A.N. So this mammoth is long over due, and I'm so grateful to all of you guys for sticking with me through this :D If I'm gonna be honest, classes are sucking everything I got, guys. Literally everything. I think I've lost like two pounds over the past month because I don't have time to eat like a pig anymore :D :D :D :D
Buuuuuuutttt, lucky me, school was cancelled today because of bad weather (which has never happened before where I live okay, ever. Records dating back to 1895 were broken. Shit got real) so guess what I got to do?
WRITE.
ALL. FREAKING. DAY.
twas a magical experience :D
Thanks to everyone who's given this story a chance, every single review, follow, or favorite. You guys are why I function :D
You taught me the courage of stars before you left.
How light carries on endlessly, even after death.
With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite.
How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.
I couldn't help but ask
For you to say it all again.
I tried to write it down
But I could never find a pen.
I'd give anything to hear
You say it one more time,
That the universe was made
Just to be seen by my eyes.
iii. what if i fall and hurt myself? would you know how to fix me? what if I went and lost myself? would you know where to find me?
Robin's head is in his hands and Regina's pacing back and forth across the floor in her apartment.
"If she hurt him," Regina hisses. "If he's got a hair missing from his little head, I am going to kill her."
"She won't," Robin says, never looking up. "I know her. She won't hurt him."
"What do you mean, you kn-" Regina says, and then she trails off. "You know what, no. Don't answer that, because if you do I'm going to start thinking about how you dated Zelena for twenty-eight years, and right now all I'm going to think about is Roland."
That's all she can think about, all she has to think about: sweet, young, innocent Roland has been somewhere for the past twenty-eight years, and since Zelena is a vindictive bitch, Regina can't help but think that there's something terribly wrong with him, that she's hurt him some how.
And it might be wrong, it might be soul-blackening, but Regina's got some serious motherly protective tendencies towards that kid, okay, and Amelia's got a little bit of a violent streak, built up resentment over years and years of being ostracized, and together, they're both campaigning for Zelena's death.
Plain and simple.
The first thing they do is go to the police station. It's just Sheriff Swan there (because Deputy Jones/Captain Hook is probably off somewhere having an identity crisis over being a lawbreaker in one life, and a law enforcer in the other) but Regina's going to be honest and say that all she does is piss her off.
Seriously.
She's saying something about process of elimination and some shit, and Regina thinks that she must be a better person now that she's a mix of Regina and Amelia, because she's actually fighting the urge to take the cup of lukewarm coffee on the desk and pour it all over Swan's head.
"I'm sorry," Regina spits. "Are you this unhelpful with everyone? Or are we special?"
Robin's grip on her hand tightens. "Regina, love-"
"If you're about to tell me to calm down," Regina hisses, "don't. Because god only knows what the bitch has done with him, he's just a little boy and he's alone and scared and-"
"Freaking out helps him how?" Swan says flatly. "We'll find your son. Just give us time."
And Regina, she nods tersely and lets Robin squeeze her hand and thinks, yeah. I can give her time. I can believe, believe in good and humanity, believe that good always wins, believe that I'll find him and come out on top, but the words ring hollow in her skull, and she's got this sinking sense that it's all wishful thinking.
But right then, all she can do is wait, and look, and hope.
They look for him for two months.
In the confusion after the curse breaks, it's hard. Everyone's scrambling and trying to find their own loved ones, and perhaps more urgently, everyone's trying to find Zelena.
All Regina's trying to do is find her son.
And it sucks, it absolutely sucks, because everybody's falling all over themselves, pledging allegiance and looking at her like she's some kind of goddess, and Regina has too much Amelia in her to forget that not too long ago these people hated her, reviled her, ignored her, and Amelia has too much Regina to want to be their hero.
It's like she's a split person; two sides within her warring, fighting, meshing and becoming one, and it's hard and difficult, but she could deal with it. She could deal with it happily if she had her husband and her son and her life, but she doesn't.
And she's not going to stop, not going to slow down, not going to even think about anything else, until she's got Roland in her arms and a handful of Zelena's hair in her hand.
They look for him for two months, and they can't find him. No one can.
No one's seen him, no one's heard of him, and even when Regina reluctantly gives and uses some queenly influence to intimidate people, there's absolutely nothing.
"I don't want to sound rude or callous," Sheriff Swan says when they're in the station. "But if he's been missing this long-"
"You think he's dead." Regina -or is she Amelia, now?- says dully. "You think we'll never find him."
Robin -or Callum? Regina has no idea who he is, or what he wants her to call him- takes her hand, tries to squeeze it, but she pulls away. "Regina-"
"Yes." Sheriff Swan leans forward. "When he's been missing this long, the odds of both of those outcomes are substantially higher."
And Regina could hate her, honestly, for telling her that, for telling her that her son, her child, may never come home to her, but there's this numb sense of relief, because at least she's honest. Regina's not like Snow; she doesn't hold onto hope. She doesn't believe things will always straighten themselves out. It's not in her soul to be optimistic. And everyone's always telling them to just keep hope, to wait a little longer, because good will always prevail, or some stupid shit like that, but that's not true. There's a very real possibility that they will never get Roland back.
