Thank you so much for the reviews! This chapter picks up right where the last one stopped (around episode 3x19). Going to Camelot next and going to focus more on the EvilCharming friendship with dashes of Snow and Robinhood. I hope you continue to enjoy. :)
It was time. The cauldron bubbled with the putrid smell of the Dark Curse. Regina sat on the floor in the corner of the room, knees pulled up under her chin. Her head swam with memories of the last time she inhaled this stench, when she stood on shaking legs with her father's heart clutched in her hand. She wasn't that woman: dark, broken, soulless, evil. She'd been focused only on her revenge, on destroying the pair she was presently avoiding. Blind to everything but rage and pain. Now she was crying in a corner like the weak and broken child she'd killed hundreds to prove she wasn't.
"Regina?" Snow's soft voice was barely audible over the boiling curse. She'd been crying. Of course she had, why wouldn't she be? She was about to kill the love of her life. Regina didn't get up. Red eyes met red eyes as Snow lowered herself to the floor next to her step mother. "It's time, isn't it?"
Regina only nodded, fresh tears falling down her cheeks as she pulled Snow against her chest and held on tight as the younger woman shook in her arms. She hadn't held her, had barely touched her since she was a child, but Snow clung to her like it was the most natural act in the world. "I promised him I'd look after you, both of you." Regina spoke softly into Snow's hair as her hand moved down to the swell of her stomach. "So try not to annoy me and make sure he doesn't ruin any of my things with his grubby little baby hands."
Snow pushed herself up so that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Her cries were subsiding, but the baby still moved restlessly in her womb. "It's a boy? You can tell?" Snow asked with a hand around her middle.
"Sorry. I…" Regina looked lost. She'd sensed the child before Snow knew even knew she was pregnant; the steady stream of true love's magic poured from the next Prince Charming. It was like a beacon. Regina could feel it in her every nerve every time Snow was near.
"It's okay. I had a feeling." Snow groaned out as Regina pulled her to her feat, still unaccustomed to the new form her body was taking. "Can I do this, Regina? Am I strong enough to do this?"
"You have to be." Neither woman was sure if Regina was speaking to Snow or herself as the queen walked off just far enough not to be intrusive as David entered the Chamber and instantly held his wife. He's reassuring her, telling Snow every rational reason he had just laid out for Regina hours before. Had it really only been hours? It seemed a lifetime had passed since he'd convinced her to let him die for them. She should know; she'd lived through more than a few of them. It was enough, had been enough. She'd had her happiness with her son and more than enough loss. She could be ready for this, ready to die, but it would do them no good. What a cruel twist of fate that a hero had to die so the villain had a chance at her happily ever after.
"Do it." His words draw her back from her thoughts. She didn't bother to wipe the tears as she walked toward them. It had come to this. The pair she'd hunted and tortured for years waiting for her to separate them for eternity. A vengeance gift wrapped and hand delivered, but one that she no longer wanted.
There was nothing more to be said, but Regina heard herself talking nonetheless: platitudes, assurances, and what she hoped he knew was remorse. Then her hand was in his chest, fingers curling gently around his heart and for a fraction of a second time stopped with his pained gasp. She felt the organ's warm fluttering against her palm. Had they all done that? Every heart she had callously plucked? Had she never taken this second to feel the life she was about to destroy or was it just him?
Time resumes and she pulls David's heart from his chest, staring at the glowing purity in her hand. The different shades of red, degrees of light, the texture smooth as glass and just as hard. It's the last heart her hand will ever hold. She makes this silent promise to him, to be better in the life that he's allowing her to keep. She'll do right by his sacrifice.
She has to pull Snow's hand from his to place the heart in her step-daughters reluctant hand. This time she won't let herself look away. She watches him hold his wife's gaze until the light leaves his eyes, shudders at the sound his body makes as it hits the stone floor. When Snow covers his lifeless body with her own, Regina covers her mouth in an attempt to muffle the sobs she can no longer hold in.
Regina's struggling to keep herself together, to breathe without gulping air when she sees Snow suddenly staring at her with pleading eyes. The princess is confident: talking nonsense about splitting her heart and faith and that damned hope, but Regina believes her. She can't explain it, but she knows Snow is right, knows that they can all live, that the young woman's heart is indeed strong enough. Now it's up to her to steady her shaking hands. Regina concentrates on the heart, just the heart, not the pair lying next to her. It's just a heart, an object to cleave, magic that she can perform.
There's an audible crack that echoes around her as the organ splits down the center, both halves beating strong and bright. She releases the breath that was burning in her lungs and scrambles to where the Charmings lay. She restores both hearts in unison then quickly backs away. The curse is beginning to grow; thick purple smoke surrounds them as Regina watches the couple embrace.
They've managed to cheat fate. She's going back to her home, back to her son and nobody had to die. Maybe they can win, she thinks. Maybe this time she won't have to fight alone. She catches David's eye just before they're completely enveloped by the curse and returns his smile. "Thank you," David mouths. Regina's smile is the last thing he sees of the Enchanted Forest as they are all whisked away.