This chapter has been mostly written since I started this story and now I fiiiinally get to post it! I hope you enjoy it!
"Do you think heeding Rumple and Blue's warning is nonsensical?" Snow asked quietly as her fingertips ran over the newly carved wardrobe in the nursery. But David didn't answer. So she looked toward him and found him dazed out on something other than that moment with her.
"David."
"Hmm?" He hummed shortly, sitting up taller as he blinked himself back from his thoughts on Regina. It had been several days since he had sent his letter. And he had heard nothing back.
"The wardrobe," Snow reiterated and David nodded and then shook his head, "do you think all of this will be for nothing?"
"I am not sure," he answered quietly, Rumplestiltskin's warning echoing in the back of his mind that Regina should be feared and his child was in danger. He didn't believe him. But he also had insight regarding the future.
Dissatisfied with his answer and ultimately concerned with his distant behaviour since his return, Snow frowned softly as she approached him. "It took days of the guards reports of Rumplestiltskin demanding my company before I went down to see him only to have him give warning that a curse was coming and that I must prepare. Are you upset that the wardrobe takes only one? That-"
"No," he denied softly with a shake of his head, "no, if anyone is to use the wardrobe it should be you. Even if you were without child, it would only make sense for you to be the one to use it."
"Then is it about Regina casting such a curse? She must have been in a rocky place otherwise you surely wouldn't have stayed with her for so long," she reasoned and he avoided eye contact and stayed silent for a moment too long. It made her doubt her own conclusion. Not enough to say anything, just enough to make a mental note.
"She has had this curse for years."
"You know about it?"
"She refused to cast it, I spoke with her about it...I don't know, a few weeks ago. She said it was immoral and cruel, that she could not cast it, not now," he shook his head, "I don't know, everything is just...an unexpected turn of events."
Nodding but still concerned, Snow stepped closer and then sat down on the chair beside him. "Are you alright?" She asked softly and David gave a small shrug and kept his eyes down, "you haven't looked at me once in this whole conversation. In fact you have barely looked at me at all since you have come home," she noted, her hands in her lap as she watched him studiously.
He looked at her then and offered her a smile but it wasn't exactly genuine. She would almost say it was apologetic. And his blue eyes were sad, no longer bright with life and fight.
"I don't want to hurt you," he told her, his voice unable to raise above whisper for his throat grew tight with sorrow.
"Whatever do you mean?" Snow asked softly, her brow furrowed in concern as she tipped forward. Then his eyes fell to his hands and he tilted his head as he took a breath. But as soon as he opened his mouth to speak, he was interrupted.
The alarm bells rang at a deafening volume and shouting followed soon after. The castle was thrown in to chaos in moments and Snow and David locked eyes immediately, the air of vulnerability completely lost as they both leapt to their feet.
But when David touched her to take her with him to see what the ruckus was about, Snow let out a small cry that had him stopping in his tracks. "What? What is it?" He asked quickly as he looked her up and down, their hands holding one another's forearms to keep her standing.
"I-I don't know I'm fine I just, I think my water just broke," she stuttered out and the pair of them locked eyes once more and fear quickly filled the space between them. And then Snow laughed and cursed under her rushed and frustrated breath, "Regina and her god damn timing, I swear."
...
It had been hours since the bells first rang. For word of the curse was carried from patrols at the very borders of their kingdom so they had notice long before the curse could be seen on the horizon. The whole castle had been in chaos ever since.
People and creatures of all types ran frantically through its halls, shouting and crying in terror as the queen's curse rumbled nearer and nearer, tumbling over the mountains and hills, darkening the sky, closing in nearer and nearer. Snow's screams echoed throughout the wing of the castle, each push putting her further and further in to despair.
David felt utterly sick to his stomach as he held his wife's hand between both of his, not giving so much as a whisper of complaint toward her crushing grip with each push. Tears streamed down both their faces, both of them knowing exactly what was to become of them all and that they were absolutely helpless against it.