And Regina could hate Emma for pointing that out, but in reality, all she can feel is relief that somebody else recognizes it.
"He's not dead," Robin/Calum says fiercely. "She wouldn't kill him."
"So then what exactly would she do?" Swan says exasperatedly.
"She has him. She's got him." Robin/Callum says. "She's using him as leverage."
"Oh, well, thanks, that definitely helps me calm down," Regina says furiously. "Our son, our child, is being held by an evil, vindictive, psychotic bitch, but, you know, at least she's using him as leverage, so she won't kill him. She can still hurt her leverage, to send a message-"
"Amelia," He says, taking her hand, refusing to let her pull it away. "We are going to find him. We will."
(It's so damn confusing, because he calls her Regina sometimes and Amelia others, and it feels like she's got two people inside of her, two separate individuals, because Regina and Amelia looked the same and had similar qualities, but they're not the same people. They're different, and that difference is causing turmoil and clashing and general ugh and confusion inside of her.
Sometimes, Robin/Calum will look at her with those blue eyes, those sad blue eyes that have captured her love and held it for so damn long, and it's then that the confusion lessens, and she finds herself, for a single second, experiencing clarity, experiencing rightness.
But Roland's gone.
So nothing could ever be right.)
"You did something new in there," he says, pulling up to their apartment building.
"Did I?" Regina says tiredly. "What would that be?"
"You called him our son," He looks over at her. "Normally you call him my son. This time, you called him ours."
Huh.
She did, didn't she.
"He is," she says simply. "He's our son."
He is their son, and they will freeze and burn and fall apart and die without him.
He's been missing three months when Regina does what she promised herself she'd never do:
She goes to her mother.
"Regina, darling," Her mother gushes when she opens the door. "Oh, it's been so long-"
"I need your help," she say flatly. "Save your groveling."
Her mother's upper lip thins. "Perhaps, when asking for assistance, you might endeavor to be more polite, hmm?"
"Will you help me, mother?" She says, shifting on the doorstep. "Please. This is your grandchild."
"He's no child of yours," Cora sniffs. "You failed in that regard, as well."
And Regina gets the all too familiar urge to break her mother's nose and possibly do a victory dance afterwards.
"It's not about me," she bites out. "It's about him. Will you help me?"
And her mother sighs and opens the door wide enough for her to walk in.
"What you want is a locator spell," her mother tells her. "But I doubt it'll work. Zelena's crafty, she'll have hidden him somewhere a simple locator spell won't be able to find him."
"So, what then?" Regina asks impatiently.
"I don't appreciate your tone," Cora snaps back. "I do not have to help you-"
"He is your grandson," Regina hisses. "He is a member of the family you forced me into, a product of the family you sold me like cattle into. You married me off, mother, you gave me away, and when you did that you made an oath to the Family of Locksley, to which your son-in-law and his child still remain, and you are many things, mother, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you to not be an oath breaker as well."
Because yeah, her mom brings out this side of her.
"I owe no oath," Her mother snaps back. "I owe that family nothing. You have no idea the pain they've-" she bites her words off.
"The pain they've what?" Regina prompts her. "What, are you just going to not finish?"
"I'm quite tired today," Cora says, eyes locked determinedly on the portrait to the left of where Regina's sitting in the parlor. "I won't be much help. Best wishes."
"Are you kicking me out instead of helping right now?" Regina asks incredulously. "Are you fucking- is this a thing? Is this real life?"
"Goodbye, Regina," her mother says, and with a flick of her hand Regina finds herself outside of the locked door to her mother's house.
"God, I hate that bitch," she grumbles, shoves her hands in her pockets. "I really fucking hate her."
It's not like Cora's reaction is unexpected; her mother rarely does things that don't benefit her in some way.
But, she doesn't know, somewhere deep down she thought that her mother-
She thought she'd care enough about this, at least, to-
Well. Clearly she doesn't.
So Regina will just have to find him without her.
But she can't, and this is the terrible part. She can't, she can't find Roland, and she stops eating and doesn't sleep and she's-
she's-
god, she's so done, and all she wants to do is sleep.
That's how Robin finds her, passed out on the floor with barely a heartbeat.
Because she's strong, but she's small and there's only so much she can take.
When she wakes up, she's in a hospital bed, and Roland is still missing.
And then, this happens:
Regina's staring at the ceiling, absentmindedly fingering the white edge of the hospital blanket, when she feels it.
It's nothing big, nothing crazy, just a slight tug, somewhere deep in her gut. It's just a little bit of something, enough to get her to feel it.
It's magic, she knows it is; this is the feeling her mother dangled in front of her, this is what the Zelena taunted her with at the wedding. It's just a little bit of power, building up inside of her, but we all know how addicting power is, and god, Regina has addictive genes.
Her mother is addicted to it, has let it ruin her life, turn her into some one who has no one, someone bitter and angry and mad at the world.
And Regina will not be her.
