Long chapter is long.

This finally seems to be coming together. I've sorted out some motivations and started laying the groundwork for the drama that is to come.

You know me, there's gotta be monsters and magic and all sorts in my stories. That's why you love 'em. :D

Read, love, review.

Chapter 9 – the Woodcutter

The Town Hall…

"Do we really have to do this now?" Graham followed after Regina with the basket and the only reason she didn't twist to glare at him was because it would hurt her chest and –now- her side.

"Yes. They need to be picked now for the recipe to be right." Regina stopped under the shade of her apple tree and smiled up at the branches. She reached up to pick one of the crimson fruits and grimaced with a sound of discomfort when she found her arm uncooperative when it came to raising over her head.

"For cider?" Graham dumped his armful of the files she had insisted on getting onto the marble bench under the tree. "Sit." He ordered her when she looked like she was thinking about pulling her stitches through the dint of being too bloody stubborn to realise she wasn't recovered enough to pick sodding apples.

She glared at him.

"Please?"

She looked mulish for long moments and he rolled his eyes with a low growl.

"Fine. Hold this." He thrust the basket into her arms and she looked confused for a moment before she squeaked in surprise, suddenly going up in the world.

Graham had stooped, wrapping his arms about her legs and stood up with her sat on his shoulder. That damned skirt rustling in his ear.

"Pick your apples then."

She quite deliberately rested the basket on top of his head and he huffed out a snort of irritation through his nose.

"You should really give a little warning before you manhandle someone." She admonished him.

It was all terribly civil really. They didn't shout at one another or curse each other out though it would seem they were done with trying to physically kill one another. So that just left the silent and mutual decision to do their level best to needle one another completely over the edge into madness.

"You've never complained before." He grumbled.

"Yes, well…that was when you couldn't remember that you hated me." Regina murmured and dropped apples into the basket. "Left a bit."

Graham sidled around the tree and listened to her pick her apples. Silence stretched between them and he shifted her in his hold a little, craning his neck a little under the weight of the basket.

He was more than a little surprised when she lifted it off his head and settled it on her lap instead. She ruffled his hair out of the mussing it had suffered under the wicker basket and he looked up at her from under her fingers.

Regina snatched her hand away and went back to studiously picking apples.

"How do you do it?"

"Hmm?" She didn't look down at him again.

"Make the cider. Why does it HAVE to be done today?"

"The recipe takes a year to complete. It really should have been done last week but I was a little occupied." Her tone was light and he could feel, due to their unwitting connection, that she genuinely held no malice towards him for it.

She was such a strange creature.

"We're going to the animal shelter after this." He told her, ignoring the way she stiffened before studiously going back to her apple picking. "Any preference on what kind of pet you are to have?"

"I'm not keeping it." She twisted to glare down at him and then turned away again when the position was too uncomfortable to maintain. "You want a little animal guide, YOU can keep it."

"Oh, I shall, but it will be living in our house. I was simply asking if you had a preference." Graham gleefully dropped that little bomb and watched her seethe out a breath from between clenched teeth.

"It is not OUR house, it is MY house."

"In which I will be staying. For as long as it takes." He let her decide what 'it' was and watched her jaw clench and match the anger that crackled between them with their connection between her heart and his. He realised then that he liked to needle these reactions from her so that he might see honesty in her face.

What she would feel around him, he decided, would be honest. It might not be nice or charitable, but her face would match what she felt, even if he was the only audience for it.

"And what, pray tell, will 'it' be?"

"Breaking the curse." Graham shrugged, jostling her on his shoulder a little, forcing her to grip his arm so as not to be knocked from her perch. She nudged his side with her foot and he took the hint and sidled further around the tree.

"You have to know that I'm not exactly going to fling myself into helping you. I have too much to lose, no matter what you say you can do to protect Henry, there is still no guarantee that he would come with us back to the Enchanted Forest…I can't lose him."

"You won't." Graham murmured and tightened his arms about her legs to comfort her before he could think better of it.

"Really? So experienced with curses are we?"

"I have lived one long enough and I know you, you've ever been useful at finding a way to get what you want."

"That sounded almost like a compliment."

"A statement of fact." He studied her movements, simple and graceful, selecting the choicest of fruits for her latest batch of cider. "Even I would not take Henry from you so I shall make a bargain with you."

"Oh?" She didn't look at him but Graham could tell he had her full attention.

"Work with me on breaking the curse –willingly and without treachery- and I shall not let it be broken until you have found a way to be certain that Henry will be brought with us."

Regina picked more apples as she mulled his offer over. He waited patiently on her decision, he had all the time in the world, after all.

"How do you know I won't lie to you, tell you that I haven't found a way?"

"Because you can no longer lie to me. I know what the truth is like from you. I alone have seen you at your most vulnerable, most intimate, moments and I know how you speak, how you look, when you lie."

Regina stilled, her hand lightly grasping one of the apples that shone so lustrous and fresh upon the branch and she swallowed hard.

"You think so?" Her voice was small.

"I know so."

"Oh." She finally plucked the apple from the branch and dropped it into the half full basket on her lap.

"So, do we have an accord? You help me in return for my protection against the curse being broken by another and Henry comes with us when the curse is broken."

"There is no bargain where you do NOT break the curse?"

"No."

"So…the best I can hope for is to choose when it happens?" Regina pulled another apple from the branch hard enough to set it shaking.

"Aye, pet." He sidled around the tree again without waiting to be told. "You can choose when it happens, have Henry brought with us and I shall be your ally once more in the Enchanted Forest whilst you recover your strength."

"And, once that is done and I am recovered, what is to stop me from killing you?"

"Your heart. I have not forgotten that you love me."

"You've got to be kidding me!" Regina glared down at him. "You might think you have a hold over me and perhaps you do, but I have lived my entire life without having my love returned, such fragile things as heartstrings cannot hope to yoke me into bowing to you. It is better that you learn that now. I shall not leap every time you click your fingers, no matter how much I supposedly love you."

"You will if you want me to go easy on you." Graham looked up at her seriously.

"What happened to you not hurting me?"

"I referred to physical pain."

"I grew up with my mother, you haven't the depravity to make me suffer an equal mental torture as to what she doled out when I was good in her eyes."

"That may be but, you said yourself, I'm the most eligible man in town. I'm sure there are lots of people that will help me if I just smile and ask them prettily. Emma perhaps…?"

"You'd be so quick to sign her death warrant?" Regina's voice was mild but the streak of fiery possessiveness that went through her and the savage way she tore the apple from the branch belied her tone. "I do not share."

