"As soon as you calm down, everything will start working out." Gold was standing waist-deep in the water and with his palms under Gideon, he was holding him on the surface.
The pool that was located in the courtyard of the chalet standing on the shore of the lake, was quite small: only a couple of meters wide and no more than ten in length. The house was surrounded by centuries-old pine trees as far as the eye could see but the sun still managed to penetrate the open space of the house including the pool so the water in it was being warmed up by the middle of the day without any additional tricks.
"Take a deep breath and put your head under the water. I will let you go, you will do a few strokes and you will be at the side." Gold continued.
"No, don't let go!" Gideon gripped his hand.
"Trust me, it will be very easy." He gently removed his hand from his own. "And I'm here with you, you have nothing to fear."
"Yes." confirmed Charlotte who was sitting on the stairs leading to the pool. "It's not scary at all."
"Easy for you to talk!" Gideon exclaimed. "You are sitting there, not here! Do you know how scary it is for me?!"
"Come here! I'll hold you for a while with my arms!" Charlotte opened her arms for her brother.
"Leave me alone!", the boy snapped.
"You don't want my arms?", the girl asked in surprise. "How about some hugs?"
"Don't tease him." the Queen smiled, sitting on the side of the pool. "Seriously, Gideon, we're all here. Now dad will take his hands off and you will swim right to me. We are both ready to catch you if anything goes wrong."
"Okay." The boy hesitated for some more time but then he dove in and swimming somehow about a meter, he ended up near the side where the Queen caught him and put him next to her.
"See? It wasn't difficult at all" His father smiled. "Now let's go along the pool and not across."
"No way!" Gideon protested. "Now it's Charlotte's turn."
"I'm ready!" She got up and went down a couple more steps into the water. "In your arms." The girl held out her hands to her father.
"Gideon, this way you aren't going to learn how to swim for a long time." Gold sighed. "Come here." He took the baby girl by the arms and circled her in the water. "Are you sure you're ready?" He raised his daughter in his arms.
"Yeah." Charlotte nodded, wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Diving?" He specified.
"But only if we do it together!" She snuggled closer to her dad.
The Queen's phone squeaked once again.
"Regina, I'm starting to get jealous." Gold grinned, watching the Queen reading an answer. "Who's writing to you all morning?"
"Regina." his wife answered him, not distracting herself from the phone. "And it looks like this is a live broadcast from Cardiff."
"What?" He asked perplexed. "How?"
"Hey, Dad! Are we diving or not?" Charlotte interrupted.
"Of course, yes." Gold hugged his daughter tighter. "Come on, hold your breath. Hop!" He crouched so that both of them were under water and after a few seconds stood up again. "Is everything okay?" He pushed the wet hair away from her face.
"Yes! Let's go again!", the girl answered with enthusiasm.
"Come on." He did the same a few more times. "Let's practice the strokes and then try swimming to the side, like Gideon, okay?" He laid her on the water, holding her in the same way with his palms under her. "Stretch your hands forward and slowly take them apart ... So I didn't understand what was that about Regina and Cardiff.", he turned to his wife.
"Henry failed the final exams." Regina answered without stopping typing. "He's retaking it next week."
"I know that." Gold nodded. "The headmaster promised me this time he will hand over everything for him. I've recently talked to him and he assured me they will give the best tutors to this foolish kid. Regina and I have talked about this."
"It's like you don't know Regina at all." the Queen shrugged. "She needs to control everything herself. So now she is in Cardiff, making sure that Henry is properly engaged in studying."
"Yes, that's exactly what she needs right now." He sighed. "Where is David?"
"He is at the conference in Florence.", she answered.
"Found the time!" Gold snorted.
"It doesn't depend on him." Regina looked up from the phone. "And even if he were here, Regina would still fly by herself. However, she is optimistic." She went again deep into reading. "She has already arranged everything. If anything occurs, she will give birth at the Queen's mother's hospital, the same place as the English duchess did. She went there on a tour and she really liked everything. She thinks everything is even better there than over here."
"Really? And what does she think of the sky over the Atlantic?" her husband retorted. "How was she even allowed on the plane?"
"Here we go again." the Queen grinned. "Don't you know Regina? Besides the fact that she needed to have control over everything, she was already worried Henry would feel abandoned and betrayed if she wasn't around now."
"Come on, he is 19 years old!" Gold was indignant. "At his age, you and she herself ruled a whole kingdom and yet she is ready to feed him with a spoon, still."
"Should I ask you the same thing for the third time?" Regina laughed.
"No.", her husband dismissed her. "Indeed, there is nothing to be surprised about. Although I still continue to. Say hello from me. Well, are we swimming?" He turned to his daughter.
"Let go!" Charlotte answered confidently.
"Now mom will come off the phone and you will swim to her." He waited until the Queen put the device aside. "On three? One, two..."
"No, wait!" The girl grabbed his arm.
"Okay, let's practice our strokes some more." Gold smiled. "Stretch out your arms ..."
The phone squeaked again.
"So what's the news?" Gold inquired.
"That's the timer." The Queen rose to her feet, taking the phone with her. "I'll go take the cake out of the oven. And you take the children out of the pool. It's time to have lunch and for some of us to go to sleep." She winked at her daughter.
"We want to swim more!" Charlotte protested.
"You will have a swim again in the evening." Her mother smiled at her and headed for the house.
"Will you carry me on your back?" The girl turned to her father when her mother disappeared from sight.
"Of course." He smiled.
"Me too!" Gideon was enthused.
"Jump on!", he said after he swam to the side the boy was sitting at.
"It's hot!" Charlotte protested, moving away from the hairdryer.
"Be patient for a couple of minutes." Gold gently held her by the shoulders. "You need to dry your hair; otherwise you'll catch a cold."
