

Regina gives her a tight smile, and spares one last glance at the prince, now snoring in his carrier as Mary Margaret returns to the chair behind the desk. She didn't get to solve a bureaucratic crisis, as she'd hoped, but getting out of her vault has at least done someone some good. And if she's honest with herself, she feels a little better, too. Even if she still has baby snot crusting into green cement on the shoulder of her sweater.