"You won't have to if you help me. You'll have my complete and undivided attention."

"I already said I would teach you how to speak to this new pet you're so desperate to foist on me, what more do you want?"

"I want you to help me. I want you to want to help me." His voice was softer than she had thought it would be and she looked down at his serious face watching her intently. She went still, and then turned away from him again.

"Helping you means helping them and that I can never do with a smile on my face."

"Helping me means we get to go home. Helping me means helping yourself. Surely you can be enthusiastic about that."

"My home is here now."

"Liar." Graham murmured with no real heat. "You miss the forest, I know you do. You miss your magic which gave you a freedom that you had always craved, you miss your elaborate dresses that you'd have me remove with my teeth and then fuck you in the ruins of them, you miss riding through the forest with your hair down –the only time I have ever heard you laugh like there is nothing at all in the world that can hurt you. You miss it, pet. You miss it as fiercely as I do."

"I cannot risk losing Henry. There is no way to be certain." She didn't deny anything of what he had said.

"There must be." Graham told her just as surely.

"How can you be so sure?" She looked down at him, annoyed again.

"Because I shall help you if you help me. Give me what I want, help me break the curse, and I will do all in my power to help you keep Henry with you. We have done great and terrible things together, you and I. Let us –for once- do something good."

"I'm not very good at being good." Regina stared into the leaves of the apple tree.

"Neither am I but, between the two of us, I'm sure we can figure some of it out. What do you say?"

"I can say…that I will teach you how to speak to your animal. I will look for a way to keep my son with me when we return and…I won't stand in your way. That's as close as you're going to get."

"Good." Graham nodded, that had been more than he had expected from her. "Now, to my original question, what kind of pet would you prefer?"

Regina groaned and huffed out a sigh. Snatching an apple off a branch she thought about it mulishly for long moments, attempting to discern the least distasteful of her options.

"A dog. I suppose. Something that can be trained. I would like at least one creature that lives in my house to abide by some of my wishes."

"I will abide by all your wishes as soon as they coincide with mine." Graham smirked up at her.

"Quite." Regina agreed waspishly and he moved around the tree again without her needing to ask. She made a small sound of surprise when he staggered suddenly and she nearly dropped her basket of apples. "What is it?"

"Hold on." Graham stooped, setting her feet on the ground again, straightened and simultaneously relieved her of the heavy basket of apples so she never once felt its full weight.

"What the hell…?" Graham looked down at what he had stepped into and frowned.

Regina peered around him, following his gaze, and ice water seemed to pour down her spine and throb in her side.

Footprints.

Gigantic footprints.

Graham's foot was still in one of them and the print was easily over three times the length of his. It was sunk two inches into the turf of the lawn and the matching footprint was nearly three feet away. The prints were human shaped, boot shaped, but there was certainly no one in Storybrooke that was that tall.

"He'd have to be…nine feet tall." Graham looked up at the branches of the tree, imagining such a height, and saw some of the very smallest branches had been bent back and denuded of leaves. He turned back to the prints and measured their depth and the spread of them. "Weigh about…eight hundred pounds?"

He rounded on her and his eyes widened.

"Who did you bring with us that's this large?"

"No one." Regina shook her head hurriedly, her arm hugging her waist. No one outside of her head at any rate. "There was nothing in the Enchanted Forest that would be so large and still remain human shaped. Giants are a hundred feet tall and ogres about…thirty? Neither of them wear shoes and I didn't bring any with me. There was no magic here to sustain them."

Graham scowled and looked down at the prints and then cast about again, searching for more tracks.

There were none, just those two. Like it had materialised there and then disappeared.

Which meant magic.

"But there is magic in Storybrooke. It's made of magic, even if you can't manipulate it as you once did." He rounded on Regina. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Regina blinked when she realised what she had just said. "Alright, I didn't bring anything here that would make tracks like that. The biggest thing I brought was a dragon and she's securely locked away in a prison she cannot leave."

"Maleficent? You brought…of course you did." Graham scrubbed his hands over his face. He huffed out a slow breath and inhaled, stilling halfway through the motion.

He dropped his hands and sniffed again. He wrinkled his nose.

"What is it?" Regina shifted from foot to foot nervously. What did he know?

"Pine and sweat and…blood." Graham's eyes landed on her. "Your blood."

"Well…the wound seeps, I told you…"

"Liar." Graham looked back at the prints, eyes narrowed, and then scanned the garden again. He stilled when he saw the mark on the tree.

Right there, halfway up the trunk, a scar. Silvery and old, had to be at least ten years old, but a wound in the side of the tree that had nearly cut it in half but had then incongruously healed over. He was beginning to get a terrible sense of déjà vu. Graham turned slowly to look at Regina, his eyes dropping to her waist as if he could see through the bright material of her dress.

"Regina…"

"What?"

"What do you know?"

"I told you, I don't…"

"Liar."

Regina's jaw clenched and she scowled at him.

"It was a dream. Well, a memory that turned into a nightmare." Regina looked away from him and hugged herself. She decided he didn't need to know most of it and skipped to the end. "I looked out the window of my office and saw a…man. He was standing there," she nodded to the prints, "he looked big enough to have made them. He swung his axe into the tree and…"

"And the wound appeared on you."

Her eyes skated back to his at his tone and his jaw was clenched into a granite line. He cast about the garden again, green eyes scanning hungrily for any sign of the intruder. His shoulders heaved with every breath, his hands were curled into claws at his sides and he only snapped out of it when Regina's hand settled on the back of his neck.

"Easy." She scraped her nails over the skin there and he shivered. "He's not here. He's not real."

"He's huge." Graham murmured, his eyes still wild and scanning for threats. "Bigger than any man you've ever seen before. The ground shakes with every step he takes but he's silent. He could be right behind you and you wouldn't know until his axe finds your neck. He's dressed like an ordinary man but you can't say what his face looks like because you just can't see it. All you can see is the eyes and they are nothing. His eyes are the abyss and they don't look at you they look through you. Like you don't exist at all."

"How…?" Regina's hand slid from his nape but it only got as far as his elbow, she found herself unable to let go.

"Because," Graham swallowed hard, like he had a wretched taste in his mouth, "he is real. He's the Woodcutter and he's found me."

Graham shook himself and seemed to snap out of it. He scooped up the basket and dumped the files she had wanted on top of the apples. Wrapping an arm about her waist, he shepherded her towards the gates of the garden and the car lot beyond. He never stopped scanning for the threat of the Woodcutter.

"Who is the Woodcutter?" Regina looked up at him and he was too busy keeping watch to look back.

