"Is she okay?"
"I dunno."
"Wait…I think she's waking."
"Thank gosh."
There was a golden glow beyond Regina's eyelids; a bright otherworldly glow. Her first thought was that she was in limbo. Her second thought was that she was already dead. Did the afterlife really smell like smoke and moist earth? And what was that sound? Someone was speaking to her.
"Regina…it's time to wake up now…you got to wake up." The person's voice ebbed and flowed like waves crashing against the shore. Slowly, her eyes flickered open. Regina wanted nothing more than to sink back into the soft oblivion she had awoken from. Instead her surroundings became slightly clearer.
A dim light swung to and fro over Regina's head. Just watching it made her feel fizzy and sent dull stabs of pain through her head. She felt like someone had hit over the head with a club. And then she remembered that someone had. She closed her eyes, wishing the pain would go away.
"Are you okay, Regina?" said a man's voice. Regina opened her eyes but it was so hard. There were many faces peering down at her; Emma, blonde and wide-eyed, Snow, round-faced and sympathetic and Hook, concerned and dark. Yet the first person she saw was David, leaning over her, holding a flickering lantern in one hand. She looked at him.
"Yes," she whispered. It took all her strength to utter the single word.
Slowly, Regina's vision returned to her as though someone was peeling translucent layers off her eyes. She was lying in a makeshift bed in a tent. From what she could tell, she was still in Neverland's dark jungle. Regina tried to sit up but failed.
"Are you thirsty love?" asked Hook, pushing passed David. "Here. Drink."
Hook gently raised her head, tipping a cup of water to her cracked lips. The water was heavenly; cold and therapeutic against her stinging throat and lips. Regina sculled the water down like a dehydrated child.
"More?" asked Hook.
Regina shook her head, feeling sick from the way she had sculled down the previous cup. Her cracked lips ached for more but she knew her churning stomach wouldn't handle it.
She closed her eyes. Her head was throbbing fiercely. Lifting up one hand, Regina reached up to rub the top of her tender scalp but as soon as her fingers made contact with the surface of her hair, a sharp pain shot through her skull.
Regina cried out and dug her fingers into her long hair, trying to massage the pain away with gentle fingertips. She could feel a lump forming beneath the thick layers of her hair.
"You got hit hard," said Snow, in a sorry voice. Regina glanced at her, remembering a moment so very like this one, when Snow had tended her wounds in a tent in a forest.
"Who did it to you?" asked David.
"Felix," said Regina, "and his gang of lost boys. He said Pan wants to kill me."
"Kill you?" cried Snow, "but why would he do that when he has given Emma a map to find Henry?"
"Because I'm the greatest threat." Regina glared at Snow as she spoke in a voice that was soft but seemed to echo. "Because I'm the evil Queen."
For a moment, no one said anything, and then – "We won't let them get you," said David. "I won't let them hurt any of you."
"I feel so reassured," said Regina, sitting up.
"Not that she needs your protection prince," said Hook drily, "she did pretty well handling the lost boys herself. Didn't you see them all? Sprawled on the ground like flies?"
David glared at Hook.
"Guys, stop bickering," said Emma. Typical of the saviour to be the peacemaker as well, thought Regina. "We should let Regina rest. She's been through enough today."
"Thank you Miss Swan," said Regina with a tight smile. Together Emma, Snow and David left the tent. Hook was the only one who remained behind.
"I didn't know you had in in you…" said Hook, kneeling down beside her.
"Sorry what?"
"I didn't know that you had all that power in you; you're almost as scary as the crocodile."
Regina smiled wearily. "There's much you don't know about me." Regina layed down on the bed again; her head still throbbing. "There are many things that history forgot about me…" She looked at Hook, her eyes filled with sorrow. "I fought on the battlefields too. I led thousands of men…I have tamed beasts, lost love and nearly moved mountains…but the fairytales…the legends portray me as an evil sorceress who sits in a castile, in front of a magic mirror and watches her men, do her bidding. My men hardly did my bidding…everything I've done, I've done myself. History has forgotten everything I've done. And Henry's fairytale book has turned me into a myth."
Hook was staring at her intently and she continued speaking.
"I am the evil Queen," she murmured, "I use to be strong."
"You've never stop being strong."
"I don't feel strong now."
"We will find Henry, Regina." At the sound of Henry's name, Regina thought of him, and she prayed that he was alright.
"I promised him that he wouldn't be alone," said Regina, more to herself than to Hook. "That'd he have at least one of us, even Emma for as long as he wasn't alone…and now he's alone in Neverland…he's lost."
"We're all lost children in this land," said Hook. Neither of them said anything. The two villains sat in the tent opposite one another, listening to the sound of the wind billowing against the choir of the night.
A/N: Thanks to everyone's beautiful messages and reviews. Especially those who are reviewing on most chapters – tap-Violeta, bloodymary2, Grace5231973, .x23, PoisonAppleTurnovers and that Guest who keeps asking for a jealous Hook (I'll try to give you one in the upcoming chapters). If any of you are interested in some of my original work, check out my YA/fantasy story on Fictionpress - s/3158154/1/The-Crossroad I would love your reviews and feedback on it. If you notice any similar sentences and dialogue from this fic in that story, just note that I used some of my own character dialogue and incorporated them to fit in some scenes of this OUAT fic.
Anyway I do have a fair bit of university assignments and exams coming up, but I'd definitely do my best to update this fic frequently. Once again thank you all for your love and support.