He should not be there. None of this should have happened and none of it would have happened at all had he simply made the right decision. Had he just stayed with the queen from the very beginning. He would not be heartbroken, he would not have a child he was about to lose, nor a curse that was about to bring ruin to the entire realm. He shouldn't be there. He should be tucked away in the care of the Evil Queen, playing with her her hair and pressing kisses to her skin as she read books in his lap, her pages lit up only by the flames in the hearth.
And then the sharp cries of his newborn daughter cut through his thoughts and snapped him back to the present. For a moment, just a moment, his misery was overtaken with utter joy. He had a daughter. A beautiful little girl that he already loved so dearly. Loved more than anything else. But the moment passed as he heard the guards shouting orders out in the halls, felt his wife release his hand so that she may let out an exhausted and miserable sob, felt the heartache that it was not Regina who had just given him a daughter, and then the absolute misery that they were going to have to give her up long before they even knew her.
"It's a girl," Doc smiled, tainted with fear and sorrow.
Snow only cried harder. So David took his daughter from the dwarf and cradled her close to his chest to try and soothe her cries. The very moment he had her close, he burst in to tears all over again. "Snow," he called gently but she kept her hand over her eyes and shook her head as she sobbed.
"Snow, you must hold her," he encouraged, his voice heavy with misery as she shook her head harder and cried a most heartbroken cry. "Snow," he pleaded as tears rolled down his cheeks and Emma began to settle against his chest, "please, she must know that she is loved," he breathed on a miserable breath.
Without opening her eyes, Snow let her hand fall from her face and tried and failed to settle her tears. Gently and tenderly, David pulled his daughter from his chest and carefully placed her in Snow's arms. She fell in to hopeless sobs the very moment Emma's weight was on her and then she wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close so that she cried in to her tiny daughter's hair.
She curled around her like any mother would, keeping her close, trying to protect her from the world around them. But it was to no avail and they all knew it.
David was utterly devastated. He was broken over the sight, absolutely ruined as Snow fell to pieces before his very eyes. And no matter how hard he tried, he could not ignore the sight of the curse in his peripheral vision rolling over the hills and reaching the water's edge.
He was afraid. Absolutely terrified of what was to become of them. And there was nothing he could do about it.
And then the scent of wolfsbane filled the air; a scent that he was only able to pinpoint because he had spent an entire summer gathering copious amounts of it for Regina. And suddenly his fear began to dissipate. And in its place came the very smallest flicker of faith that everything was going to be okay.
"You need to take her," Snow cried miserably against her child and when David didn't answer, she opened her eyes. He was looking out the window, absolutely fixated on the curse rolling toward them but where she felt sick with fear and misery at the sight, he was suddenly entranced.
"David," she begged of him as tears streamed down her face. But of all things, David began to laugh. Confused and frustrated that he could possibly find anything to laugh about at such a time, Snow shook her head, "why are you laughing?"
"I helped her do this," he answered in wonderment as the memories over the years, all the seemingly random tasks and requests he had fulfilled for Regina finally fell in to place.
"What are you talking about?"
"This curse, I helped her make this curse."
...
The sound of Snow's devastated cries stabbed through his aching heart as he ran down the hall with Emma in his arms and his sword on his hip ready to be unsheathed at the slightest provocation.
He ran and he ran, trying to ignore the overwhelming misery that filled every fibre of his being as he did. He wove through the castle, avoiding the main halls for even though time was of the essence he also knew the Black Guard would be accompanying the queen and he needed to make it to the wardrobe in one piece.
So he ran through the shadows and servant's halls, doing everything he could to remain unseen, grateful beyond words that Emma kept silent.
He burst through one of the last doors in his path and quickly planted his feet in to a halt as he found himself face to face with his beautiful queen. Regina stood in the middle of the hall barely three strides from him, far calmer than he honestly expected. But he was sure it was only at the surface and that a storm brewed just beneath just as violently as the one outside the castle walls.
She was absolutely stunning, stopping him in his tracks as he met her dark eyes. Ever so guarded and unyielding of what she truly felt. But he had a good idea of what that was.