"It's already dry." She nevertheless remained still.
"One more minute." He picked up another strand with the brush. "Almost there already."
"Is that all now?" Charlotte asked.
"That's all." Gold assured her, turning off the hair dryer.
"I want a braid." She turned her head, looking at herself in the mirror.
"Where?" Her father smiled at her.
"Here." The girl ran a finger down from the top of her head.
"As you wish." He quickly braided a classic one. "Which hairpin do you want?"
"That one, the pink." Charlotte pointed with her finger.
"Is it okay?" Gold put her back to the bathroom mirror and gave her a smaller handheld one.
"Yeah." The girl examined the braid. "I love you, daddy!" She reached for him and he, bending over, kissed her on the cheek.
"And I love you too, Princess. Come on, mom and Gideon are already waiting for us."
"You are wearing my shirt again." Gold stated, entering the kitchen.
"So what?" the Queen asked without turning around. "I like it and it's too small for you anyway." She removed a frying pan with sauce from the stove, continuing to stir it quickly.
"Not at all!" He was slightly offended. "Besides, this isn't the only shirt of mine that you wear. Seriously, Regina, my closet already completely smells of your perfume."
"So you have already been smelling with my perfume." She put the frying pan on the table and turned to her husband. "And what's so wrong with that?" She stepped towards him and hugged his neck.
"I'll buy you the same shirts since you like them so much." He kissed his wife. "But what is that habit of wearing mine?"
"No, the same ones don't interest me." Regina rubbed her nose against his nose. "I like wearing yours. By the way, I like this one too." She unfastened several buttons on his shirt, kissing him.
"Okay, we'll discuss it later." Gold pressed the Queen to him, kissing her back. "Come on, the children are waiting in the dining room."
"So fast?" Gold was washing dishes when the Queen pressed against him, hugging him from the back.
"They are already in bed: they are still watching cartoons but they are already dozing off." She ran her hands under his shirt, her nose buried in his neck. "Isn't it time for us to go to bed as well?"
"You read my mind." He reached out to kiss her. "I was just thinking it would be nice to get some sleep."
"I can't say I meant exactly that." the Queen grinned.
"We'll do everything else later on." Gold put the last plate in the dryer and closed the water.
"Well, whatever you say." Regina quickly kissed his shoulder. "I'll go swimming for a while."
"It's like that, then?" He turned to his wife, showing mild resentment. "You're leaving me alone?"
"I'll be back." The Queen smiled, kissing her husband again.
After standing on the pier for a while, basking in the rays of the hot afternoon sun, she dove into the cool water of the lake which smelled a little bit like watermelon. The water was warmer where the sun glinted along it and much colder below, if she lowered her legs. So she tried to stay on the surface, in the golden glow of the sun-warmed water. Off coast, there was a small island with a single tree on it. The Queen rushed towards it, wondering how this tree could survive at this tiny patch of land in the middle of a vast lake, the other shore of which could not be seen even in fine weather.
Having reached the island, she stretched her body out on the grass near the tree. Breathing in, facing the hot sun. After she warmed up, she dived again into the water and swam back to the house. The route to the island and back took her about an hour. Reaching back to the pier, she threw off her swimsuit, wrapped herself in a towel that was hanging on a sun bed, admired the lake a little more and went back in the house.
Gold had dozed off in a hammock near the water. The big-leafed spruce trees on which it was attached created the shadow necessary for the hot afternoon hours, letting through only a few sunrays. Gold was sleeping in shorts and an open shirt, covered with a light blanket. Regina stood quietly nearby for a little while, admiring the sun glinting on his black and silver hair and then she leaned over and kissed her husband gently, dropping her towel.
"You are back?" Gold muttered sleepily. "Come to me." He reached for her hand and pulled the Queen towards him, laying her on the hammock. "Oh, how cold you are…" He grimaced, clutching his wife on him and throwing the blanket over her.
"Not that cold." She settled in his arms. "I warmed up a bit in the sun, before coming to you."
"Apparently, quite a bit." he put his leg over her, kissing her on the neck.
"Well, as much as I could endure without you." Regina rubbed her hips on him, pressing her lower back against his stomach.
"Minx." Gold grinned at her head. "Okay, I'll warm you." He continued kissing her neck and shoulders, sliding his hand over her hips.
The Queen shook her hips a little, touching him the way only she could, with the necessary intensity and amplitude. He unbuttoned his shorts and she arched towards him, reaching for a kiss. Entering her, he began moving very smoothly and carefully. After a while, they changed their position and Regina got on top. He was moving faster then, holding her hips. Regina clung to his chest, afraid of losing balance and completely surrendering to the will of his hands and the nirvana in which they both ended up. Gold moved faster and faster, his breathing getting more and more lost. After he came, he slipped out of her and continued pumping with his fingers and turned her on her back. After a couple of minutes, she joined him in bliss, squeezing his shoulder painfully.
"Dad? Mama?" Gideon's voice was heard from the porch.
"Let's pretend we're sleeping.", the Queen whispered to her husband.
"They'll tear the whole house apart." Gold smiled, stroking her hair. "But we can continue later at night."
"We definitely will." She slid to the ground and immediately grabbed the hammock because her legs didn't obey.
"Is everything all right?" He sat up, grabbing her under the elbow.
"Absolutely." The Queen straightened up, stretching her legs. "I just hurried myself a bit. Coming?"
"Take this." He took off his shirt and handed it to the naked Queen. "You can't go to the kids like that."
"I knew you would eventually give it to me." Regina wrapped herself in the thin linen. "I did say I liked this one too."
"It was an insidious plan." Gold got up and took her by the waist. "Come on, we'll choose a shirt for the night."