Her half-sister is addicted to it, too, but for different reasons. For Cora, the magic is revenge; for Zelena, as fucked up and twisted as she is, it is hope. It's hope that one day she will be good enough, one day she will have the life she wants. Magic is faith for Zelena, because it is something she will always be good at, something that can never leave her.
And Regina will not be her, either.
But Regina's got the blood of an addict; it's in her genes to become obsessed with the rush, to long for the feeling, to allow it to corrupt her and ruin her, and if she lets it in, she will fall prey to it. It's in her blood, written in her stars.
And yet.
(There's a whisper of something inside her that says you could find him.
She could find Roland. She knows she could. She just has to give into it.)
So she does.
(Don't look at her like that, okay. This is for Roland.
This is for Roland, so they can get him back, so Robin's eyes will stop looking so dead, so absent, so she will be able to feel whole again, so their son will be safe, so she can hold them both in her arms and think to herself that she is happy. Because her mother and her half sister were addicted for different reasons, but one thing was the same: they used it to fulfill them. To make themselves whole.
Regina doesn't need magic for that; what she needs is Robin and Roland, and if this is going to help her find them, then she will give in.
She has to give in.)
So she does.
(And she tries to pretend that her blood doesn't sing with the flush of power.)
She gets out of the standard issue hospital bed, pads on the floor like she knows where she's going (she doesn't), looks at the nurses with some sense of purpose, and they don't question her because she is Queen Regina of Locksley (or maybe she's Amelia Mills, of nothing?) and she takes her steps with purpose (or maybe hopelessness.)
It doesn't matter, because either way they take her to the same place.
She doesn't remember how many flights of stairs she goes down. It could be one, five, or twenty.
She doesn't know how many doors she opens. It could be two, six, or eighteen.
She doesn't know how many steps she takes. It could be three, seven, or thirty four.
Here's what she does know: when she stops, she is there.
She is there, and behind the door in front of her is her son.
Her hand is on the door knob.
(Her son is in that room.)
Her heart is beating fast.
(If she has hurt him, she will kill her.)
she opens the door.
he is in the corner, little shoulders shaking and heaving, shivering, in what looks to be a tiny little hospital gown.
he is dirty. there is a bench in the corner with something that looks like it could be a pillow on it.
he is in the corner, and when she opens the door he makes a whimpering sound and flinches.
he is dirty, and she thinks that she is going to claw down every single person who saw him like this, who looked at his tiny child form with bones jutting out and eyes dull and afraid and body so thin and shivering and did nothing- she is going to wreak vengeance on every single person who knew, and then she is going to burn this entire city to the ground and sift through the ashes until she finds zelena.
"Mama?" he says feverishly, and god, it has been so long since she has heard anyone say those words and mean her.
all she can do is nod; her throat is so choked up, so damn full, and her eyes are swimming with tears.
"Are you real this time?" he says, distrusting.
god.
oh god, it feels like she's been stabbed.
"I'm real," she somehow manages to say. "Roland, I'm real."
he takes a tentative step towards her.
she sinks to her knees and the floor is cold and hard on her bare knees.
when he is close enough, he reaches a tiny, dirty hand out and cups her cheek, and his little thumb is cold to the touch and damp with the silent tears that are coming from her eyes.
"Mama," he says, one more time, and then his achingly thin arms go around her neck tightly, and she can feel the sharp point of his collarbone digging into her neck, and she can feel his tears on his neck and hers on her cheeks.
and she holds him to her, on her knees in that dingy hospital room she holds him, and in this moment she is not regina or amelia-
-she is simply with him.
She doesn't know how long she kneels there, crying and holding him and falling apart and coming back together, but she does know that it is much later when she climbs back up the stairs (one, five, twenty) goes back through the doorways (two, six, eighteen), retraces the steps (three, seven, thirty-four), and sometime while she's walking her arms get tired, so she moves him up to her shoulders, and his hands fall limply into her hair and his little body slumps lightly over her head and her heart is full of so much love, so much love for him and Robin, and so much hatred and anger and murderous rage at Zelena for reducing her son to this.
But that all goes away when she steps back into her room, because there's Robin, yelling at a nurse, Sheriff Swan and Deputy Jones behind him, writing on notepads, and they see her before he does, so Sheriff Swan's mouth drops into a complete 'o' shape, and Hook rocks back on his heels and raises an eyebrow.
The doctor drops his clipboard.
And Robin turns around.
She'd like to describe it, but she can't.
She'd like to find the exact adjective for the look in Robin's eyes when he sees her and Roland, but she can't.
She'd like to know the word for the feeling rising in her chest, pushing up her lungs and diaphram and heart and stomach until they're all lodged in her throat as Robin takes careful steps towards them.
She'd like to be able to know the exact colors to shade in this moment, when Roland weakly raises his head and says, barely above a whisper, "Papa?"
But she can't.
All she can do is stand there, heart in her throat, son on her shoulders, and watch the life creep its way back into Robin's eyes.
And god, it feels like rebirth.
It feels like starting over, feels like beginning again.
(It feels like power.)
The first thing they do is take him in, let Whale examine him, because he looks like death warmed over on the outside, so Regina's clenching her fingers and scarring her palms with fingernail marks thinking about what could be wrong on the inside.