"Regina," he breathed, his chest heaving for a moment while he caught his breath and she blinked at him with the slightest tilt of her head.
"What is her name," she asked, her body still feeling rather numb to pain after her father. But she could feel the tears begin to prick her eyes as her traitorous heart awoke at the sight of her shepherd.
"Emma," he answered and she nodded and he was again left surprised by the calmness in her being. Something was wrong. And then of all things, she pivoted a step and opened her arm in a gesture for him to continue on his way, her eyes glazed and unfocused as she looked past him.
He frowned at the gesture and shook his head and it seemed the longer he stood there the more unstable she became. So he stood there, "if you think I am going to leave you just like that, you are gravely mistaken," he told her gently and she crossed her jaw and blinked her eyes back up to him, dark irises more focused than ever before.
"I will kill her," she told him but he didn't acknowledge the remark.
"I didn't know what I was coming back to, I swear to you my intentions-"
"It doesn't matter."
"It does matter, Regina, a child changes everything," he argued and she scoffed in irritation and he watched as her temper began to rise.
"They would have finished her! A disloyal king, left alone with a child, a daughter no less! Heirless! I could not just up and leave her like that, Regina, you know what would have become of her! This world is not kind! You know that! I could not just leave her unprotected!"
"Then don't leave her unprotected! But leave!
"Are you going to tell me that you would have protected her?! Because there is no one else who could!"
"That is not fair! If all you required of me to do was to protect your child and her mother so that we could live our lives in peace then of course I would have! For you! You just had to ask! How can you not see after all this time that I want absolutely nothing more than to just be yours! Nothing more! Not even Snow White!" She cried out furiously and he slumped his shoulders with an exhausted and miserable breath as tears fell down his cheeks.
"But you did not come back! You sent me a note of all things! Could you tell me where you get the nerve! To keep breaking your word, to keep breaking me! What did you think would happen?! That there would be no consequence?! That I would disappear quietly in to the night?!" She shouted at him as she stepped closer with tears in her eyes, absolutely furious and heartbroken and he only shook his head in defeat.
And then her eyes dropped to the infant in his arms and she felt the darkness boil inside her once more. Her fingers twitched with the desire to smother the child in her lover's arms as her voice quieted and the light from the windows slowly faded in to darkness, "if I kill this babe this curse will never break and we will be happy."
"Regina," he breathed and felt his throat tighten in fear. There was no point in running, there was absolutely no possible escape from her should she decide to kill his daughter. She could do it with a mere thought and he would be helpless against it. "Please, don't hurt her," he begged and her head tilted the other way before she flashed her teary eyes up to him, looking up through thick lashes. Thick dark lashes that shielded equally dark eyes, "please," he breathed and she held his gaze without blinking, "she is my daughter. And the curse must break."
When she did blink, her eyes were back down on his daughter as she stepped one step closer to them. They were so close they should be touching but she kept careful inches between them as she studied the baby in his arms. She wanted to kill her. He could see it in her eyes that she wanted Emma dead. Gone. And yet she didn't move.
David shook his head at the queen before him, shook it as tears fell down his face, "my god, I hate that you made me love you so much," he breathed softly for he knew his voice would break if it were any louder.
There were more tears in her eyes immediately after the words reached her ears and it killed him to know that she hadn't been told she was loved by anyone at all for years on end until him and now he was taunting her with it again. Now, when she had cast her curse and he held a daughter that wasn't hers and kept a ring on his finger she didn't have a match to. It was cruel. It was so utterly cruel and his heart broke all over again when her tears glistened her cheeks.
She didn't say a word in return. He suspected it had a lot to do with the fact that the moment she opened her mouth she would burst in to tears but there was still so much anger and pain in her teary eyes and he didn't believe she even knew what to say, "I am so sorry for everything. All of it."
Her chest was tight with an aching pain and she wanted nothing more than to believe him and kiss him just one more time. She wanted nothing more than that. Except for perhaps crushing her naive and wishful heart. The heart that only led her to pain of the upmost caliber. And then there was this child. This tiny infant of his squirming in his arms. The one weakness in her most powerful curse.
