"Is it impossible to set the alarm at the right time and not wake us up in such a difficult way?" Gold grumbled when his wife reached for the phone once again to pause the alarm.
"I set it at the right time." The Queen yawned, settling down on his shoulder again. "I just can't wake up at the right time."
"Set it exactly twenty minutes later then." He buried his nose in her hair, clutching her to him. "You never get up on the first ring anyway."
"And then we'll be late because yes, even then I won't get up with the first ring. So just accept it." She reached out and kissed him. "Also you know, you could take Gideon to classes sometimes as well."
"What kind of "classes" does a two-year-old have?" Gold sighed. "Seriously, Regina, I don't understand the meaning of all this. Three times a week, we wake up at the crack of dawn. And all this for Gideon to draw a sun at preschool and clap his hands to music. As if he can't do the same thing at home."
"He can do it at home." The Queen reached for the ringing phone again and finally turned off the alarm. "But if we want him to attend a good school, he needs to attend preschool classes there. This is how things work here in this world."
"Please." He stroked her shoulder, pulling her closer to him. "He will go to the school for which we will pay. This is how things work."
"Well, we can buy him a Harvard diploma right now.", his wife grinned. "The question is what good will it be for. Henry is also out there in an excellent school for which you pay. Getting graded with twos and threes instead of fives and regularly being threatened with expulsion, despite all your on time payments."
"Why talking so early right in the morning about Henry?" Gold grimaced.
"I won't do it again.", the Queen said in a conciliatory tone.
"Anyway, it's annoying." He lightly kissed her temple. "We have a nine-digit amount of money on our account and we are forced to get up on an alarm in the early morning like labor workers. This is somehow wrong."
"We'll only suffer for twenty years." She stretched, squaring her shoulders. "Then the children will go to college and we can sleep until noon. And, by the way, speaking about children, isn't it time for us to have another one? Just to remind you how parents usually sleep. I see you are too spoiled with Charlotte. It's time to remember how our first year with Gideon went."
"Gideon has bad heredity." Gold sighed. "That won't be the case with the other children."
"In any case, we are waiting of ten years of school with each. So it's better to start considering the benefits of that daily routine right now. Okay, you go to sleep and I'll go wake the children up." She sat down, looking around for her robe.
"Charlotte too?", he asked.
"Yes.", the Queen nodded. "We'll take a little walk along our way back from the preschool."
"In such weather?" Gold cringed. "It's damp and cold and disgusting."
"But the children still need to walk." Regina shrugged. "Sleep!" She leaned over and kissed his nose.
"I have to get up anyway." He sat next to her, hugging her from the back, inhaling her smell, burying his nose at her neck. "Stanley said he sent me an interesting investment project last night. It's necessary to read it and re-evaluate."
"Starting at half past seven in the morning?" She looked back at her husband.
"Look in my office and estimate the thickness of the folder lying on my desk." He kissed her on the shoulder and got out of bed, throwing a robe on. "If I begin right now, it would be nice if I'll be able to have it finished by tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? So I'll sleep alone tonight?", the Queen inquired.
"I can lie down next to you and read. Although this is risky." Gold smiled. "Do you want some breakfast?"
"When I get back." Regina waved him off. "I don't have time now." Her phone beeped again.
"Come on, turn it off already!" He rolled his eyes in exaggeration. "We've all given up."
"This isn't the alarm." She reached for the phone. "It's Regina. Stern invited her to dinner, she's panicking a little bit.", she said as she read the message.
"Horrible! How could he do that?!" Gold grinned.
"It's not just dinner." The Queen began to type in the answer. "Esther has arrived, he wants to introduce them."
"Okay, I don't want to get into this." He went to the door. "I'm going to wake the children up."
"I'll be right there too.", his wife answered.
"Don't worry; Esther is a very sweet girl, very open. You will like her and so will she."
The Queen and the Mayor were drinking coffee in the living room.
"I'm not worried about that." The Mayor turned a spoon around in her hands. "It's just somehow too fast. I've met him just recently and now he already wants to introduce me to his daughter."
"You've actually known each other for six months." The Queen shrugged. "And I still don't understand what makes you so rejecting. He doesn't propose you drop everything and go with him to the North Pole; he simply wants to introduce you to his child. What's so terrible about this?"
"It complicates things." She put down the spoon and drummed her fingers on the table. "Yes, we meet sometimes, sometimes we have dinner together and sometimes not only dinner. And it suits me. Why spoil everything? And as what is he going to introduce me to his daughter?"