And here's what Whale tells them:
He's severely malnourished, with a deficiency in almost every vitamin possible. His organs are stunted (twenty-eight years with no growth, so it's to be expected), and he is shivering and he is sick.
But he's alive.
He's alive, and he's with them, and he will make a recovery, at least physically.
And that, that's it.
That's it.
("You found him," Robin whispers to her in the waiting room, clutches her hand, and the tips of her fingers go kind of white, but she doesn't tell him because she knows he needs this, he needs to know that she's here and alive and herself. So she can handle some white-tipped fingers. If he wants to hold her closely, a little tighter than usual, because she's the only one here for him, she can do that.
"You found him," he tells her, and she clutches his hand.
She wants to tell him not to look at her like that, to look at her like she's some angel, some-
she's not, okay? She isn't. He has to stop looking at her like that, because she gave in. She gave in, took the shot, shoved the needle in her arm, did what everyone expected her to, and she came out with good results, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.)
So, Whale clears them to take him home after he's spent a month in the hospital, being fed vitamins through tubes to make his bones stronger, to make his organs larger, to make him grow again, and it feels like forever, and she legitimately hasn't been back to the apartment in like three weeks, but she doesn't care, because today they're taking Roland home.
Today she can stop waking up in hospital waiting rooms, waiting for Zelena to make an appearance, and she can stop biting her nails and praying that Roland's heart doesn't decide to stop beating because it has no fuel, and she can take home her husband and her kid and she can be happy and she can be whole.
So they walk out of the hospital, and they walk down the street, and she holds one of Roland's hands and Robin holds the other and he smiles a smile up at them (the dimples, oh, god, the dimples) and swings his hands a little and it's like he's okay, like nothing was ever wrong with him, like nothing could ever be wrong with him.
And Regina is happy, too happy for words.
But here's what happens, as they start to walk: the people on the streets, they stop and look. And at Robin it's all respect and pride and honor.
But they look at her like they're afraid of her. Like she's evil.
And once upon a time, maybe, it would've cowed her. Regina, she can't fathom why they'd look at her like this, why they'd be this afraid of her, when literally she's barely been outside since that stupid goddamn curse that her PMSing bitch of a half-sister decided to toss over them all like a throw blanket broke.
So, yeah, Regina's pretty damn confused.
But Amelia? Amelia understands perfectly.
See, Regina's not used to being a pariah. Her mom may be batshit, but she was still a lady. Regina was sheltered and anti-social and unhappy, but she was a Princess, and a Queen, and that came with respect.
Her servants, well, they hated what she stood for, but she always knew they never hated her.
Amelia, though, Amelia knows. She has twenty-eight years worth of shitty memories, before there was Callum, back when she was crazy in the eyes of everyone, back when she was alone.
So, you know, this is new for her, but it isn't at the same time.
She just, she doesn't get it,
But she's not gonna worry about it. She has her kid, and she has Robin (or Callum, and now the blurred lines are coming back, back to where she doesn't know which one she is or which one he is.
Maybe they're both.
Maybe they're neither.
(Maybe they're nothing.) )
They get him home, back up the stairs, all the way to the apartment (Mary -or Snow, now- moved into David's (because yeah, no, she's not calling him Charming. She spent too much time watching her roommate practically fangasm every time his name was mentioned) approximately two days after the curse broke) and they put him to bed, and then she sits on the counter and he collapses in the chair next to her and slides his hands across her legs.
She takes an apple out of the jar Mary has kept refilled throughout the past four months, and when she bites it, he laughs.
And they can hear Roland snoring, and the streetlights outside are dimming, and she feels like they're a family. She feels apart of something.
(And she is finally at peace.)
And it's not like they just put him to bed and he's fine; when he wakes up the next morning, he's in a cold sweat, and Robin climbs into bed with him and Roland doesn't let him out, clutches at him with wiry hands and buries his curls in his chest.
And Regina, well, she watches them, and she feels kind of helpless.
She goes to her bakery, but nobody really comes in anymore. They're probably all terrified of her, residual affects of twenty-eight years of pariahdom.
And she goes around, but, y'know, she's-
she's not like Mary and David, Snow and Charming, okay? She wasn't anyone's hero. She didn't fight for her love, for her life. It's not like she crossed a bunch of barriers and rivers, in the Enchanted Forest. She's not a beacon of hope for anybody. She was married off like cattle, a fate that was almost painfully unremarkable, and she got lucky and ended up with Robin and Roland. To them, she's still a symbol of the class system, a reminder of nobles with soft hands and hard hearts.
Snow and Charming, they're heroes, symbols.
Regina? Regina's a target.
And it doesn't help that she's got this feeling in her stomach, deep down in the pit of her gut, this pull, begging her to let go, to use the magic, to reshape the world whatever way she needs it, however she wants it, however it pleases her.
That sense of control, that- to no longer need to rely on anything or anyone, on any childish feeling, or-
She was bought and sold into a marriage, and even though she loves Robin, loves him with all of her heart, loves him with everything she has and ever will have, sometimes she wonders if maybe she loved him more as Amelia, if maybe their feelings were purer and better.