"You know who he is." Graham hurried her towards the truck. "He's the stuff of nightmares."

The Blackwood, Then…

Howl lay on his belly on the summit of the grassy hillock cresting one end of the valley. His frost green eyes glittered as he took in the herd grazing below them.

Night lay beside him, ears tilted forward to reduce his silhouette and he watched the prey below with interest. He looked sideways at his elder brother.

"An elk, brother? You are sure?"

"Aye, we can take it." Howl studied the herd, searching for a likely candidate. They had to be careful taking their pick. Enough for them, for the pack, but not too much. Not the mother with her new calf –she would be far too vicious, fight too cruelly. Not the lead bull with his gigantic wealth of antlers that could gore and flip a wolf into the air like tossed rabbit bones.

"But…taking an elk is a hunt for the whole pack." Night's red eye glinted with a glassy flash in the noonday sun.

"Are we not the fastest of all the pack?"

"Yes."

"And are we not the cleverest of all our siblings?"

"Of course." Night snorted his amusement.

"Then it is simple. We shall cut into the herd and spook one of the younger bulls away from his brethren. We chase him into the woods, deep into the thicket, where his antlers will catch upon the branches. Once he is stuck fast –his horns in the branches and his hooves in the thicket- we can easily take his throat." Howl flopped onto his back and grinned at his brother baring those strange blunted teeth of his.

Howl was strange for a wolf. Almost hairless with soft paws that could pick things up in ways that Night's own paws could never mimic. He had no claws, his teeth barely sharp enough to rip the throat of a young doe, but he was fast.

Even if he did only use two of his legs, he could scamper up trees like a squirrel and looked at the world in a strange kind of way that let him see solutions to problems that would take another wolf the whole pack to solve.

That, and he was Night's brother and the silver wolf would not abandon him for anything. He was strange and tall and tailless but he was his brother.

Night heaved a sigh.

"We are to be in trouble again."

"Probably." Howl held out those strange forepaws of his and raised his eyebrows. "Though the pack will be glad to have such a fine meal as a whole elk. It will surely please Boar Jaw."

"Nothing pleases Boar Jaw." Night snorted and curled his lip.

"Elk will. Come on." Howl flipped onto his belly again and clambered in that awkward way of his over the summit of the hill. He descended through the tall grasses, rising into a hunch over his two hind legs and then moving much more quickly.

Night followed in that fluid and effortless way of true wolves and spoke softly to his brother.

"And –pray- which elk is to be ours?"

Howl turned and looked back at him, those white teeth of his bared in a grin.

"The white one of course."

Later…

"Chase an elk, you said." Night panted, galloping alongside Howl through the shafted light eking through the gaps in the trees. "Catch him in the thicket, you said."

"Save your breath for running." Howl hurdled a fallen log after the bounding white rump of their prey and growled to himself.

The white elk had led them on a merry chase for a half day's lope. Deeper and deeper into the Blackwood, deeper than they were supposed to go. So deep that the trees blocked nearly all light from finding its way down to the ground. It was so dark that it could have been the middle of the night. The thick trees packed so closely together that the sounds of their whisper quiet feet seemed to bark into the dark.

Howl didn't care. He was determined. He could smell the lather of sweat on the pale elk's flanks. The beast's breaths came in coughing pants and it stumbled every so often. It could not last much longer.

They burst from the trees and into the clearing so suddenly that both young wolves yelped and squinted at the sudden brightness of light, even if they had run into the shade of the cliff face.

"Where is it?" Night wrinkled his nose and covered his eyes with his paw, a mannerism he had picked up from Howl. It helped.

"There!" Howl's eyes always adjusted better to the day and saw further than the rest of the pack. He took off full pelt and bounded up the scree that had gathered at the base of the sheer cliff.

There must have been a landfall many seasons past and it had left a great slope of shale and boulders piled in a treacherous incline towards the cliff.

The elk scrambled doggedly upward. There was nowhere to go but the beast was trapped and knew it. He was going to put his tail to the cliff and try and cast his tormentors down the slope with a sweep of those sharp antlers of his.

It slipped and tiny shards of sharp pebble skittered down the slope.

If it didn't tumble and snap one of its thin legs first that was.

Howl was already on the slope, bounding up after it. The incline so steep that even he could use all four legs. He hopped from boulder to boulder when the size allowed for it and picked his way carefully between such safeties as those sizeable rocks. He avoided the sharp shale wherever he could and was so intent on catching the elk as it scrambled madly for a likely spot to make its last stand that he didn't even notice the shifting of the shale.

It started slowly with a tinkling, slithering sound. It tumbled and rolled, seeming to sink away inward like the slope was sucking in a deep breath and still Howl didn't see it.

Night did.

"Brother, look out!" He barked and Howl paused, turning to see what had Night so panicked.

He tilted his head, whining in wordless question and then the world gave out from under him.

"BROTHER!" Night bellowed and scrambled madly up the slope. The sharpness of the slate fractures cut into his paws in his dashing gait but he did not stop until he stood on a great slab of boulder overlooking the gaping maw of blackness that led beneath the slope. "Brother, Howl, can you hear me?!"

Night was so worried that he did not even give a half-hearted clip of his teeth to the elk that bounded heedless down the slope to safety. Seizing its opportunity to escape as any worthy prey would.

"Brother!" Night prowled back and forth over the lip of the boulder, his eyes frantically searching for a safe way down into the dark.

A faint cough reached his ears.

"Howl?" Night sank down onto his belly and edged closer to the edge than any wolf with sense would dare and stuck his whole head down into that cloying dark.

"I…ugh, I'm alright."

"True?"

"True." Howl groaned and worked his feet under himself.

He hesitantly stood, wary against the crackling of bones that meant he would never hunt again. His body creaked, it ached all down one side, but he was able to move everything well enough. He coughed again at the dusty air and looked about himself.

Howl had no memories of being in a human dwelling but –if he had- he'd have recognised what first appeared to be a cavern as a hewn cottage buried beneath the centuries old landslide. Thick dust covered everything and it smelled ancient, the air stale and too thick. Undisturbed for decades. The furniture –a scarred table, a chair, something that might have been the remnants of a bed- was blocky and carved with a crude skill.

It was also twice the size and half again of that made for a normal man. Whoever had lived there was far bigger than a mortal human.

Howl used his forepaws to scrub at his face, clearing the dust from his mouth, nose and eyes.

"Howl?"

"Still here." Howl tilted his head up to look up into the freedom above. He padded forward so that he stood directly under the hole that had gulped him down. "I cannot see a way out."

"Nor I a way down."

