I haven't updated this in forever, my bad. I've wanted to write this one for a while. It's short, but I felt like it was enough. Season 2, Mendell, electrocution…you know where this is going.
Happy 4th to those of you in the States!
David saw pain. He saw that pain for exactly 17 seconds as it had ripped through his wife, as it had her shaking, panting, crying out for him to make it stop. It was the longest 17 seconds of his life and Regina had been missing for two days; forty-eight hours; 172,800 seconds. She was deadly still when they found her, the fight driven from her, but David cold only stare at the steady tremble of her fingers. Snow was holding her hand as he made quick work of the restraints that held her to the metal table. Her skin was raw underneath the leather straps, her arms hang limply at her side when he frees them. The one not being held by Snow, her right, falls from the edge, hanging there at an unnatural angle until he cups her elbow and gently brings her arm to rest at her side.
He thinks his wife says something about getting the truck, but David doesn't know if he's the one that's supposed to be doing the getting. Regardless, he can't move away from Regina yet, his body is leaden, fused to the floor at her side. His thumb is moving back and forth steadily against her shoulder. It seems to help, she's still whimpering every few seconds but her breathing is less frantic than it was moments ago. When his eyes finally flick around the room he sees that Snow must have gone herself. He is alone with the queen.
Regina feels a strong hand on her shoulder and she lurches away from it, adrenaline once again coursing through her system. She's had enough unwanted hands on her to last a lifetime. Mendell had slapped her, punched her, pulled and groped when the electricity and had failed to give him the answers he wanted. Typical male, she'd sneered at him, it had only enraged him further but she'd never give him the satisfaction of cowering under him. The fight she had put up was useless; her magic and her body were bound tight, but not anymore. He's unbuckled her restraints, the fool, and she had no intention of laying here the victim any longer.
The sudden movement almost sends her to the floor, would have if David's reflexes had been a fraction of a second slower. His arm wraps around waist, rolling her back and holding her down. His other arm lands across her shoulders and he has to use more force than he wants to just to keep her still. "Regina, it's okay." It's the first thing he's said to her, the first thing he's said at all since they found her here. "It's okay, you're okay. I'm not going to hurt you. It's David. It's David, you're safe. You're okay."
She's fighting hard, kicking and bucking, forearms trying to pull herself free of him, albeit weakly until she hears his voice, until she realizes that he's actually not hurting her. At least not intentionally. Regina winces at the contact against her raw skin, tries to move his arm down, but her limbs won't respond. She's telling him to move his arm, screaming that her abdomen is on fire, that her body had been made to arch and convulse against the restraints that had been too tight, so very tight. She's screaming all of this, but only manages to get a weak whimper past her lips.
He repeats assurances of her safety over and over, leaning closer to her with each breath until he's speaking directly into her ear, until she finally stills beneath him turning her head so that her forehead brushes against his and she opens her eyes for the first time since his arrival. Her brown eyes are bloodshot and swollen; David swallows thickly at the sight of them. She's scared. He can't help but realize how many times those eyes have looked scared in the last few months: far too many.
"Hur-," she croaks out, licking cracked lips before trying again. Y'r arm…hurts." He lifts both off of her instantly, watching her face as a tear slips form her eye, rolls across her nose and falls to the metal table below. He wipes its path with his thumb before letting his eyes look down her body. Her sweater has rucked up a bit and he sees the irritated flesh beneath.
His fingers ghost along her side, pulling the fabric up further. She's burned, bruised, but David just knows that what's been done to her is much worse than what he can see. He vows in that moment to hunt that bastard down, to strap him to this table and to make him feel every godforsaken ounce of pain that he's put Regina through. "I'm sorry," he tells her, resting his hand against her ribcage, hoping she knows that he truly is. Sorry for causing her more pain, sorry for not noticing that she'd been here so long, sorry that her past keeps coming back to torture her, sorry he always seemed to be the one to see her weak. David knows, for her this vulnerability is worse than the torture.
He doesn't know how long they stay like that, staring at each other. Surely it's not as long as it seems because there's a car horn echoing through the factory and it couldn't have taken Snow all that long to drive to the back exit. Regina flinches at the sound, but David's hand is cupping her face, thumb coasting her cheekbone. "It's alright," he whispers against her. "It's Mary Margaret. Let's get you out of here." She nods under his hand, struggling to keep her eyes open as the steady caress against her cheek pulls her into the sleep she's been deprived of. She's tired, so very tired. And she's safe. He's safe, this heroic prince that seems to keep finding her at her weakest point.
The horn blares again, but this time Regina doesn't stir. David pulls her up, carefully avoiding her injured wrists, and rests her against his chest. He waits a moment until she's gone boneless against him before slipping an arm under her knees and lifting her off the table. Her fingers fist in his shirt, but there's no strength in her grip. Her body tenses infinitesimally when he begins to move them. "I've got you," he tells her and feels her relax again.
She does her best to hang on to him, but only manages an arm draped over the back of his shoulders, the other that she tries to hold around his neck keeps falling back to her lap. He repeats I've got you, again, squeezing slightly where his hand holds the back of her thigh in a gesture meant to assure her that he won't let her fall. "Don't let go," her voice is strained, raw. David can't imagine how long the screams that momentarily ripped through Snow were pulled from Regina.
"I won't," he promises. And he doesn't. Not when he gets to the truck and somehow manages to crawl into the passenger seat with her still wrapped around him; not when he carries her upstairs to the loft; not when he sends Snow away again in search of the fairy that can hopefully restore her magic. He lays her in the bed and covers her. Every movement is slow, cautious, every action explained before he touches her even though she's been slipping in and out of consciousness since before he carried her out of the factory and has been deeply sleeping against him for the better part of an hour. He won't see her afraid again, not from his touch, never from his touch.
Thanks for reading.