And all that's Regina in her is screaming against that, telling her that there's no way to love him more than she does, no way to- that it doesn't matter that she didn't necessarily have a choice in marrying him, she chose him in all other things, every other aspect of their life together. She has chosen him again and again on everything else, and they have been happy.
God, they have been so brutally happy.
And brutal is right; brutal is how she'll describe it. Because happiness is brutal, and that's what she's always understood. Happiness is brutal because it is fleeting, because no one wins all the time, because one day you wake up and it's gone, and the happier you are when that day comes, the harder the fall is.
Happiness is brutal because it tricks you into thinking that this is forever, that you will wake up everyday and feel this way, that you will never cry yourself to sleep again, you will never feel lonely again, you will never want to scream again. It makes you forget about everything else, so when it all comes back, it hurts more than ever.
It's brutal because at the end of the day, happiness is evil's best ally.
And Amelia, Amelia knows this. She feels this, and every bit of her that's Amelia is screaming at her to pack up and run, to leave him before he can leave her, to take all the strength she can now because she'll need it when she doesn't have him anymore.
Amelia resents everything, resents the fact that she was denied a choice.
Because she didn't choose him. He chose her, looked at her and saw something in her, chose to save her, and she'll never fault him for that, never regret that.
But she didn't choose him, not until later.
And Amelia did. Amelia chose Callum, chose to talk to him and let him in and grow to love him.
(Only did she really? Because even if she was cursed, her feelings for Robin, they- they would bleed through. They'd always bleed through, always come showing up, because no matter what universe, what land, what situation, she'd always find a way to love him, in some capacity.
So maybe she didn't choose him. Maybe she'll never choose him. Maybe the universe just gave him to her, told her that he was her destiny, never gave her a chance to figure that out for herself.
Maybe this is all just- scripted.)
Roland has night terrors; he wakes up screaming, crying, remembering everything that's happened to them, and god, Regina just wants to tell him that it's all better, that it'll never happen to him again.
But she can't.
She can't, because if Zelena comes at him again, there is nothing she can do without giving in. Nothing.
That's not true.
Regina will give in, if Zelena comes back. She will break her half sister into little tiny pieces and enjoy every bit of it, because she is good at it. She has the talent for it.
She has the stomach for cruelty and the genes of an addict, and she has tasted the power within herself, knows of her strength, and what, she's supposed to leave it? To let it go, never feel that rushing surge of power, of promise?
She could keep them safe, if she gave in.
Robin, and Roland, they'd- what happened, with Zelena and the curse and that awful hospital cell, that would never happen again. She could keep them safe. She could protect them. What happened to Roland would never happen again, she could-
she could keep them safe.
And what? She's just supposed to turn that away? She's supposed to let it go? She can finally control things, finally govern what happens, and she's just supposed to let it pass?
She is supposed to deny an integral part of her in order to fit into the beliefs of a society that has repeatedly shunned her? She's supposed to do all this, to make them feel better about themselves and their utter normality?
So that's her moral dilemma these days. That's the conflict, that's what plagues her mind.
But here's what she can't forget: Roland is home.
He's home and he's with them and Robin's eyes are full of love and life and these are the two people in the world who have made her as happy as she could ever be.
And she doesn't have to fight for them anymore, this doesn't have to be hard anymore.
She can just enjoy it.
She's walking up the stairs to her apartment and she passes David and Snow's, and the door's wide open so she can see that standing in the entry way is Henry, and next to him is Hook (or maybe Deputy Jones. She doesn't know which one he's going by now), and when the kid sees her his face stretches out into a gigantic grin.
"Queen Regina!" He exclaims, and he dashes out of the apartment to grab her hand. "You still live here?"
"You know, a floor above," she says, slightly awkward because this kid makes her want to spill everything, and that's not okay. "Just call me Amelia, okay?"
He wrinkles his nose and nods. "Okay. But you know who you really are, right?"
No, is the answer building on her tongue. No, I don't. I have no fucking idea, because I have all these competing sets of memories in my head, and I- I don't know if I learned to ride a horse when I was seven or broke my arm on the street and stayed there for two hours when I was eight. I don't know if I live in a palace or a shitty apartment and I-
"Yeah,'" she says, trying to sound convincing. "Of course I do."
His answering smile makes up for the lie.
"Killian!" He calls back into the apartment. "Killian, you're taking forever!"
"Maybe you just go too bloody fast," Killian says irritably, shoving his phone in his pocket. "I can't bloody well take you out sailing right now, your mum'll think I kidnapped you."
"She trusts you!"
"She trusts what she knows," Killian corrects. "And she doesn't think she knows me anymore."
And Regina/Amelia hears that, and god, if that isn't the descriptor of the eight months since they broke the curse?
No one knows where Zelena is, she could be hiding anywhere and nobody trusts each other, because this isn't the Enchanted Forest.
This is Storybrooke, a sprawling city, dirty and grimy, and the people here have lived lives that have left them unable to trust. No matter their personas in the Enchanted Forest, here they have lived lives of struggle, and it shows.