"I do not accept your apology, shepherd," she purred as she inched up to him to get closer to his daughter, a snarl pulling at her top lip as her tense hand hovered over the child's head in a ghostly caress.
"Regina," he breathed, he begged. But her tears still rolled down her cheeks and over her angry snarl as she seemed to curl over his daughter like a serpent would around her prey. It terrified him. It chilled him to the bone and he could hear his heartbeat in his ears for all it would take would be a flex of those beautiful slender fingers and his daughter would be dead. So he watched those fingers and pleaded under his breath that she not harm her.
When her fingers made contact with the soft blonde hair atop Emma's head, he huffed a sharp and panicked breath but it soon became one of relief when Emma merely twitched at the queen's touch rather than stilled with death. And then he watched his daughter settle under the queen's tender fingers and he breathed a single sob as he crumbled and dipped his head down to press his forehead to Regina's. She did nothing but return the gesture and lean in to him and it absolutely ruined him. "Regina, I love you," he breathed slowly and softly as he lifted a hand to cradle the side of her head.
"I love you," she breathed back, her beaten heart crushed by the words and his grip tightened alongside her face as another sob laced his next breath. And then he was kissing her and she sucked in a sharp breath through her nose and was shaken to her core by the familiarity of his mouth on hers. The yearning she had felt for him since he had left was suddenly fulfilled and his hand on her face was so kind and so warm and it pulled her in, it claimed her as his, he made her feel like she was home. That he was her home.
And he had been her home, he had been her safe place, he had been her everything, and as she kissed him back her heart soared with broken wings. She gave in to him, she loved him as she felt her curse grow near.
She gave in to him and the moment she did she was overcome with another wave of grief over the loss of her father. They never seemed to stop and they always came unannounced. She cried harder, her tears falling faster as her fists closed tight around his shirt and his hair so she would remain on her feet and he responded in kind, holding her closer against him with one arm.
All she wanted to do was fall to her knees in grief and let her shepherd hold her and comfort her, help her work through her pain just as he had with Daniel. She was a monster, she was cruel, she did not deserve him. But she loved him so much it hurt. She didn't know what was to become of them, she didn't know what was on the other side of her curse. She could only hope that somehow they would be alright.
And when the baby mewled between them she was reminded of where they were.
With a sharp breath and her brow furrowed, devastated, Regina broke the kiss and he tried to follow her with his parted lips but she turned her head and tipped her chin up so her lips grazed his cheekbone. He stopped but he did not pull away, simply turned his nose in to the side of hers and slid his hand up so his fingers curled around the back of her neck. Tears still fell down both their faces as they breathed one another's shaky breaths and she could feel his heartache emanating from him.
"Leave," she whispered firmly as even more tears rolled from her closed lashes.
"Regina-"
"Leave before I kill your daughter," she warned in a low growl with a trembling hand over the infant's head and shaky breaths through parted red lips.
"Regina-"
"David, leave now!" She shouted at the very top of her lungs, startling the baby in to cries and Regina tried to get away from him but he wouldn't let her. She didn't want to hurt him as her darkness wished, but she would if he didn't heed her warning and she lost control. But the damn fool had never listened to her so why, as he pulled her in to another kiss, would he listen to her now.
And how could she ever deny him when he held her cold heart in the palm of his hand. So she sobbed against his mouth and kissed him back. Just one more time she enveloped herself in him. In his warmth, in his kindness, in his scent, in his strength, and damn him. Damn him and the situation he had put them in. Damn him and his ribbon that had let him see her.
"I hate you," she cried against his lips and he kissed her once more through her sobs.
"I know," he assured and she cried, pushing her forehead heavier in to his, almost to the point of being painful but he didn't care. It was insignificant in comparison to the amount of pain in his heart as he held close the woman he had abandoned. Abandoned just as so many had done before him.
