SUBJECT 204

Notes: Reviews are great for the soul. I got such satisfying feedback for the last chapter collectively over ff, ao3 and tumblr that I felt compelled to post this one a good day sooner than I'd originally planned. So here, have some Regina and Belle.

CHAPTER FOUR

Regina was in an irritable mood.

The tests were clearly aggravating her and Belle felt guilt settling in the pit of her stomach as Dr. Gold's voice came over the earpiece, "Tell her to try again. Clockwise twice, counterclockwise thrice, then back on the floor. What she did was the other way around."

This didn't feel right. Belle bit her lip.

"Come now, dearie. You were already doing well with your instructions, and the notes you took this morning were invaluable." The praise coming in over the earpiece warmed Belle. Not enough to push the guilt away entirely, but just enough to get through this session.

"Regina," Belle reached a hand over to touch the young woman's clenched fist. At the contact, she moved her hand back and glared at Belle. "Sorry…"

Choosing not to respond verbally, Regina looked away, continuing to glare at the weighted box she'd been trying to move around for the past hour. Air pushed through her lips in a soft huff.

There had to be a nicer way to do this.

Belle cleared her throat and tried again, "I'm sorry, Regina… but if you don't mind too much, could you please try again?"

With a deep sigh, Regina turned to face Belle. At this close distance, sitting across each other, Belle could take in more details. In the picture that Dr. Gold flashed, Regina seemed younger, closer to Belle's age of twenty-one.

Up close, Regina's eyes were deep and tired. Dehydration must be setting in since her lips looked dry, making the scar stand out more clearly. There weren't any notes in her file about the scar. Not any notes that Belle had access to anyway. Dr. Gold seemed to still be holding back on giving them all of the data. It was possible that he was still feeling out how much he could trust his interns and how well they could connect dots even with missing data.

There was still the question of the other subject he was supposed to introduce them to.

"Look." Regina leaned forward across the table. The piercing look in her dark eyes made Belle shrink back into her own chair. "I'm tired and I barely got any sleep last night. I hate being here and I hate doing this but I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"Deescalate." Dr. Gold's voice came into Belle's ear. "Calm her down."

"Hey," Belle licked her lips and straightened up in her chair. Confrontation made her uncomfortable, but Dr. Gold was watching. The other interns were watching too. Tamara was probably already rolling her eyes at this point. For the umpteenth time. "Just… just remember why you started doing this in the first place. You wanted to have a better grasp of your abilities, right?"

"Abilities." Regina huffed. "I wish I didn't have them. I'd rather not have them than have control of them." After a pause, she flashed a quick smile. "Although a funnier word for what I'm dealing with is superpowers, right?"

Belle wasn't sure how to respond.

"Do you read comics or watch movies?" Regina was leaning forward so far, she was nearly standing from her chair. "Who am I? Am I Jean Gray? Or Eleven? Or am I the bad guy?"

"Please, Regina," Belle tried to keep the tremor from her voice. "I'm sorry if what I said offended you. I just-"

"Just what?" Regina snapped. "Calm down and be the little lab rat you all want us to be?"

"Just stand your ground, Belle, dearie." Dr. Gold's voice came through the earpiece again. "We'll send security into the room to assist you."

"No, wait." Belle lifted a hand and spoke out loud.

Regina was standing up now, fists clenched, eyes piercing into Belle. The table was starting to rattle and Belle felt her own seat starting to heat up. "Wait for what?"

"Wait, Dr. Gold." Belle glanced from Regina to the mirror then back to Regina. "Let me try again."

Just when Belle thought the intense look in Regina's eyes couldn't get any more unnerving, it did. The chair that Belle was sitting on was getting too hot and she scrambled out of it. "What are you hoping to accomplish, dear?"

"You're tired, you're upset, you're frustrated." Belle had both her hands in front of her, hoping to show that she meant no harm. "I can see that and I acknowledge that. You have every right to be feeling the way you do."

Regina still looked agitated, but the table stopped rattling now. "And?"

"And that's okay." Belle waved her hands in a vague gesture meant to encompass a wide range of things. "Life, everything is frustrating. It all just sucks sometimes, and I won't pretend to know what you're going through and I won't pretend to know how you feel."

There was still a suspicious look in Regina's eyes but she had obviously deflated. There was no longer tension in her shoulders and her hands were more loosely resting on the table. She looked more like she was just leaning on it than putting weight on it.

"I'll be honest with you," Belle continued, "I don't know if there's a cure for what you're dealing with and I don't know how far along their studies are in finding a cure. We're just at the stage where we're trying to understand and control what's going on with you."

Regina moved her hands off of the table and leaned back on her chair, folding her arms across her chest instead. Her voice was soft as she returned her gaze to the box. "So I've been told."

"But think of it this way, maybe?" Belle kept her voice light, hoping to be as comforting as she could be. "If we could help you gain better control of your abilities, you would be more capable of not using them, right?"

An arched eyebrow accompanied the look Regina gave Belle. The suggestion seemed to catch the woman's interest.

"Your abilities manifest most strongly when you're under duress, right?" Belle said, "If you can maintain control of them under pressure, that control can include both using them and not using them."