It shows everywhere.
See, for twenty-eight years this city was gouged, cut over and over and over again, and now is the only time the wounds are visible, and the blood and the puss leaking out of their city, it scares people, terrifies them.
(Makes them think that maybe they aren't as good as they thought.
Maybe they did deserve this.)
When she gets back to the apartment, she starts pacing, walking around the kitchen, and then she starts making apple pie to keep her hands busy and one turns into two and two turns into three and three turns into four and suddenly she has counters full of pies, tables covered in them, and she's used up all the eggs and butter and flour she's got in the house, and she's using the last of it to roll out one final crust for the last cup of filling she's got, and Robin and Roland come in and see her like that, fingernails white over a rolling pin, flour dusted hair and face, face screwed up like she might cry.
Or, you know. Some shit like that.
She hears Robin tell Roland to go downstairs to Snow and David's, and once he's gone she hears Robin taking slow steps towards her.
"Regina," he says, and god, it just, it's not what she wants to hear right now so it sounds wrong, wrong, wrong-
"Don't call me that," she says lowly, and she rolls the rolling pin harder over the crust.
He hesitates. "Amelia."
"No."
He's right behind her, and his hands come up, cover hers, slowly unwrap her fingers from the rolling pin. "Love."
And that's it.
That's the word that breaks her, and the tension leaves her body and she leans back against him and rests her head on his chest.
"Pies, huh?" He says lowly, breath tickling her ear. "Last time I saw you like this, it was apple martinis."
She chokes out a laugh. "I can't exactly get schwasted with Roland running around. Already lost mother of the year. I don't need to make it any worse."
He sighs. "You didn't lose anything." He takes her hands in his, turns her around gently so her back is to the counter and they're face to face.
"Your fingers are white."
"I hold onto things when I get nervous."
He clucks his tongue, takes her left hand, puts index finger to his mouth and sucks, and the feeling sends blood rushing back to her and shivers going down her spine.
"Why," he asks, taking out her index finger and bringing the middle one to his lips. "Are you stress baking, love?"
And she can't even form words right now, all she can do is lean back and let him hold her and screw her eyes closed.
He sits down on the kitchen floor and she sinks down on top of him, curls up into his lap, because here's the truth:
In both worlds, she is all anger and confidence, all brash strength and quick words, and she is so tired of it. She's so tired of being alone, so tired of having to be strong, so tired of coming home and curling up with a pillow when all she wants is to curl up on him, bury her face in his sweater, wrap her arms around him, have him hold her. To not feel so damn alone.
Because here's what they didn't tell her, when they broke the curse: that she'd have everything she wants, everybody she needs, everything she used to long for, and she'd still feel empty, alone, confused, like she did right before the curse broke, when she knew that something was fundamentally wrong and just didn't know what, and-
He sucks on her middle finger, jolts her back to life.
"You're a thousand miles away, darling," he says, and she notices that he's sticking with pet names, keeping her from having a breakdown at hearing the names, the lives she's supposed to identify with.
(What name is there for Regina and Amelia? What name is there for the in-between, muddled, blurry stage she's in now?)
"Come back to me," he says. "We've Roland, again. And you're- it seems like you're disappearing before my eyes, slipping away from me like water, through my fingers. And I can't lose you, I can't."
"Catch me, then," she says, and even as she says it she promises herself she'll never put him in a position where he has to.
She holds her head to his chest and wishes that she could tell him not to worry, tell him that she's already on her way back to him, but she can't. She can't, because she's awoken a beast, roaring in her gut, and it's taking so much of her to keep it buried, so much of her soul to keep it contained, and-
"Come back to me," He says, and he reaches around to kiss her, murmurs the words into her lips, sends them into her with a gush of breath, so she can feel them reverberating around her lungs, sinking through her until they reach her gut, and they calm the fire like nothing else. "Come back to me," he says, and his hand comes up behind her neck, cradles her head and brings her lips closer to his.
(And now it's a different kind of heat rising in her stomach.)
"Come back to me," he says, and he lays her down against the kitchen floor so her shoulders are touching the wood and the back of her neck would be, too, were it not cradled by his hand.
"Come back to me," he says, and his eyes look down at her, blue and trusting and hopeful and love.
God, he loves her.
And she loves him, too, so much, so much more than she thought she could ever lobe anybody, she loves him and she's not ashamed of it or afraid of it.
"Come back to me," he murmurs against her neck, the stubble on his chin creating a rough sensation on her skin that sends shivers down her spine and pretty much puts her brain on the meltdown.
Come back to me.
And what she wants to say is first I have to find a way back to myself.
She lies on the floor in his arms, surrounded by him and pies.
And this is where she finally cries.
Into his bare chest, and the tears run down his skin and fall on the floor and she is war-weary and finished, a soldier tired of fighting the same battle, over and over again.
It's always her against herself.
(Sometimes, she thinks that maybe it should be her against them, for once.)
A few weeks later, they send Roland off to kindergarten, because they've kept him home for six months, and he needs to make friends other than Henry, whom he practically heroworships.
