A/N: Happy Thursday (It will likely be Friday when you read this, though)! Here is a thank you for all of the kind words that I've received so far and an apology for the long gaps between chapters lately.

8.

Before - How it happened

She walks around her sad, lonely mansion with bare feet, a glass of wine in tow. There is a warm buzz in her head, but she is far from drunk. Though, this is the closest she has come to it in twenty-eight years. She didn't even drink this much when Emma Swan came to town and ruined her life and her relationship—that is the wine thinking— with her son. There is just something about the shepherd barging into her home with a sword that causes for her finest red. He could have killed her, should have killed her, and there is no doubt that he wanted to kill her. But the simple fact remains, he did not. He will live to regret that decision.

Her feet carry her upstairs. She stands in the doorway to Henry's bedroom where he won't be sleeping tonight. Or any other night if the shepherd has his way. It has been twenty-four hours since she last saw her son. and the simple thought of it blinds her with rage. She hurls the wineglass across the hallway. The wine ruins her walls as the shattered glass falls to the floor. She raises a hand to magic the mess away. But then she thinks that this must be what Henry sees in her. The anger. The bitterness. The Evil Queen hurling objects because she can't control her anger. She won't use magic; she made a promise to her son. It hurts when she cuts her hand on a piece of glass. At least she feels something.

A moment of panic sets in at the incessant pounding at her front door before she realizes that this is a different type of pounding. Yes, Emma put a stop to the angry townsfolk trying to kick down her door. But Emma isn't here. She and that secret spilling mother of hers fell through a portal to God Knows Where. There is no one here to save her.

She has not put much thought into what she would do when she saw the shepherd again. But here he is, standing on her front porch. His eyes are wild and red rimmed, letting her know that he was crying at some point. He is much taller than her when she is not in heels she realizes. She reagitates her hand where the glass cut into it as she clenches it into a fist. She has never been one to back down from a fight.

"Come to finish me off, shepherd?" she sneers. If he's there to kill her, he won't be doing it with his sword. Her first instinct was to look for it when she saw that it was him on her porch. Always assessing the threat.

"Are they okay?" he asks. She raises an eyebrow at him, plays dumb. This is her home, and she will do whatever she damn pleases. And he doesn't just get to waltz in here and… "Emma and Snow. Are they okay?"

"How the fuck should I know?"

"Damn it, Regina! It should've been you."

"Right," she snaps. "Get rid of me so you and your fucking wife and daughter can take my son and live happily ever after."

"That's not what I said."

No, it's not what he said but it is what he meant. She knows it and he does, too. Her patience is wearing thin, and her inner Evil Queen is bubbling at the surface. If he does not leave now, she will do something stupid. And what the hell is he doing there, anyway? He should be with her son.

"Goodnight, shepherd," she says.

She lets the door close between them and turns to walk to her living room where the rest of her wine waits for her. Her footsteps freeze, though, when the front door opens and closes behind her. Of course, she forgot to lock the door. Of course, David has the audacity to follow her inside. Those fucking Charming's think that they can come and go through her home as they please. She has learned to ignore it. Still, she gives him one final look over, just to make sure he in fact does not have his sword, before disappearing into her living room. She downs a sip of wine straight from the bottle.

"I wasn't done talking," David says.

"Fuck you, shepherd."

"No, Regina, fuck you."

It takes all of her willpower not to throw the wine bottle at him. He has got some fucking nerve talking to her like that. She is a queen, and he is but a mere shepherd. The distance between them is closed before she realizes what she is doing. And she pushes him, her palms flat against his chest and with all of her might. "Get out of my house!" The fucking shepherd doesn't budge. So, she pushes him again. And again. Until her hands clench into fists and she is pounding at his chest. All of her rage. He took her son, her baby. And she wants to hurt him, to rip out his heart and crush it to dust. But Henry doesn't need another reason to hate her.

"Regina, stop," David says. He has her wrists in a vice grip. She just went for his heart, but he doesn't push her away. "Just stop."

"I hate you, shepherd," she grits out through clenched teeth. She attempts to jerk away from his grasp, but he doesn't let her go. A small part of her is grateful to him for that because she is not steady on her feet. And the last thing she wants right now is to fall on her ass before Snow White's prince.

"Just stop," he says again.

She does not fall when he unhands her, she doesn't move at all. His hands moved quickly to her shoulders to steady her. But that is not what has given her pause. His eyes are so blue, and they are staring at her. The shepherd's hands have now grasped her face. She is fire. He is fuel. They are a dangerous combination. This is Armageddon. She has but a second to react and turns her head, offers her neck to David's mouth instead.

"Don't kiss me," she tells him, breathless despite herself, as she pushes his jacket away from his shoulders.

He does not want her, and she does not want him. This is purely about release. All the pent of anger and frustration that she harbors for him. This is about feeling something, anything, other than the heartbreak she has known all her life. Her mother killing Henry. Henry finding Emma. Her curse breaking. The shepherd taking Henry. She doesn't know what this is about for him, but he seems just as eager to get her out of her clothes as she is eager to touch his skin.