"Do not jump!" Howl barked, knowing that would be his brother's next idea. There was no point in them both being snared by this trap.

Had the elk known?

No, those beasts had nought but the roots of their horns in their heads. The young bull would not have known about this place and –even if he had- he certainly would not have thought to try and lure Howl into falling into it.

"I wasn't going to." Night grumbled. "You cannot even climb?"

"The sides are too smooth and too steep." How squinted into the dark and wished for an uncountable time that his eyes were as keen as Night's in the dark.

That was where his brother had gotten his name, after all. He had guided Howl through many a pitch night. Over ditches, fording rivers, ducking branches…an idea struck.

"Night!" Howl called up into the light. "You must go back into the wood and find a long branch. The longest you can break off and drag. Bring it here and I may use it to climb out if you hold the other end."

"Fair plan!" Night bounded to his feet. "Do not despair, I shall be back in a wag."

And then he was gone.

Loneliness suddenly clawed at Strange Howl and he hugged his forepaws about himself. He did not usually feel the cold, having trained himself out of it a long time ago –despite having no thick pelt of fur like his family did- but he felt it now.

It was so dark, only a thin shaft of light spearing down into the encroaching gloom to offer him any light.

Howl sank down onto his haunches and stayed in that light. He had never been afraid of the dark. Dark meant good hunting, it meant the moon and it meant following the bright plume of his brother's tail along the safe path.

That was not what this dark meant.

This dark meant…more dark.

Howl frowned when he found that thought lacking. He looked about himself, trying to order his head into making something a bit clearer for him to better name his situation but all he could think of was the darkness pressing in around him.

Howl bit back a shiver and wished for the musky smell and warm press of the sleeping pile of the pack. The cold seeped into his bones like the dangerous sleep of winter. When old or young wolves slept too long in the white and it took them. It had nearly taken him several times as a whelp.

It felt like it stalked him again now but this time…this time it was the black that came for him.

He wished again for the warm pelts of his family, loaned to him through touch for he did not have one of his own and it was wolf to help those in the pack, and sat fully down on the ground.

He yelped when he found that it had a pelt.

He bounded to his feet and immediately thought it was a trap.

There were beasts in the forest that preyed on wolves, after all. Beasts that drew foolish wolves in close by looking like something else. A trapped elk calf ripe for the taking or a frisky she-wolf who cavorted closer and closer until she could wrap her jaws around the unwary wolf's throat and then it was done in a single snip and a blast of red.

That had been how Stone Paws had died.

Howl looked wildly about himself and –loathe though he was to leave the light- he could not tolerate standing on that treacherous pelt. Not if it meant it would wrap around him and drag him down into its crushing embrace.

So Howl ran blindly into the dark, he ran until he tripped over something and went tumbling head over heels over the smooth ground of the cavern. Smooth, safe, stone.

Howl rolled to his fingers and toes and willed his eyes to adjust fully. He panted through his nose, pale green eyes darting about the cavern, waiting for an attack that never came.

Slowly, he began to feel a little ridiculous.

Though sitting in the dark had allowed his meagre night vision to broaden to its fullest and he cast about the cavern again, searching for a way out.

He prowled closer to the pelt, studying it closely, and reached out with a cautious finger. He prodded it with a single pad and then hopped back, waiting for a reprisal.

Where was Night? This was terrifying.

He prodded again –this time in a different spot- and hopped back once more.

Nothing happened.

Deciding that he had nothing better to do. Howl prowled around the edge of the dreadfully still pelt and tried to discern what kind of animal it had come from. It was thick and dark, thick like a wolf's but larger. Much, much, larger.

He came across the paw first and immediately thought wolf. The claws were similar but there was something wrong with it. It wasn't until he picked it up and examined it more closely that he realised the structure of the paw more closely resembled Howl's own forepaws. The toes were too long for a normal wolf or even a bear and it had that extra claw that faced the wrong way. The claw that allowed Howl to grasp things like a bird might perch upon a branch.

Howl carefully set the heavy and dead paw back on the ground and continued on his prowl. The pelt was huge, spread across nearly the entire cavern floor, the sides ragged from where they had been cut away from the long dead animal. It smelled of faintly of birds' eggs left in the sun and the musty scent of a grizzled old wolf. The elder way that Father had smelled before the winter white had taken him in the night.

Howl froze when he came across the head.

Impossible.

His green eyes were wide, the whites showing all the way around and his slim chest heaved with every panicked breath.

No. it could not be.

No wolf could grow this large.

Howl stared at the head of the pelt, the skull inside giving structure to it where it had been flattened out of every other part. This part of the pelt looked almost alive. Perfectly preserved, the nose still shining wet, the whiskers intact and the ears still pointed and erect. The eyes were closed, giving the impression that the great wolf slept, perhaps unaware that his body had been emptied of his skin.

The head was also as long as Howl was tall when he stood up on his hind paws in the way that felt natural to him.

He crouched down, not daring to touch this part, until he was nose to nose with that giant head. He tilted his head this way and that, trying to puzzle it out. It was old, he could smell that much. Did that mean that this was some kind of ancient wolf from another time? When wolves were so much bigger? Had there been such a time?

There must have been. How else could this wolf have grown so large? Bigger than a bear, bigger than anything Howl had ever seen.

Howl shrieked like a downed bird when the eyes opened.

He bolted backwards, falling over his tailless rump, scrambling madly out of the way.

A low rumbling sound that trembled through the entire room came from the pelt. It hunched, the folds of it bunching up. The rasping sound of dead claws dragging over the stone floor grated into Howl's ears as one paw was slowly rattled closer and then the other. The head slithered backwards, hanging awfully for a moment from the neck with no muscle, leathery dead tongue lolling, before the magic that animated the rest of the pelt levelled it out.

"Who…" The jaws of the pelt parted, ancient fangs yellowed and cracked with age clipping together with each rasped word. "Who disturbs my rest?"

Howl could do nothing but stare for long and pounding moments. His heart kicking so fiercely within his chest that he thought it might break free of his ribs. His mouth worked, nothing but a whimpering sound emerged and then he shook himself. He was not a whelp any longer. He was not prey.

"I…my name is Strange Howl, grandfather wolf." Howl cautiously got his feet under himself and wondered if the wolf skin could see him.

There were no eyes. Nothing. Just empty ragged holes looking down at Howl.

"Strange Howl?" The pelt head loomed down, sliding down through the distance that separated them in a boneless slink. "This is a wolf name. You do not look like any wolf I have seen before. Have wolves changed so much in the time that I have slumbered?"

