"The steeds couldn't devour this much," Regina said matter-of-factly as she piled another plate with melon, candied ham, and a scone. "I'm completely ravenous, and then I still feel starved within an hour."

"I believe that's what they call 'eating for two', Your Majesty." The Genie's face appeared at the end of the massive table spread in Regina's private dining room.

"I'm nothing but a host," Regina muttered in between bites. Over the past twenty weeks, Regina's growing frame became harder to conceal. A handful of her closest servants and guards were aware of the situation, but their habit of cowering whenever she entered a room seemed coincide with their unfaltering secrecy. None of the knowing servants knew their exact fate if they were to tell, but none of them desired to find out.

"Have you gotten the memory charm ready?"

She scoffed. "Of course I've conjured it. When are we to expect him?"

"Any moment now, your Majesty."

"Good. Hopefully, he'll be just as gullible as the others." Recently, there had been reports from all palaces within a thousand miles. The towns' doctors and midwives were mysteriously showing up in the depths of the forest confused as to who they were and where they had been. Regina couldn't help but to smirk at the news of these events.

Regina lifted herself from the table, and made her way to the bedchamber. Waiting for her was a bespeckled dwarf, his leather medical bag, and the Huntsman.

"Well I'm glad there's so much freedom to come and go throughout my palace."

"Your Majesty, this is Doc. He received your message." The Queen cocked an eyebrow.

"Then, may I ask, what the hell are you doing here, Huntsman?" The dwarf perked up in defense.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, your Majesty, he simply guided me to your chambers," the small man squeaked out. His voice was childish, but carried within it years of wisdom.

"Of course. Now, if you would leave me, I'll dress down to my petticoat," both men bowed swiftly and made their way towards the door, "However, you," she hissed as a lone finger directed itself at the Huntsman, "stay." The dwarf scuttled out of the room. The Huntsman glued himself to the spot where he stood.

Regina lingered as she removed her cloak and her dress; the Huntsman began to sweat, wondering which organ she was planning to remove. The Queen glided closer to him, her breath hitting a tendon in his neck. He shuddered.

"Tell me Huntsman, are you attached to this child?" He stayed silent. Her eyes smoldered themselves into his skin. "I see the way you stare at me, the way you stare at this," she laid her palm flat against the bulbous protrusion of her middle, "That soft look you get in your eye and on your face." The Queen lowered her voice to a serpent-like whisper. "Don't become a sheep, Huntsman. If you get attached to something, it'll be ripped away, like an engorged leech. This baby belongs to Rumpelstiltskin, and you know that. You're just too weak to accept it."

He would never know that Regina got the same look on her face when the baby kicked, or when the skin of her stomach flinched under her touch.

She retreated slowly and sat down on the edge of her bed. "You, go. And send him in." The Huntsman was quiet, but his eyes spoke what his words could not: sadness, guilt, humiliation. Regina's mouth twisted into an eerie grin.

Moments later, measurements were taken, organs were prodded and poked; all things to which Regina had become accustomed within the past six months. One thing Regina was not accustomed to, however, was the curious expression on Doc's face when he placed a stethoscope to her bare abdomen. He paused, used his breath to clean the device, and placed the glass end on her stomach once more. His tiny face was still wrinkled in a cocktail of inquiry, frustration, and concentration.

The Queen propped herself up on her elbows. She shot the dwarf a wide-eyed look that begged him for an explanation.

"Your Majesty, I'm going to give you these earpieces, and I want you to count how many beats you hear." The tiny man held out the stethoscope. Regina grabbed the wooden earpieces like a child and jammed them into her own ears. Doc shifted the glass end around for a few moments, and then there it was: rapid, like a tapping metronome, constant, and unfaltering. It might've been the most promising sound Regina had ever heard. "I hear one. Just one," Regina managed to sigh out. Doc glided the stethoscope a few inches to the right. And there it was again, the beautiful tapping noise. Regina's eyes grew as the reality of her condition trampled her like a runaway horse.

"There are two," she whispered.

"Yes, your Majesty: there are two." The Doc confirmed this statement as if it were a simple weather prediction. He put away his implements nonchalantly. Regina stayed stiff, as if she were in a casket, not her own bed.

The Queen grabbed a vial of mint-green powder on a nearby table, and flung the contents on the Dwarf. He vanished instantly (in the next few hours, while walking deep in the Enchanted Forest, six brothers and a princess in hiding would find their leader in an unexplained stupor).

When the broken and shocked Queen was totally alone, she wept. And yet, her rhythmic sobs seemed to calm the children inside her.