The curse was right outside the castle walls, clouding the windows, darkening the halls, flickering the torches on the walls to a near ember, a chill entering the air. It was there. He didn't know what life he would have in this curse, he didn't know what was going to happen and he was terrified but as his daughter cried with her tiny lungs and as he held on to the woman he loved so painfully, he had only one thing that could not go left unsaid for the rest of time.
"I really was returning to Snow to tell her I was in love with you," he told her and Regina shook her head against his and his fingers softened to caress the side of her face,"I was leaving her for you but found her pregnant when I returned. I couldn't leave my daughter, Regina," he explained, pleaded that she hear the truth in his words.
"I know," she breathed on the most pained breath, so quiet it almost went unheard. It was his response that nearly broke her. His broken sob of relief as his held breath was forced from his lungs. Relief that she knew he hadn't intended to leave, that he truly loved her. But despite it all, Regina knew better than anyone that nothing quite beat the love of a father for his daughter.
And as that thought crossed her mind, her own father's face flashed behind her eyes and she was stuck with an overwhelming grief once more and her curse roared outside the castle walls, feeding the pain and darkness in her tired soul.
"David, leave or I swear I will kill her," she warned one last time and even still he hesitated to heed her word. Still he stayed and pressed his forehead harder in to hers with a breathed cry.
"I love you."
And then he was gone. He ran and left her standing there with her eyes closed so that she could not see him flee and be tempted to chase him down. She stayed still and silent for as long as she could before her rage boiled over and she shouted a murderous cry at the top of her lungs and stormed off with tears in her eyes and her cape billowing behind her.
She had just let her one flaw in her otherwise perfect plan escape. All that she had worked toward was once again set up to crumble from beneath her very feet. Why did she so insist upon self sabotage.
Where was Snow White.
...
"Blue!" Snow screamed through her heartbroken sobs, pushing her head back in to her pillow as another one tore through her throat. But the fairy did not come. So she called again, her frustration more than apparent as she shouted, "Blue!"
"Yes, Snow?"
"Take me to him," she rasped through ragged breaths as she pushed herself upright, exhausted and weak but determined as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Snow, you are in no condition-"
"Take me to him!" She shouted at the fairy only to have her sobs return in full force.
"I really must insist-"
"Stop arguing with me! We are all going to get swept away in this curse, I have just given up my child, I do not care what you think, I need to talk to Rumplestiltskin!" She shouted and then sucked in a shaky breath to try and settle her sobs. The Blue Fairy simply nodded her head and lifted her wand and the next thing she knew, she was in a cloud of blue smoke. And as it dissipated, Snow was greeted with a shrill giggle that made her skin crawl. But she made herself turn around and look the glittery imp right in the eye while Blue floated closely behind her.
"Well, well, well," Rumple grinned, "you just missed the queen, dearie. She was just down here minutes ago asking what weakness this curse held."
Snow didn't take his bait, it was unsurprising news that Regina was there asking questions. So she shook her head in dismissal and asked the question she needed an answer to, "why?" Snow pressed as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Why what, dearie?" He chimed as his fingers curled around the cold enchanted iron.
"I have a plethora of questions that need answering but you know the one of which I speak."
"The one that hasn't left your mind since you've learned of it?" he grinned with a smooth and song-like voice.
"Why did you give David that ribbon? If it wasn't going to make a difference and this curse was still going to come, why did you so freely bother humouring the idea of making Regina good again?"
"Well, dearie, entertainment mostly. But there is always a price to magic, I made no exception for your prince," he grinned as he pressed himself closer to the bars, "I told him the price would come in time, a price that I would surely benefit from!":
"What was the price?!" Snow snapped furiously and desperately. There was no time to play his games. But the imp only laughed lowly under his breath, crazed and unsettling as he looked up at the ceiling as it rumbled with the approaching curse.
"The curse?" Snow asked in disbelief, "the curse was the price?"