(Not that Regina's complaining, because it's kind of fucking adorable.)
But anyway, they send him off, and around noon they get a call from Mary.
"So, don't freak out," she begins, so of course Regina freaks out, "But Roland's broken his arm."
"The FUCK?" Regina screeches. "Is he okay? Where is he? Who's with him? Is he crying? How did he break his arm, this is kindergarten, not the Hunger Games!"
"I told you not to freak out!"
He fell off the monkey bars, the doctors tell them; it's a routine fracture. Nothing serious.
But he look so small in that hospital bed, small and terrified, and he hates hospitals, is chronically afraid of them, and she could spare him this, if she just knew how. She could spare him that terror, that pain, the recovery period if she could just-
And that's when she makes up her mind.
They take him home with a Star Wars cast on, and he's so entranced by the images on it that he insists they stop by the video store and grab them, so they can watch them all and he can understand why the man in the dark cloak is wearing a mask.
So they stop and he pulls her by the hand throughout the store, says, "Mama! Mama! Look, it's a movie about a Lego! Can we get it? And there's Peter Pan!"
And he's super energetic, a little off his rocker, but he's happy, and he's goofy and excited.
His excitement dims a little when she ducks out in the middle of the Clone Wars, and she wants to sooth the frown away from his forehead. tell him that everything's going to be okay.
"Don't leave, Mama!" he calls. "I promise I won't eat anymore!"
"I'm just going to be right back, baby," she says fondly. "And you can eat as much as you want, as long as you go to bed tonight. I'll make oreo popcorn when I get back."
Robin raises an eyebrow. "Oreo popcorn?"
"The food of the gods," she says primly, and now she's all Amelia, all red lips and high ponytails and swaying hips. "You would know nothing about it, you mortal."
Roland giggles.
"Where're you going?" Robin asks, blue eyes twinkling as he leans his head back over the couch.
"Getting some stuff for pies."
"Are you going to baking binge again?" he groans. "Because I'm convinced you're trying to blow me up like a balloon."
"And there goes my diabolical plan," she snorts, leaning down to press a kiss to his upside down mouth. "I'll be back in a bit."
He smiles at her as she leaves, and god, she feels guilty.
There's only one light open in the shop when she gets there; she knocks on the door tentatively, solid in her decision but freaking the fuck out on the inside.
Because come on.
This is some real shit she's about to do.
When the door opens, there's a young woman on the other side, sweet-looking and brown-haired.
"Hello," she says. "I'm Belle. I'm afraid we're closed at the moment, but-"
"I need to talk to Rumplestiltskin," she says with finality. "Can you tell him I'm here?"
"Well, um, we are closed-"
"Can you just," Regina breaks off, huffs a breath out through her nose. "Can you just tell him Regina's here? Cora's daughter?"
Belle gives her a kind smile. "I can certainly tell him. Just a moment, then."
She closes the door, and Regina leans against the frame, suddenly exhausted.
When the door opens again, it is not Belle on the other side.
"Hello, dearie," Rumplestiltskin says with a smile, one that could be charming but seems a little too oily for it. "What can I do for you?"
"I need your help," she says, and it feels like something has just begun.
(When she comes home, she's humming and Robin looks at her in surprise.
"Mama," Roland says delightedly. "You're shining!"
"Am I?" She picks him up, swings him around. "Well thank you, dear."
She wrinkles her nose fondly at the bare legs poking out from his worn Captain America t-shirt. "Roland, darling, what did we say about pants?"
"They're for mortals!" Roland says cheerfully.
"...and aren't you a mortal, Roland?" she follows up with.
"Silly mama," Roland says with a giggle. "I'm a Locksley!" He pauses, chews his lip. "And a Hood!"
And Robin smiles and Roland giggles and Regina just laughs.)
Once Regina leaves, Rumple walks back into the area where Belle sits waiting for him.
She cocks her head up and smiles. "Back to the movie, then?"
He smiles lovingly at her, wonders again what he did to deserve such a creature, to deserve her faith. "Just a moment. I have a phone call to make."
She nods agreeably and turns back to the movie, and he ducks into his office and dials the number he knows by heart but has never used before.
"Cora," he says, when she picks up. "There's been a new...development."
"Okay, so I'm just gonna say it," she says one night, while Roland's at Henry's and she and Robin are watching mindless television. "You dated my half-sister. What the fuck."
"I'd hoped we could maybe just not mention that," he winced. "Put it in the past?"
"LOL, no, buddy, you're batshit if you think I'm letting you loose without info," Regina (Or she's more Amelia now) deadpans. "Nope. Spill."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything," she says. "And be descriptive."
He groans. "I dated Zelena for twenty-eight years. She was my girlfriend for twenty-eight years. I thought I was in love with her for twenty-eight years."
"In love with her?"
"Did you expect her to enchant me into an empty relationship?" Robin shakes his head. "That's not what she wants, love. That's not her goal."
"But you felt things for her?"
"Nothing real," he says slowly, like he's explaining something very simple to her. "Why are you freaking out?"