The look on Regina's face was difficult to read as she clenched and unclenched her jaw.

"Wouldn't that be pretty close to not having them?" Belle asked, "The control to both using them and not using them could be as close as you can get to not having them. What do you think?"

There was no immediate response, but Regina did start to relax the tense set to her shoulders. She clasped her hands and put them on top of the table, still not ready to speak. It was clear though that she was mulling over Belle's words.

"Do you think…" Regina glanced at the mirror, "Do you think that's why he keeps pushing me to use them even when I'm getting agitated?"

Moving as slowly and nonthreateningly as she could, Belle sat back down on her own chair. It wasn't heated anymore.

"I think so."

There was a pause.

Finally, Regina nodded. "I'll try again."

The sigh of relief that rushed out of Belle was probably way too obvious, but Regina smirked at her instead of glaring. That was a pleasant change.

"Well done, Belle." Dr. Gold's praise in her ear thrilled Belle more than it should. Maybe she did have an inappropriate fangirl crush on her boss.

Later in the day, Belle found herself face to face with Regina again, though this time, without any cameras or microphones.

Belle had excused herself from the lecture room where there was a seminar being delivered by Dr. Whale. It was about the difficulty in maintaining controlled variables with subjects like gifted people. His bandaged hand didn't look as concerning as it did yesterday, but he winced whenever it grazed surfaces. When Aurora showed concern and asked how he got hurt, he dismissed the question and said that it should be of little concern since tests came back negative, but they're monitoring for any side effects.

That response wasn't what any of them were expecting, and it only made them more curious

Their questions were met with agitation and an abrupt recess.

Which was how Belle found herself nearly crashing into Regina in the bathroom.

"Well." Regina had her hand on the bathroom door and was just about to head out while Belle had been just about to head in. They were uncomfortably close to each other and it felt uneasy, the way Regina was eyeing Belle like she was the test subject. "Didn't think I'd see you again so soon. Is Gold giving you instructions to keep an eye on me?"

There was the paranoia that Dr. Gold mentioned (off the record) that Regina might be suffering from.

"No, I just wanted to freshen up," Belle avoided Regina's gaze and gestured towards the stalls. "And use the toilet?"

"Hmm." Regina stepped aside, barely leaving room for Belle to squeeze through. "What's your role in all of this?"

Belle washed her hands not because they were dirty, but just because she was uncomfortable and needed something to do and didn't quite like how Regina was eyeing her. "What do you mean?"

It had been a deliberate decision to go to the farthest sink from the door, but even then, Belle still felt tense and way too close to Regina.

But why? Was Regina casting some kind of aura of uneasiness? Belle made a mental note to check on her research and notes if that was possible. Still, she did her best to push back the anxiety and try to see things from Regina's perspective. This was a woman who was a voluntary test subject but was often being spoken to and treated like little more than a lab rat. Not to mention there was the suspected abuse she could be suffering.

They were given more access to Regina's files a while ago and there were several pictures of suspicious bruises that Regina had refused to explain. Dr. Hopper just told them that they eventually decided to see if Regina could use her abilities to heal herself, and surprisingly, she was able to. From then on, there had been no recorded incidents of bruising

"Are you like his apprentice? Assistant?" Regina fidgeted with her hands as she tried to find the right word, then seemed to shrug it off. "I just… I just wonder why you're so eager to please him."

Belle felt her jaw drop. She opened and closed her mouth and tried to find the appropriate response, but just ended up fumbling and stammering. "It's… it's not like- I just… It's more like…"

"Look, I don't know what or who you did to get in here, but I just…" Regina looked around, then lowered her voice. "I just think you should be careful."

Belle's brow furrowed. "Why would you think that?"

Chewing on her lip, Regina leaned back against the bathroom door. Even if Belle was ready to leave and go back to the lecture room, there was no way she could with Regina blocking the only exit.

"I just…" Regina was trying to choose her words carefully, then she made eye contact with Belle and there was fear in there. It was different from the usual defiance and agitation and it unnerved Belle. "I think that something is wrong."

Leaving her spot at the door, Regina took a few steps toward Belle. "Look, I don't have ESP, or mind-reading or whatever it's supposed to be called. Barely, anyway."

Belle turned the faucet on and washed her hands again, just to have something to do. She suppressed a shudder when Regina positioned herself at Belle's shoulder. The whisper in her ear was just as unnerving, "But I think he's up to something. Something bad. I think he's just using me. Using us. But I can't figure out what he wants."

With a frown, Belle turned to face Regina. "He seems alright to me, though… A little too eager about his tests and experiments, but he… I think his heart is in the right place."

Regina shook her head. "I don't."

"But why?"

The conversation clearly wasn't going the way Regina had hoped and she started to back away. "Nevermind, just don't tell Gold I said anything, okay?"

"Wait, can't we just talk about where this is coming from?" This time, Belle was the one walking towards Regina as she retreated back towards the exit. "Why do you think something's wrong?"

"We just do." Regina's voice wasn't as fearful now, it was cold and hard. The tremor in her hand gave way though that she was still afraid. "Maybe when you meet Emma, you'll see. She… she knows things."

"What- what do you mean by that?" Belle moved forward to go after Regina, but she was already briskly walking down the hallway.