"No, silly girl, the curse is merely a consequence! It was going to happen either way, ribbon or not!" He laughed as he pulled at the bars, "the price was your shepherd's broken heart," he purred as he extended his arm through the bar as though he were reaching for the man's heart right then, "his and that of the beautiful queen. He carries the weight of both, you see, and it is just so deliciously entertaining," he grinned and then gave another shrill laugh as Snow shook her head in confusion.
"And what do I get out of it, you ask?! Well, dearie, I needed the queen broken, far more broken than ever before. She is so resourceful when she is in pain, quite magnificent really!" He laughed wildly with a tilt of his head.
"What?" Snow breathed in exasperation, her brow furrowed in confusion.
"And then of course there is the other little itty bitty bit," he continued slowly as he pressed himself flush with the bars and grinned at her, "I needed a guarantee that, should the queen cross paths with her on this day, she would not kill your precious daughter. She may have only half your blood, dearie, but that is not enough to deter the queen from murdering an infant. No, no. But you see," he started softly and the princess' tears began to fall for entirely new reasons as he grinned a toothy grin and cocked his head, "the other half of that child's blood is that of the charming shepherd. And our dear dear queen could never lay so much as a finger on his child. It is simply not in her nature to do so. No matter how hard I tried," he shook his head, his voice still quiet, "I just could not break that piece of her."
Snow's mind was whirring with such information and there was but a beat of silence before the imp's shrill laughter cut through the air and caused her to practically jump out of her skin. "I don't believe you," she denied as her tears fell and her heart ached while he laughed even more and he shook his bars, "I don't believe you!"
"No?! Well then don't take it from me! Listen to the wise words of your beloved Blue Fairy!" He exclaimed and then once again pressed himself to the bars of his cell and hung his head between two, "you'd be amazed by what she hides from you," he purred lowly and the crying princess spun around to face the flabbergasted fairy.
"Blue?" She cried softly and the fairy stumbled for words, "Blue, what is he saying?"
"Yes, Blue! Do tell!"
"Shut up!" Snow shouted at him and he mocked offence with a hand on his chest.
"...He speaks the truth..."
"What?!" Snow breathed in utter shock as she turned to once again face the fairy and the ground shook above them with the approaching curse. But the fairy didn't speak another word. Simply floated silently with a regrettable expression and Snow had never felt such a hot knife stabbed in to her back as she yelled, "what do you mean he speaks the truth?!"
"David and the queen, they...have been having quite the affair. David was going to tell you he was leaving you for her but when he returned and found you pregnant...he didn't return to her," she told her and Snow shook her head in utter disbelief and denial while the imp laughed from behind his bars and the earth shook above them once more, putting the fairy on edge. "He was always meant to choose you, Snow. The queen is surrounded by darkness, there was never any hope for her, she was never meant to be happy-"
"That is such-! What the hell are you saying?! She was happy! I saw her with my own eyes on that farm! She was the very definition of happy! Are you telling me that you, the Blue Fairy, never once offered her a chance at happiness?! That you abandoned her?! Is the whole point of your existence not to ensure the fair chance at happiness for all in the realm?!"
"Snow, you have to understand-!"
"And now this?! You didn't think I deserved to know that my husband was in bed with Regina?! That he was in love with Regina?! You didn't think that important to bring to my attention?! How long has this been going on?!" She shouted and another sob wracked her body, every muscle aching from the labour and her heart utterly shattered over the loss of her daughter, husband, and trusted ally.
"Tell me!"
"Oh quite some time now, dearie," Rumplestiltskin grinned as he slowly dipped his head to the side and the princess turned to face him with tears still rolling down her cheeks, "years, I'd say," he told her and when her shoulders slumped and her eyes fell shut with a breathed cry, "the queen is quite lovely!" Rumple laughed a shrill and crazed laugh, entirely entertained by the scene before him.
"Snow-"
"I am beginning to realize that Regina was the only one who knew what was really going on in this place," she breathed softly, too exhausted both physically and mentally to be angry. She could only feel heartbreak and could only wonder what else had been hidden from her, "take me back."
"Snow-"
"Take me back!"
...