"N-no, my lord. I…I was born of a human woman. She died and my pack took me in."

"That is…saddening." The giant pelt rumbled the head coiling completely around Howl to hover over his other shoulder, the tatty aged pelt brushing over his shoulders in a musty embrace.

Howl tried very hard not to just scream in terror.

"I have never thought so, my lord." Howl gulped down his panicked whimpers. "My pack is the only family I have ever known. The Forest took the human woman that whelped me. It is not sad. It just is."

"Hrrrnn…" The huge pelt spoke with a voice like the rumbling of rocks tumbling down the mountainside. "That is indeed a wolf thought."

"I am a wolf."

"And yet you are not." The pelt seemed to speak mostly to itself, slinking away from him again to loom far above him.

"I am!"

"I mean no offence, small one. It simply is."

"It is not!" Howl forgot his fear in the face of the insult. Of course he was a wolf. What else could he be?

"YOU THINK TO QUESTION ME?" The pelt's jaws gaped wide, so wide that Howl's vision was filled with nothing but ancient fangs. "Here, in the blackwood, in the place where all wolves were born, you think to question me? To fall upon me with no rebuke? To disturb my slumber? To awaken us?"

"I meant no harm." Howl shrank back. "It was an accident, a misstep on the hunt. I meant no harm."

It seemed academic, he was already so much smaller than the pelt, but Howl crouched, turning his head and baring his throat. It grated against everything in him, but being submissive in this moment might well save his life.

"Hrrrrn…" That same rumbling sound game from the pelt again. The one that sounded more like rock grating over rock rather than anything organic.

"There are no accidents in the Forest. Not here in the Blackwood. This is the old place, the place where all green comes from, the place where we were born."

"We?" Howl dared to question, his curiosity overcoming his fear.

"Aye, my murderer and I." The pelt's head swung around in that rustling boneless way and Howl followed its gaze, stretching up on his hind legs and peering across the room.

He sucked in a panicked breath when he saw it.

A great hand, a claw of flesh drawn tight and leathery over bone, emerged from the rubble in the back of the cavern. It grasped towards Howl, petrified in a clutching talon and Howl shrank back behind the pelt, hiding from it.

It was a man's hand but it was a man's hand in the same way that the monstrous thing looming over him was a wolf's pelt.

Far bigger than any he had ever seen.

"You killed him? You killed a man?" Howl's voice was a harsh croak. "That is forbidden. Killing humans endangers the entire pack. It is not done."

"We are wolves that are not wolves. The same rules do not apply to us." The pelt looked down at Howl, those eyes boring into him. Howl thought he could see faint lights, glimmers of green, deep in the sockets.

"But…to kill a man? Surely some things are absolute."

"He is no man. He is the Woodcutter. He is the enemy of the Forest and I its champion. I had to." The ancient pelt spoke mildly enough but the thunderous growl of eons old rage vibrated the entire cavern.

"Why?"

"We were at war. He wanted to kill the Forest. He wanted to level her trees and rape the carcasses, he wanted to hunt the animals and wear our skins, eat our bones, farm us. This could not stand."

"So the Forest fought back? It made you, a wolf who is not a wolf, to fight a man that is not a man?"

"Aye, small one, your mind is keen."

"So…you won?"

"No, small one, we both lost. He has done all but kill me. Rent me asunder with his axe." The pelt nodded to that grasping claw from within the tomb of the rubble and Howl nearly squeaked when he saw an equally monstrous axe almost within reach of the great hand. "He filled my belly with stone so as to kill my speed and steal my howl."

Howl sucked in a harsh breath at such a crime. No normal man would, could, do that. To take a wolf's howl was to end him in the most definite way. To take his voice so that he could not sing with his pack, to other packs, to his ancestors or the moon, to take his very soul…Howl looked over at the reaching hand and felt his lips peel back over his teeth.

He forgot his anger when the hand twitched.

"He's still alive!"

"Only in the same way I am." The pelt growled. "He tried to kill me and he very nearly did, but the Forest would not release me so easily. I was old even then, old and cunning a way that a thousand thousand generations of your pack could never hope to be. I knew I could not defeat him, not merely as a wolf, I must be more. So I waited."

Howl looked up at the pelt, eyes wide and glittering in the dim.

"I waited whilst he took my throat, I waited whilst he cut my skin from my bones and boiled them both, whilst he ate my heart and tanned my hide, I waited. I waited."

"For what?"

"For him to do what all men do; for him to take his trophy."

"Your skin."

"Aye, my skin. Brought me to his den. Brought me to his home. I waited."

"And when he got you here?"

"I used my last breath and I heaved and I seethed and I blew the mountain down." The pelt tore its empty gaze away from the corpse hand now systematically twitching its fingers and looked back down at Howl. "I tore it down on top of us both and thus we have slept the centuries away."

"Slept? So he is not dead?"

"No more and no less than I. We are lesser- far lesser- than we were."

"But that means he could come back! He could try to destroy the forest again! You must fight him!"

"I cannot."

"You MUST!" Howl bellowed. "Someone must do something!" Howl cast about himself and his eyes landed on a rock, it wasn't overly large, but it was sharp at one end.

He bent and gripped it in both paws, hefting its weight. He would start with what he could reach and then dig through the rubble piece by piece and smash every bone that he came across.

Let the Woodcutter come for them then, let him try and swing that axe when his bones were no more solid than the shale that had collapsed from under Howl's paws and tumbled him down here.

"No, small one." The great pelt's jaws clipped about the boulder like it was a pebble and took it from Howl's grasp. It tossed Howl's weapon away with a flick of its jaw and rounded on him again. "It is to be you but it is not to be this way."

"What?"

"You must do as I did, you must wait."

"Wait to be skinned?!"

"No, not to be skinned, but to wear that of another. You must live long enough to grow. You are to be grown when you fight him."

"Grown? I'll never be THAT grown!" Howl cast a paw towards the clutching talon under the rubble, its curled brittle nails scraping over the stony floor. Reaching for the axe.

"You will if you hide, grow, become a man."

"No! Never!"

"YES!" The wolf pelt thundered and the entire room shook with it. The force of his breath that should not be staggering Howl back several steps. His eyes were wide. "You will. You must."

"Why?"

"For, if he wins, the Forest perishes. Industry, metal, oil and felling, all of these will kill the Forest. It has happened in other worlds I shall NOT let it happen here. You are the next generation, you are to inherit my deeds as my whelp would have had the Forest ever blessed me with one."

