Hello all! I know its been a while and I appreciate any and all patience you have shown to me for my stories. I was not in a good frame of mind earlier this year and consequently had lost my muse for my stories. I'm not gonna promise anything except to keep posting chapters. I have been working on Moving Forward, so don't fret; I didn't forget about it. I have been working on something else as well because the idea would just not leave me alone, but I won't be posting it until it is near completion. That being said, I hope you all enjoy a little DimplesQueen and don't forget to favorite, follow, and/or review. Mwah :)

Nightmares and Quiet Reassurances

Prompt: Robin is on patrol with the Merry Men when Roland wakes up from a nightmare and goes looking for him, but instead of finding his father, he finds a wide awake former Evil Queen.

"Papa! Papa! PAPA!" The little boy cries as he runs out of his bedchambers and down the hallway looking for his father.

A crash of thunder echoes down the hallway causing the little boy to yelp and start running towards the closest room, hoping it is his father's.

The Queen is sitting at her vanity unable to relax and succumb to sleep when there is a bright light followed by a loud crash that reverberates throughout her room and most likely the castle. Shortly thereafter, her chamber doors are swung open and in runs a little boy no more than five years old. Regina quickly recognizes him as the thief's adorable little boy, Roland, whom she saved from a flying monkey when they arrived back here. Her heart melts every time she sees the little boy, reminding her of her own little prince when he was that age. She stops her thoughts there before they become too painful and instead focuses on the little boy who has just realized whose room he had run into.

"My Majesty, sorry. I was looking for my papa."

Regina smiles at his incorrect formality, finding it rather adorable. "That's alright Roland. I couldn't sleep either," Regina replies. This causes the little boy to gasp and look at Regina with confusion and worry.

"Did you have a nightmare too?" Roland asks.

Ah. So that's why he is up and running about. Undoubtedly looking for his father who is on patrol at the moment, Regina thinks as she stands up and walks over to where Roland is standing. She kneels down so she is on his level before replying.

"As a matter of fact I did, Roland. And when I woke up, I was unable to go back to sleep," Regina reveals, causing the little boy to gasp again and shake his head in defiance.

"Why couldn't you go back to sleep?" Roland asks innocently. "Was it because you were all alone? I know that when I wake up from a nightmare all alone I can't go back to sleep, so I look for papa. Maybe we could look for him together so he can fight away both our nightmares."

Regina smiles at the thoughtfulness this boy has. Even for the Evil Queen. "Your father is on patrol around the castle right now, Roland," Regina tells him. "He won't be back for a few more hours."

"Oh," Roland sighs, hanging his head and heading back out the doors. But before he reaches them, there is another bright flash of light and a loud crash that causes Roland to run back and fling himself at Regina, shaking in fear in her arms.

"Tell you what, Roland. How about you stay here with me until your father gets back, hmm?" Regina prods, hoping to distract the little boy from the thunder storm going on outside.

"Really?!" The little boy exclaims, hardly believing his luck at getting to spend more time with the queen than his papa usually allows.

"Really," Regina says with a sense of finality, as if everything is right in the world with just that one word. And perhaps, for just a moment, it is.

Regina scoots over a little on the bed to give the boy enough space to crawl up (with some assistance from Regina, of course) and snuggle into Regina's side. He wraps his little arms around her middle, holding on tight as if letting go even a little will make her leave as well. As if this was all just a dream and he was to wake up soon.

But that is not the case, so when Regina loosens his arms a bit, he doesn't fight it. She scoots down and rests her head on her pillow and Roland soon rests his head on her chest, his ear right over her heart. The steady rhythm soon lulls the young boy back to sleep and the Queen stays up only long enough to make sure he is in fact sleeping before she succumbs to the pull of rest and dreams.

The two stay like that all night and when the sun rises and the thief makes his way back to the castle, looking for his son in his room for only a moment before remembering the storm the previous night and walks towards the queen's bedchambers. There he finds his son curled up in the Queen's protective embrace, the two of them both curled up into and towards each other. When he finds the two of them like that, he can't help the smile that takes over his features. He can't help the warm feeling that spreads all over from somewhere that has been locked away for far too long.

In that moment, he knows he is a goner. He had been developing feelings for the Queen, that much he knew, but they had mostly been based off of her beauty and the way she carried herself. But now, he was seeing a whole new side to her. A side that not many people have actually had the pleasure of seeing because of how guarded she keeps herself from the rest of the world. And he can't really blame her for doing so because if he had once been evil and been trying to turn his life around, but every past mistake was thrown in his face at every turn, he would build up walls and keep himself guarded for fear of being hurt yet again.

He quietly slips out of the Queen's bedchamber and back to his room, not making a single noise for fear of waking not only the Queen, but his son as well. But what he doesn't know is that Regina had been awake since he had entered her room, but refrained from moving because she didn't want to let go of the precious moment of peace being snuggled up with a little boy who could care less about who she was, and was more concerned with who she is. It may have been selfish, but the thief hadn't moved his son from her arms so maybe it wasn't entirely that selfish at all. Maybe, just maybe, things were starting to turn around for the better after all, even if she would never see her son again. Regina knew things could eventually be right again someday, and this was just the beginning of the journey to that day.