A/N : Hey everyone! I'm getting better at not leaving you waiting for too long. Once again thanks for the reviews, it's always encouraging. Surprisingly for once I don't have anything to write here so enjoy! :)
They were just coming down from their high when they heard a knock on the door. They both stilled, hoping that it was just someone wanting to use the room. They would probably leave once they understood that it was occupied. However they weren't that lucky. "Regina? I know you're in there."
She groaned and rolled over, reaching for her scrubs and panties. She walked towards the door but didn't open it, still hoping that he would go away. "What do you want, Whale?"
"Ms Blanchard is looking for you. It's about that thing she wanted to organize with the children at the hospital. I don't really know much about it so I told her I was going to try and find you."
"Can't you tell her that I'm busy at the moment?" Mary-Margaret was definitely the last person with whom she wanted to deal right now. She didn't miss the irony in the fact that it was Snow White who was interrupting their reunion though. She would almost have laughed at that but she remembered that David was watching her every reaction from the bed and this was one she wasn't looking forward to explain.
"I guess I can, yes. I'll just don't tell her that being busy actually means reuniting with an old lover. You're not actually being quiet in here, Regina. That's not very professional."
Regina instantly blushed. She could see that Whale was teasing her, she could almost picture his smirk on the other side of the door and she wanted to smack it right off his face. But she quickly recovered, glad for the door between them. "Are you quite done with it, dear, or was there something else you wanted?"
"I've never pegged you for much of a screamer, that's all. But I'll leave you two to it then. Have fun!"
She rolled her eyes and turned towards David who was trying to stifle a laugh. She raised an eyebrow and placed her hands on her hips, clearly trying to look intimidating. "What?"
But it didn't get the expected effect. He just laughed at her antics and she wondered if she had lost all the power she had as the evil queen, or if it was just that they both knew her too much. She had never let people get as close to her in the Enchanted Forest as she had let them get here. She was starting to realize that power didn't really matter, she didn't need it to be happy. As a matter of fact she was perfectly happy with people not being afraid of her. Especially people she wanted to call her friends. Or more than her friend in David's case.
"Nothing. It's just that he is right. You truly are surprising when it comes to the bedroom."
She just rolled her eyes and went to sit next to him. If only he knew how much more surprising she could be. They still had no idea of who she had been. It was better this way though.
He stared at her for a few minutes before sitting up. "Should I understand from you blowing off Whale that you want us to talk now?"
"I guess, yes."
"Okay. So let's start with the easy problems first then. Are we dating?"
She turned towards him, eyebrows raised. "This is part of the easy problems?"
"Well, considering the other things we need to talk about, I would say yes. So? Are we dating?"
She couldn't miss the hope in his voice. She knew he had wanted that from the start. He had tried taking her to dinner, inviting her over for a movie, or other things normal couples do, but she had never wanted to admit that they could be a couple. When he was too persistent she would say yes, but she would direct them in the direction of the bathroom or any other discreet place and they would go back to what their meetings usually entailed. For her it had always been sex and nothing more.
However she knew that she couldn't keep up with that now. Not when she had finally realised that there was so much more between them. Not when there was a big chance that she would have his baby in less than six months.
"I guess we are, yes."
His face suddenly lighted up. "Are you sure? We are officially dating? As in I can take you to Granny's for dinner and we can hold hands in public?"
"Well, I would appreciate it if you would pick a restaurant a little bit fancier that Granny's and I'm not really one for public display of affection, but yes. We are officially dating."
His heart swelled with her words and he couldn't help his hand coming up to meet her chin and his lips reaching for a sweet kiss. It was loving and so different from the passionate kisses they shared in the throes of passion. Her lips parted and he accepted the invitation eagerly, trying to pour all his love into the kiss. Trying to show her that she didn't need to be so nervous about them dating, that it was meant to be that way.
Eventually they parted for air but their eyes never left each other, communicating much more than words ever could. Once they had restored some personal space between each other, David tried to tackle another problem. "Does this mean that we have to tell Henry?"
Regina's eyes suddenly lost all the light that they had had after their kiss. For a moment she had forgotten that Henry would never accept her dating David. After their failed dinner, they had grown even more distant and she had tried to find out how he had figured that she was the Evil Queen and that David was Prince Charming. She had searched his room, no matter how horrible it made her feel to violate his privacy in this way, and eventually she had found the book. The book that recounted all the tales of the Enchanted Forest but in that naive light that only the good side could have. There were so many parts of her life that were missing from it and she appeared even crueller that she really had been. This was definitely not how she wanted Henry to see her and she wondered how he had made the connection. She was nothing like that now, was she?
David noticed the sadness in Regina's empty eyes and slumped shoulders and he draped his arm around her back to try and comfort her. "What's going on?"
She debated telling him the truth. It would make it even more real. But some part of her wanted to tell him. She knew that he was the only one who could make her feel better. So she looked at her hands and started talking. "We had a fight a few weeks ago. He found out about me being pregnant and I don't know why but he immediately assumed that you were the father. And he didn't like it."
A lonesome tear escaped her eye and rolled off her cheek. "Somehow in his head you're Prince Charming and I'm-" Her voice broke and a sob escaped her. She had been right, it made it all the more real. "And I'm the Evil Queen. And he thinks I'm plotting something or whatever and... He hates me, David. My son hates me."
She buried herself against his chest and he tightened his arms around her, not understanding how the sweet boy that he knew so well could hurt his mother that much. Every sob went straight to his heart and he wished he could take all of the hurt away. "Shhh. It's okay. You're not the Evil Queen."