"But…but…I am a wolf." Howl very nearly whimpered. His eyes burned in that way they did when he was in great pain. When an eagle had struck him as a whelp and torn at his back, laying red stripes across him, he had whimpered and his eyes had burned and rained. He had never done it without bleeding first but now he thought he might.

"You are and you are not. For now you must not –must seem not- a wolf. You must be as a man. You must not howl, you must not hunt with tooth nor claw, you must wear the pelts of your fellow animals and you must live amongst their kind."

"No." Howl's eyes began to rain, the waters tearing through the grime on his face, revealing the pink man skin underneath. He whined like a whelp. "No."

"Yes." The pelt's ears tilted down then in a wolf expression of sadness. "It pains me too, this should be my trial, but I am done. My bones and sinews have been stolen, I have but one howl left in me, I am consumed by my enemy and time. The Forest retakes me and it gives me you."

"I do not want to leave my family." Howl sniffled and scrubbed at his face with his paws. "I was just named."

"You were already taken from your family. The Forest took you and gave you to one of its children. You were raised in her green embrace and led here by the white elk, led here to follow my tail." The pelt lowered itself, its chin rubbing over the top of Howl's head in the way that elder wolves did to comfort their whelps. Father had done it for Howl but the pelt smelled of age and death, there was no warmth beneath the ragged and thinning fur, there was no thumping heart in the gaping hole where a chest should be.

How was suddenly angry he shoved away from the pelt.

"And who are you to tell me to do such things?! You are not my pack, by your own words you are not even wolf!"

"You must run. He stirs."

Rocks skittered in the back of the cavern, of the Woodcutter's den. The clawing hand finally settled its fingertips over the haft of the great axe and tightened in a crackling grip.

"Let him! It is not wolf to war."

"It is that thinking that shall get you killed!" The pelt thundered. "It was that thinking that got ME killed! Learn from your elders' mistakes! THAT is certainly wolf!"

"I am not prey I shall not run."

"You are prey to the Woodcutter. All creatures are." The pelt loomed high over Graham again, its pinned back ears brushing the ceiling of the cavern it was so tall.

"No!"

"It is already done! The roots of this path dig deep in the earth of time, they dig deeper than your birth. This is how it would always be. This is the tail that you must follow."

"No…" Howl shook his head hard.

"I am sorry."

"If I am not to be a man and I am not to be a wolf, what am I to be?"

"You are the guardian. The howl in the wind, the shiver in the spine, the shadow in the corner of the eye. You are the Wolf At the Door, man-pup."

"I do not want to be."

"You must. There is no one else."

"Why me?"

"Because you are here. I am sorry, little one, but this is as it must be. You must run, you must hide and you must wait. Be not as the wolf or he shall find you and kill you before the Forest can give you its power."

"What power?" Howl looked up at the pelt. He had no want for power. All he wanted was to be a wolf. A wolf that was not a wolf, but his pack did not care for that. He was happy, his life was full of hunt and game and a warm den at night. He needed nothing more.

"Hunt as the man, act as the man, speak as the man." The living pelt said instead. "Do it or you shall die."

More rocks tumbled in the back of the cavern. There was a horrid grating sound when the axe began to shift. The ancient blade –so old it was more stone than metal- grated over the floor of the cavern. The sound seemed to travel straight to Howl's bones and rattle them inside his body.

The pelt spoke again.

"I cannot do much for you, not much at all, but I do have on last howl."

"The mountain…?" Howl stared at the cavern around him, thought of the sheer cliff face bitten into the side of the great slope, torn there by the pelt's mere breath all those generations ago. Surely a howl from this ancient creature would crack the world.

"Not for the mountain. For you. I shall send you far away. Farther than the reaches of the Blackwood and the senses of the Woodcutter. I shall send you where he cannot see you so that you have the chance to hide."

"So I am to be the beaten, cringing, dog for the rest of my life?"

"No, you are to be the most cunning of cunning. You are to hide in plain sight and wait for your chance. Your chance to end this once and for all."

Howl opened his mouth to speak once more, his shoulders slumped in defeat, but a voice from above startled him and the hide both.

"Howl! Howl, I found one! Who are you talking to, brother? Has someone else fallen in with you?"

Night's silhouette appeared over the lip of the hole in the ceiling and Howl felt his heart splash from his chest down into his belly. He saw the pelt looking up at the young wolf and knew what was about to happen.

"NO!" Howl grabbed the belt with both paws and shook it as hard as he could. The pelt was completely unmoved. "Leave him out of this! Let him go home!"

"I cannot." The pelt did not look at Howl, it rose instead. Ancient boneless legs gathering beneath it, the tanned hide crackling in age and tearing in places but the dead wolf did not seem to notice. "The Woodcutter knows him now, he must be sent with you. He is a part of this. He will help you survive, as he has ever done."

"No! No, you mustn't!" Howl dashed around in front of the pelt as it turned away from him, facing the ragged hole over their heads.

"I must." The pelt ducked down, gripping Howl in its jaws.

Howl kicked and screamed even though he was not harmed and knew that was not the old pelt's intention. He was scooped up off the floor and hurled into the air. His legs churned, yelling in fright this time, and he saw the pelt heave, inflate, and then the howl.

Howl screamed, at least he thought he did, as he was blasted out of the cavern and into the open air.

The howl that the dead pelt unleashed was like nothing he had ever heard before.

It was not just a sound, but a roaring wind as well. It splashed over Howl like a torrent of living water. It got into his eyes, his nose, his mouth and his ears. It scoured over every inch of his skin and took up his entire world. The sound was so large that even his keen ears could not hear all of it, just feel the shuddering of its passing.

Howl's scrambling hands somehow found a familiar pelt and he snatched hold of his brother lest they truly be cast away from one another. He wrapped his arms around Night's quivering body and held on as tight as he dared.

They tumbled end over end, their world a whirling blur of the ground beneath them and the yawning white blue sky above them. Howl caught sight of the ancient black pines bent backwards in the force of the pelt's roar like grass beneath a summer breeze. He saw the mountain shudder and crack, another great slab of it falling down, cutting into the rubble in which the cavern had hidden. Finally –finally- silencing the sound.

But not stopping it. Never stopping it.

How and Night were thrown high into the air, as high as eagles flew, and they did not fall again. They soared through the air, long past their endurance for crying and screaming in terror, and still they did not fall.

The land passed beneath them and the sun overhead. From the Blackwood, over the mountains and to the planes beyond and beyond even that to a far greener forest they had never seen before. Through the noon, the evening, the night and into the day again.

Until finally they fell.

The landing was hard, branches cracked and snapped around them, they tumbled end over end gathering cuts and scrapes all over, but they did not die. They did not splash into the ground as had happened to other wolves that had fallen far lesser heights in Howl and Night's experience.