"Maybe ask him about it?", her sister suggested.
"I'm afraid I won't like the answer."
"And what would you like the answer to be?", the Queen specified.
"I don't know." the Mayor shrugged. "I would have liked it if we had left everything as it is, not going anywhere, in any direction. That would be perfect. Too much has changed in my life and too quickly. New city, new family, a new relationship with my child, new job, new apartment. My head is spinning already. I like David, I like spending time with him. But I'm not sure that I'm also ready for a new relationship."
"Well, you already have them whether are you ready for them or not." Regina covered her palm with hers. "And maybe you should stop analyzing so much and just let life go the way it goes. You know, nothing ever happens at the wrong time. Everything happens exactly when you need it. I advise you to stop worrying and trust the course of life."
"Have you ever thought of writing a philosophical thesis?" the Mayor grinned. "Maybe a monograph?"
"Seriously, Regina, you're so worried in vain." the Queen continued, not paying attention to her sister's jab. "Gold and I were separate from each other for half a lifetime and at first I thought that we were both idiots we had spent so much time apart in vain. But then I realized that everything happened exactly when it was supposed to happen. We could have been united in the Enchanted Forest, even before the curse. But then I would have neither Charlotte nor you. And Gold would have hated me over time because I wouldn't have cast the dark curse and that would have deprived him of the opportunity to see his son again. So we had to go through all that to come to what we have now. And we both went through failed relationships to learn to appreciate ours. I don't know if you and David will eventually succeed or fail but you definitely shouldn't worry about it. Eventually, everything will turn out as it should."
"No, you know, I'm not ready for such a deep philosophical research." She added another cup of coffee. "I have to deal with the current situation, understand what I want in it and how it can be better."
"Well, when you yourself don't know what you want, surrendering to chance is the most logical decision.", her conversationalist noted. "So in your place I would go to dinner and see what happens."
"Regina, are you home yet?" Gold looked into the living room. "Oh, and you are here." he added displeasedly and closed his robe more tightly when he saw the Mayor. "You know, you could choose a better time to visit. These morning meetings were inevitable while you lived here but you have practically moved out already, haven't you? So now at last, I would like to calmly have breakfast with my wife without thinking about the fact that I need to get a decent dress code for breakfast."
"You're not bothering me.", the Mayor muttered in confusion.
"Oh really? Well, at least some of us are not perplexed by this situation.", he remarked sarcastically. "I'll be in my office." He nodded to the Queen, leaving the room.
"By the way, all that "everything happens at the right time"?" Miss Mills grinned nervously. "I'm clearly not at the right time."
"Don't mind him.", the Queen dismissed her. "It's not about you. His leg still hurts a little in the mornings when the weather is humid. It annoys him. And today he hasn't slept enough, so he's in a bad mood and you have nothing to do with it. He will drink coffee, walk around a little and everything will be fine. I'll go find out what he wants for breakfast. Will you wait for me?"
"I have to run to work." She looked at her watch. "I've already sat with you for too long."
"Okay, don't worry too much. Everything will be as it should."
She accompanied her sister and then went up to her husband's office.
"Don't scare Regina like that, she's already nervous." The Queen smiled as she entered the room.
"Well, I won't." Gold answered, not looking up from his papers. "But honestly, she is a little tiresome. She is like a child who comes to her parents' bed for every single reason."
"Don't be tedious." She leaned over the chair, hugging her husband by the shoulders. "She really feels uneasy. Too much has changed in her life. She is bewildered. And where else can she go if not to us? We are her only family. No, don't push her away."
"I don't push her away." he rubbed his cheek on her hand. "But you know, when I said she could live with us as long as she wanted, I didn't really mean that. She has lived with us for almost all of these six months. It's time for her to go on an independent life."
"She has gone already.", the Queen said in a conciliatory manner, gently flexing his shoulders. "And she just came in for coffee in the morning because she spends the rest of her time at work. We all know this isn't the reason. No need to splash your bad mood all over her."
"Well, tell her I'm sorry." Gold leaned back, covering his eyes.
"Are you sorry?", Regina asked.
"No, but you can still say so." He kissed her hand.
"Okay, it doesn't matter." She kissed his temple. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"Well ... you to begin with." He pulled her by the hand, circling the chair and sat her on his lap. "And we'll see."
"Yeah." The Queen rubbed her hips on him. "So, is your mood already improving?
"Inevitably." He embraced her by the neck and drawing her close to him, kissed her slowly. "When you are near."