She almost snorted at that. Of course she was the Evil Queen. It hurt but she knew that it was the truth. What she couldn't handle was her son turning on her. But again, could she really blame him? If they found out who she was, would they all turn on her like Henry had? David had told her that all of the bad things she did didn't matter, that he would always love her. But would he still say that when he would find out the exact extent of what she had done? He would remember his wife and hate her for separating them, his promise of a never-ending love long forgotten.
But she couldn't go down that road. She wouldn't. It was too painful. She gripped his shirt harder and tried to stop sobbing. It was unbefitting of a queen. Not that she was one anymore, that much was clear, but some habits were hard to get rid of. She could still hear her mother's voice in her head and it was enough to keep the sobs at bay, no matter how hard to fight her hormones were. "It doesn't matter if I'm the Evil Queen or not, what matters is that he hates me."
"He doesn't hate you. How could he? You're a great mother to him. This is probably just a phase, just a book he read. It will go away."
"What if it doesn't? He doesn't talk to me anymore and I feel like everything I do makes him even angrier at me. I don't know what to do anymore. He will hate me even more for dating you."
"I'll talk to him. We'll figure it out. I promise you." He had no idea what he was going to say but he knew that he had to at least try. Henry listened to him most of the time. Or at least he used to think that he did, because apparently he hadn't listened to him when he had asked him not to question his mother about her pregnancy until she was ready.
She wiped her tears away and pulled herself out of his embrace, choosing to press her right side against his left side instead. She rested her head on his shoulder, comforted by his body heat. "Thank you." She was pretty sure it wouldn't help but she hoped it would anyway. She didn't have that many more options and she could only hope that Henry would understand that she wasn't forcing David into anything. And if Prince Charming was fine with dating the Evil Queen, how could she be so evil? But that was just hopeful thinking.
"And while I do that, you should talk to Gold." She immediately tensed and he hated himself for bringing it up but he had to. It was making him just as uncomfortable as it was making her, but he knew they would have to get over it sooner or later. There was no changing the situation they were in and they'd better accept it and try to do the right thing. "I assume you still haven't told him and he deserves to know. God knows I hate the man but he might be the father and if he wants to be a part of this child's life, we can't refuse him that right."
"I know but I truly don't want him anywhere near my child." An awkward silence followed her words. There was that unsaid 'then you shouldn't have slept with him' hanging around but neither one of them wanted to address it.
The only thing they could do was trying to move past it. "He can't be that bad. Sure he doesn't appear to be the friendliest guy in town, but I'm sure that he would love his child."
"No, trust me, he is that bad. I've known him a long time. More than everyone here. He is that bad."
He wanted to ask her more about him but he could sense that this was something she didn't want to discuss, something from her past. And her past was often off-limit. He had the same feeling as the one he had had when she had told him about not being able to have children. As if there was a lot of pain and history buried under her apparent confidence, and he was still afraid to find out all of it.
He could see all the pain and regrets flashing through her eyes when she thought back to everything her old master had taught her, to what exactly their lessons had entailed and how she had been more than willing to comply, wanting to learn everything there was to know about control and power. She hadn't cared that her heart was turning dark. He hadn't cared either, it was as if he wanted it that way. The more heartless and broken she became, the more happy he seemed to be. She should have figured out that she was going down a dangerous road, she should have cared. But she was too far gone. She had already been broken by too many people and all she had wanted was to finally have some control, to finally be the one making the decisions about her future. But she had just replaced her mother and the king by Rumplestiltskin. She had just changed the puppet master, she could see that now.
"Look, apparently I don't know him as well as you do, but I know him enough to know that he is a smart man. Once it will get common knowledge that you're pregnant, and trust me, it will, then he'll figure it out. So the way I see it he will find out one way or another. The only way you can have some control over it is if you're the one to tell him."
She didn't know how he knew to use these exact words but it did the job. He was right, if she wanted to have some sort of control over the situation, she needed to be one giving the information. Gold loved to find out things he wasn't supposed to know and hold it over her head. It would be better if she was the one giving the information and her conditions, that's for sure.
"You're right. I'll go talk to him."
"Okay. Good."
She studied his expression, a little bit surprised that he had been the one pleading for her to announce the news to Gold. It wasn't really in his best interest. "How are you okay with all of this?"
"I'm not. I'm just trying to do the right thing."
Once again it left her perplexed. But for entirely different reasons. She had always been selfish. Or at least she couldn't remember a time when she wasn't. Her mother had always tried to teach her that she would be a queen, that she was above everybody else and hadn't cared much about teaching her morals. Maybe it was because she hadn't any morals herself. Or at least not the usual ones.
She put her head back on David's shoulders and started unconsciously drawing circles on David's arm with her fingertips. "How do you do it?"
He stared at her fingers playing with his arm, transfixed by the unconscious but intimate action. "How do I do what?"
"You're always the good guy."
He chuckled and she raised her head for a few seconds at the movement before putting it back in place. He waited for a few seconds before talking. "I'm not always the good guy."
"To me you are."
"That's because I love you."
At this she raised her head and repositioned herself to stare at him before slowly putting on a small but genuine smile. "It's going to take a while for me to get used to this."
"We have all the time in the world."
Maybe they had, maybe they hadn't, but she would enjoy every second of it, of that she was sure now.
A/N : So David/Henry and Regina/Gold coming up in the next chapters. I'm still not really sure of how this will go so if you have any suggestions or things you would want to see happening, I would be glad to hear them. Fire away.