As hard as she tried to hunt down the princess who started it all, Regina could not find her. The curse was closing in fast and she wanted to see the look on the wretched girl's face as she was consumed by the dark.
But room after room left her more furious than before as each were empty. "Where are you," she singsonged, her voice lending a beautiful melody amongst the flashing lightning and shattering glass. But when she rounded her next corner, her heart stopped and her blood ran cold.
She appeared to be in the child's nursery, a place Regina was sure she would finally find Snow White. But instead she found David. Laying on his back in a pool of blood, not so much as a breath lifting his chest. She was frozen in place, silent, her body unable to move, her mind unable to process. And then she covered her mouth to try and muffle the sob that shook her entire body.
"No! No, no, no, David!" She ran to him and fell to her knees beside him, her hands hovering over him as she cried and tried to assess what she was seeing. He was wounded, multiple slashes across his shoulder and a deep stab in to his abdomen, likely earned from protecting his tiny daughter from her Black Guard.
She felt sick to her stomach, utterly beside herself as her hands shook and her heart ached. She felt just as broken and helpless as when she had held Daniel's body in her arms and the weight of it all came crashing down on her once more and she fell to pieces.
She bent over him, crying in to his chest as her hands took fistfuls of his bloodied shirt. She screamed in to him, heartbroken and enraged that the world could be so cruel and she was so helpless against it.
But then she remembered that this wasn't the same as before. She remembered that she wasn't helpless. For a moment, there was a flicker of hope in her heart and it was just strong enough to pull her attention from the dark. She had magic this time. And as her tears streamed down her face and the force of the curse began to knock things off the shelves in the nursery, she put every ounce of her focus in to pouring her magic in to his wounds.
Fear filled her from the inside out, her resolve to stay strong was so very weak, her cries never stopped, only worsened. For what if it didn't work? What if she wasnt enough? What if she couldn't save him? What if he was lost to her just as Daniel was? What if she was alone again? Truly alone.
She cried harder, unable to form a single word, barely able to see through her tears as the lightning of her curse lit up the room around her and his still body.
And then he breathed.
He sucked in a sharp breath and his blue eyes flashed open and she let out the most panicked and stressed sob ever heard. She cried and she cried as he caught his breath in her lap, unable to stop, entirely hysterical and out of control as her entire body shook in relief.
"Regina?" He called as he gathered his thoughts, his body tingling with an odd but familiar sensation. Magic. His mind was groggy, his body was stiff and sore, he laid in her lap, his queen's hands were shaking and she was in a fit of uncontrollable sobs. And then he remembered what he had been doing.
He remembered having Emma in his arms, he remembered fighting, he remembered putting her in the wardrobe, and then he remembered everything going dark and cold. And yet there he was in the arms of his queen and the speed of which he was overcome with the realization of what she had seen and what she had done, knocked the breath out of him once more.
She had saved him. She had found him and she had saved him. Crying himself, David sat up from her lap tall enough to catch her head in his hands and kiss her. He kissed her hard, pulled her down to him and interrupted her cries to let her know he was alright, to show her she had saved him, to prove he was there, to thank her above anything else for saving his life, and because he loved her too much to do anything other than kiss her at that very moment.
She cried between kisses, her hysterics nowhere near calmed as her nails dug in to his arm and wrist, keeping him close so she could feel the warmth in his body. They were not distracted by the windows shattering around them, they were not pulled from one another by the wind buffeting around them, and when the smoke began to fill the room they only drew one another nearer, breaking their kiss so that they could look at one another one last time.
The only thing that broke them apart was one small voice that came from the woman that seemed to always stand between Regina and the life she wanted most.
Snow White.
"David?"
At that, Regina and David turned their heads to the door. Snow stood in her nightgown exhausted, confused, and afraid, her body hurt from labour, her heart broken, her expression devastated. But all Regina had left in her was a miserable and exhausted cry as she closed her eyes and turned her head back to David, her nose and forehead pressing in to his jaw as her body slumped in to him and wound her arms tighter around him and to her relief, he held her close without wavering.
And then everything was swallowed in darkness.