Incredibly, they both lived.

Howl recovered first, lifting his head and peering blearily around in this new forest of verdant green. Everything seemed brighter, the trees farther apart and letting more of the yellow sunlight to stream in through the leaves. There were less pines so the air did not smell as sharp and Howl could smell…he could smell prey.

His stomach yowled and he staggered to his feet, peering about himself.

It was…it was horse, he could smell horse. Not wild, there was something wrong with the scent but he didn't care. He was starving.

"Night." Howl's voice was ragged. "Night, get up, we need to hunt."

Night lay on the ground, flat out on his side and did not move.

"Night!" Howl gripped his brother by the scruff and shook him.

Night gave a soft whine, so he was alive at least, but did not move otherwise. His yellow and red eyes open and staring at nothing. His legs limp and boneless beneath him even when Howl lifted him and tried to set him on his four.

"Night, please, we need to hunt. You'll feel better when we run again. I promise."

Night just whimpered and collapsed down onto his belly.

Howl felt fear claw at him. He'd thought he'd exhausted all the fear he'd ever feel in his life, but this was a new kind. He had never seen wolves like this unless they were dying. Never seen them go so limp and unresponsive unless they had been torn open by a mountain lion or gored on the horns of a bull elk. He had never seen a wolf look so ill unless the ground beneath them was soaked red.

No.

Not Night. He would not lose Night as well. He had lost his family, his prey, his hunting grounds and he had even lost that he was wolf but he would NOT lose Night.

"Alright, it's alright." Howl wrapped his arms around his brother and pulled, hauling him up off the ground. He dragged him, paws and tail trailing, to the hollow of a fallen tree. It was dark and filled with leaves on the inside, much like the den where Night had been born.

Howl pushed Night inside and half buried him under the leaves to keep him warm. He rubbed at his brother's nose with his own.

"Stay here, Night. I'll bring food. Stay here and wait for me."

Night just whimpered.

Howl staggered away from the hollow and cast about the forest around him. It was so bright and green it seemed almost alien to him, but the barred shadows of trees falling over him, the scent of trees, the sound of tiny animals fleeing from the wolf smell of him, it was all familiar. He sucked in a deep breath, reading the scents and finding that strain of horse again.

Horses were difficult, they could run for as long as wolves could, they were rarely alone, and they had hooves that could crush a head or a chest with a single kick.

He'd have preferred a doe or even a young stag but he would take what he could get.

Howl sniffed, turning this way and that, casting for a more refined trail and his entire body straightened when he found it.

There!

Howl sprang forward, hurdling the fallen tree under which Night hid and tore through the forest in a whisper of quiet feet.

As he ran, he realised that this forest was far lusher than one he had ever run in before. The ground was thick with a springy moss that was kind on his soft paws, ferns grew as tall as his ribs and would provide good cover for pouncing from behind and the abundance of light suited his keen eyes far better than the stark shadows and sparing light of the Blackwood.

He could hear hooves, his run taking on a different gait, he ducked down to lower his profile below that of the ferns and crept closer to the pounding of the horse's approaching hooves.

It was moving fast, full run, it must have been spooked by something else. With any luck, it would be too focussed on whatever else was chasing it to pay any mind to the wolf about to jump out in front of it.

Howl wasn't worried about whatever else was chasing a horse, he was fine with taking advantage of their hard work in spooking the beast and running it down. Wolves were the largest hunters in forests –aside from bears- and nothing else that would hunt a horse would dare challenge a wolf for a kill.

Even if this particular wolf wouldn't look like any they had ever seen before.

Howl kept running in his low prowl until he dashed clean out of the ferns and into an unnaturally wide game trail. He blinked, suddenly caught out in the open, and dived back into the encroaching green of the ferns. He hunkered down in a crouch and poked his head out, studying the wide dark ribbon of the trail.

What could be large enough as to carve a path like this through the forest? Was this the place where the wolves were as big as the pelt he had seen in the Woodcutter's cavern? Had he been raised by tiny versions of what real wolves looked like all this time?

The approaching sound of thundering hooves wiped the questions from his mind and Howl shimmied forward on his belly to peer out from under the bracken at the hooves rounding the bend in the trail.

Ah, he was in luck, it was quite small –as horses went- and moving very fast. If he was lucky, he could leap out and trip it. Send its nose ploughing into the ground and snap its neck with minimal effort on his part. Even if the fall just snapped one of its legs, it would be a whelp's work to kill it while it was downed.

The horse pounded closer and closer, Howl got his paws under him and rolled his shoulders in preparation. He'd have to time it just right. He waited and waited, waited until the beast was right on top of him, and then leapt snarling from his hiding place, claws and teeth flashing in the light, intending on spooking the beast into a mindless panic.

He succeeded, he succeeded and then some, but it wasn't until he saw the creature that was shapes so much like him hit the ground that he realised he had made a terrible mistake.

This was the forest of men.

Storybrooke, Now…

Graham gripped the wheel of the truck with white knuckled hands and tried very hard not to let his head swivel this way and that looking for traces of the Woodcutter.

Regina had remained silent a whole five minutes into their drive before it became too much for her. She had wanted to know who the Woodcutter was ever since Graham had become so twitchy at the mere mention of him, but he had snarled her into silence with a single growled 'later' and then piled her into the truck.

"Why is he in my dreams?" She spoke to the side of his head when he continued to glare at the road.

Graham inhaled a deep breath and let it out on a slow rush.

"He is looking for me."

"For you?"

"Aye, since I was a boy."

"Why?"

"It is a very long story."

"In case you hadn't noticed," Regina shifted sideways in her seat so she could fully face him, "I stopped aging twenty eight years ago. I have time."

"Not when we have to go and pick up Henry."

"He's not due out of school for over half an hour. Talk quickly."

"It is a very long story."

"Graham, this has to be pretty important if you're so spooked. I haven't seen you this frightened since…well, I've never seen you this scared."

"That's probably because you never put me up against something as dangerous as the Woodcutter before."

"Graham, I sent you up against rabid bears, ogres, werewolves and dragons and none of them were dangerous enough?"

Graham didn't say anything, just drove in a tense silence for long moments.

Regina thumped back in her chair and absorbed that implication. She swallowed hard and thought about something so dangerous as Graham was obviously convinced that the Woodcutter was. She huffed out a slow breath.

"And he's here?"

"Part of him is. You must have brought him here with the curse."

"What IS he?"

"I don't know. Not really. The one creature that might be able to tell us is dead."