"I'm not freaking out." She says, and it comes out harsh. "I'm just amazed that you loved my half-sister the crazy-psycho-insane green-ass bitch."
"Are you jealous?" He asks, and his voice takes on a delighted tone. "Bloody hell, you're totally jealous."
"Shut the hell up."
"You've got nothing to be jealous of," he turns the TV off, slide off the couch and down next to her. "Yeah, I dated Zelena while we were cursed. And yeah, she cursed me into feeling thing for her. But they weren't real, darling. Not a single one of them. And you and me? All we are is real, love." His voice and eyes take on an impish tone. "So you can stop being jealous, okay? Because I didn't touch her like this." He accentuates the sentence by drawing a lazy hand down Regina's side, skin ghosting over skin. "And I never kissed her like this," he bends down to press light, sucking kisses to her collarbone, and Regina is suddenly very glad that Roland is with Henry right now, because all she really wants to do is push Robin down and climb him like Everest.
(Don't you dare judge her, okay? Twenty-eight years without getting laid will do things to a woman.)
"And I never looked at her like this," he says, and when they lock eyes his are undeniably four shades darker with want.
Which serves Regina's purposes perfectly.
(Again:
Twenty eight freaking years.)
"And I never wanted to do this," he says, and his hands dance along the edges of her sweatpants, teasing the waistband slightly.
"Don't talk about it, be about it," she says breathlessly, one hand clutching his shoulder, the other one tangling in his hair.
"As my majesty commands." He smirks.
And when he kisses her, he takes her breath away, and she is whole.
(So what if they don't make it to the bedroom til round three? Whatthefuckever. Regina's most definitely not complaining.)
Later, he traces shapes on the small of her back with his middle finger, and she's curled up on his chest, sated and sluggish and at peace.
"I love you," he says slowly. "I love you like the moon and the stars. I love you like gravity."
"Don't," she says quietly, and her breath on his chest makes goosebumps rise. "Love me right now, from right here. Love me like counter tops full of pie and stupid love songs. Love me like today, and tomorrow, and again until there are no more todays or tomorrows. Love me right now, from right where you are to right where I am."
He's quiet for a moment.
And then-
"So, sex makes you poetic in this world. Good to know."
She swats at him and he grabs her wrist, holds it to his beating heart.
And that's how they fall asleep.
And that's how they will always stay, in her mind. That is how she will always imagine them, that is how they will always be, no matter how much time passes or how many things change.
Outside of the city, in the forests surrounding it, Zelena stays in a cabin and cooks up her revenge, plots until she can't anymore, and every thing she thinks of has the same endgame: Regina's death.
But Regina and Robin and Roland, they don't know any of that.
All they know is that things are getting older, that time is passing.
And time does pass.
Snow and David, they make some kind of weird pseudo-parental relationship with Swan, and it works for them, and Regina's old roommate gets this look in her eyes like she's never been happier, one she used to get when Regina let her keep the birds in the apartment.
And Swan, she stays around town, and Regina sees her sometimes, holding Henry's hand or laughing with Killian.
And sometime eventually, an engagement ring shows up, glinting in the sunlight when Regina sees them from across the street.
(The princess and the pirate. Really, it's all kinds of cliche and ironic. Something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel.)
Henry and Roland get bigger, taller, and the looks soften towards Regina, but honestly that's not what she cares about.
Everything she cares about calls that little shitty apartment home, and if she's being 100% honest, that is exactly all she wants.
Snow drags her and Emma shopping, tosses dress after dress over the wall, and it's weird because they're all tight around the stomach and-
"I know we're all thinking it, so I'm gonna say it," Emma says. "Are you, like, pregnant or something?"
"No," Regina splutters. "Ohmigod, no."
"Have you- are you sure?" Snow asks tentatively.
"You guys are insane," Regina scoffs, and she takes refuge back in the dressing room.
(She'd be lying if she said she didn't look at her stomach, cradle it in her hands and think, what if?"
And while she's doing that, this is happening:
The lights are all dimmed at Rumple's when Robin walks up; he knocks twice loudly on the door and waits for an answer.
"We're closed," Rumple snaps at him, opening the door a sliver. "Come back later."
Robin leans forward quickly, close enough to prevent the door from closing all the way. "I believe you'll make an exception for me."
"And why the hell would I do that, dearie?" Rumple sneers.
"Because I'm a Locksley," Robin says, and a minute later, Rumple opens the door all the way.
"What is it you want, boy?"
"My father struck a deal with you," Robin says. "I'd like to make a new one."
"I don't make deals like that anymore, dearie," Rumple scowls. "Bargains are never upheld. They never understand the price. When I come to collect, it's all weepy and 'no, please, don't.' As if they didn't agree. As if they didn't beg for me."
"Belle's been a good influence on you," Robin says wryly. "But I"m prepare to pay the price."
Rumple raises an eyebrow. "And what, exactly, would you do for this?' he asks.
"Anything," he says.
"Quite a good answer," Rumple says, and as he ushers Robin in and the door closes, the last thing visible is his reptilian smile.
iii. if i forgot who i am, would you please remind me? cause without you things go...
...hazy.