"Which creature?"

"The Wolf At the Door."

"The Wolf At…?" Regina blinked, she had heard that before. Where had she heard that before? She wracked through the memories she had of all those books Rumplestiltskin had piled on her back when she had been learning. She went back further and further in her memories until she hit upon something that sparked familiar. "Wait, you mean the Big Bad Wolf?"

Graham clenched his jaw but otherwise did not respond when Regina scoffed.

"Graham, he's a myth. Even in our world. He doesn't exist."

"Not anymore, no."

Regina stared at him for a long moment and then turned to look at the town blurring past out the window. She thought about the old and musty book she had read about the Big Bad in. about the stories of what he had been like. As big as a house (which was not as big as a house in this world but still fairly sizeable), with glowing eyes and dripping fangs. He had spoken with human words in the voice of a mountain and his howl had been capable of levelling entire forests and Graham was telling her that this monster was real?

"The Woodcutter…killed the Big Bad Wolf…did he not?" A creature that could kill a giant wolf that could tear houses down with its breath. Great.

"Not quite. The Woodcutter beat him, mutilated him, skinned him, ate him, but the wolf managed to bring his house down on top of him. To trap them both for a time."

"Centuries. Until I woke them both."

"You…? Of course you did." Regina looked out the window again.

"What is that supposed to mean?!" Graham snarled at her.

"It means nothing in my life is ever easy and don't raise your voice at me."

"You don't control me anymore."

"Perhaps somebody should."

"Really?"

"Really."

"And what makes you think that?" Graham growled in a low and dangerous tone, his eyes boring into hers.

"Well, for a start, we're on the wrong side of the road."

Graham glanced back at the road and swore, wrenching the wheel of the truck hard so that they were once more on the correct side of the road. He seethed out a long breath and flexed his fingers on the wheel. Studiously watching where he was going and ignoring Regina's unwavering gaze on his temple.

"Are you sure you don't have time to tell me the story?"

"Not now. Not yet. There are things I need to check."

"Things?"

"Yes. Things." Graham flipped on his indicators and pulled the truck over just outside the school. It wasn't yet three, Regina would have half an hour to wait, but he really did suddenly have a whole shopping list of things to do.

He killed the engine and dropped down out of the truck, rounding the hood and helping Regina down out of her side so she could stand on the sidewalk beside him. His jaw clenched, he didn't want to leave her, but it was broad daylight and someone needed to wait for Henry. It was him that now had to venture into the dark.

"Wait here, pick up Henry and then walk to the diner. It's only half a block away. Stay in sight of other people and don't talk to anyone you don't recognise."

Regina blinked up at him.

"Seriously?"

"I am deadly serious." Graham told her firmly and her brows raised.

"It was just a dream and some footprints. The curse is based off my thought patterns, it's entirely possible that those manifested due to my drugged up state. As you say, Storybrooke is full of magic, maybe my emotions and subconscious can manipulate it in a way my conscious mind can't. You don't think that maybe you're jumping the gun a little bit?"

"No. I don't."

"Oh…kay." Regina looked a little nonplussed.

She had really never seen him this worked up over something. Graham was a natural born killer. She had never seen him go up against something with even a flicker of hesitation be it man or beast or something entirely more monstrous but he was scared now.

"I mean it. Stay safe. Don't go anywhere other than the diner."

Regina frowned at him and hugged her arms about her waist. She had left her shrug sweater in the Sheriff's office thinking she wouldn't need it. It was a nice day, but talks of mayhem and fictitious monsters had a way of putting a damper on things.

"Here." Graham shrugged out of his uniform jacket and draped it over her shoulders. He tugged it tight about her when she looked of a mind to pull it off to avoid gossip of all things. She wasn't quite aware of it but they suddenly had much bigger fish to fry. He gave in to the sudden urge and pressed a kiss to her forehead, surprising her. He gripped her by the shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. "Don't die."

Regina smirked, somewhat bemused at his affection, especially since there was no audience to play to, and nodded her head.

"I always endeavour not to."

"You wouldn't know it by the way you often acted." He gripped the lapels of his jacket around her shoulders and watched her intently.

"I've mellowed in my old age. I'm a mother now. Have to behave myself."

"And don't you forget it." Something of a smile ghosted about his mouth.

"Never."

He gave into whatever urge had been plaguing him and his hand slid around the back of her neck. He tugged her forward a staggered step and crushed her mouth under his in a stunning and burning kiss that made her tingle all the way down to her toes. He kissed her like he'd never see her again.

"See you at the diner. I'll be an hour. Tops." He broke away, his breath coming fast and hard, and Regina was in no better a state.

"Uh…kay." Regina blinked rapidly and pried her fingers from their fisting in his shirt.

She watched him with a kind of stunned disassociation when he went back to the truck and hurled himself up into the driver's seat again. The engine thrummed, startling her with its sudden snarl from her slightly twitterpated state, and she waved inanely when he drove off.

She finally dropped her hand when she realised it was still raised and the truck had already rounded the bend, disappearing off who knew where.

She looked down and dusted off her skirt suddenly, she wished idly for her compact to see if he had smudged her makeup with his admittedly impressive kisses, and tugged his jacket closer about her still. The alpine smell of him seemed so familiar, even blended though it was with coffee and sugar and something so base and male as to go without name.

Regina's fingers ghosted over her lips when they still burned and she tried to shake herself from it.

It meant nothing.

She turned and started through the school gates.

He had done it because of thirty five years of habit, pretending to be affectionate to her and satisfying her every carnal whim. It had been nearly a fortnight now since they had slaked their hunger on one another. For a couple who had become accustomed to having one another when and where they desired whenever the opportunity presented itself, it was a hell of a dry spell. No wonder that his body was making demands of him. She was his usual target, after all. His head might hate her, but his body certainly never had.

Regina dusted off a patch of wooden bench by the table outside the school and settled herself to wait at a healthy distance from the other parents that were slowly beginning to gather and wait for their own children.

That must be why he had done it. Marking his territory. She had been unaware of anyone bearing witness to them being seen together but he had obviously seen the gaggle of gawkers and decided to play to them accordingly. Though how he had seen them, behind the school walls and around the corner, she didn't know.

Regina sat on the bench and ignored them all.

She was an unusual addition, she did not usually wait on the school grounds for Henry if she came to pick him up, she usually sat aloof and distant in her car, and she certainly never did it whilst wearing the Sheriff's jacket. Yet another thing she was probably going to hear about at the next town council meeting.

That must have been why he had done it.

That must be it.

Why else would he kiss her, after all?