She nips at his earlobe as he shrugs out of his shirt. It joins hers somewhere beyond the sofa. Fuck me, shepherd she whispers to him. David reaches around her thighs, his calloused hands gripping the back of them and lifting. He hoists her up. She locks her ankles behind his back and wraps her arms around his neck to steady herself as he walks her to the sofa. The weight of him crashing ontop of her leaves her breathless.

His mouth abandons her neck to travel lower. Both of their hands fumble with her bra but it just won't come off. She lets out an uncharacteristic whimper as his mouth leaves her skin and she arches up to him at the loss of contact. Fuck it, she hears him say and he yanks the black lace down. She hears it rip but she is too aroused to care. He brings a pebbled nipple into his mouth while be palms the other. The shepherd is going to make her come without even fucking her properly.

"I said fuck me, shepherd," she kicks off her underwear as David sits up on his knees to free himself from the confines of his jeans and boxers. He is as hard as she is wet. And he wastes no time lining himself up with her entrance and pushes into her in one swift thrust.

"Oh, fuck," David breathes out. He leans over her, his weight braced on one arm as the other touches her thigh. None of her other lovers have given her the chance to adjust to the size of them. Not that they can compare to the shepherd. She gives him a single nod of the head to let him know that she's ready.

His thrusts are painfully slow at first. But as her mewls and whimpers grow louder, it spurs him on. And he grabs the back of her thigh and lifts it higher against his ribs. She lets out a strangled cry as he hits a spot inside of her that hasn't been hit in years. He tells her that he isn't going to last long, and she takes the moment to flip them. It's a sore miscalculation and they are spiraling toward the floor. The shepherd is mere inches away from a serious brain injury and she magics the coffee table away at the last moment. She straddles him now, takes him even deeper in this position. His hands find her thighs to steady her frantic movements, to help aid her in her release. She will bruise later.

She looks down at the shepherd to find him staring at her, his bottom lip sucked between his teeth. Oh, how powerful he must feel, to know his queen in this way. She comes violently, her vision goes white and her ears ring. And then she's on her back. She grabs at him, her arms lock around his neck to anchor her in place as she rides the waves of her orgasm. He thrusts into her again. Once, twice.

"Regina, I'm going to come."

"Inside," she tells him, locking her ankles around his back. Pulling him impossibly closer. "Inside. Inside."

He spills his seed deep within in her. They are both panting, and she can feel his warm breath against her neck. It has been a very long time since she did not disentangle herself from a man as soon as the deed was done. The buzz she had in her head from her wine is gone now. And she watches with a clear head, as David pulls away from her, averts his eyes. He dresses in silence. The throw blanket from the back of her sofa makes its way across her body, haphazardly, by his hand. She waits until she hears the door close to cry. Everyone always leaves. She is so, so alone.

After

Ethan stares up at her with sleepy brown eyes as she rocks him gently in the crook of her arm. He has been up for a little over forty minutes, the longest he's stayed awake in the one week he has been Earthside. His eyelids are growing heavier and heavier by the second. It won't be long now until he falls back asleep. She taps the end of his nose with her finger and can only imagine the grinning idiot he sees in his narrow field of vision. A large part of her still feels like she is dreaming. Cannot believe that she created this perfect baby boy.

"You're so quiet," she says.

He is not a fussy baby. But should she have the gall to whip out her breast or press a bottle—he takes one a day—to his mouth or clean him with a cold wipe, his lips go to quivering. And that pitiful cry escapes his mouth. She can sense his magic in those moments, festering just beyond reach. He can sense it to, she realized on his fourth day outside of the womb. His eyes were closed, and his hands were fisted, and he opened his mouth to wail. It was the same type of pull she felt when she first realized she was pregnant. He startled, forgot why he was crying in the first place. And she wonders if it will present itself in the throes of a tantrum. This first week, compared to Henry's, is a walk in the park. Though, she is sleep deprived all the same.

Speaking of Henry, he had been so excited to meet his new brother. Whoa, kid, Emma had called out when he bounded through the front door, leaving it for her to close. She sat on the couch, Ethan in her arms, swaddled in his shepherd blanket with the sheep as David jokingly calls it now. Henry sat on whichever side of her that David didn't occupy. His mouth moved a mile a minute and she wishes that she can remember all of what he said. But at that point, she had had maybe four hours of sleep. She distinctly remembers him saying, at one point, though, you and I are going to be the best of friends. And she went to sleep, a cloud over her head, because she is the Evil Queen, she has done terrible things and she does not deserve these precious boys.

Sleep claims Ethan and she lifts his tiny hand that has taken hold of her thumb to kiss it. She carries him down the hallway to his nursery. This is not his first time inside of it. David gave him the grand tour the same day they were discharged from the hospital. But this will be his first nap in his borrowed crib. All of the other naps and longer sleeps have been in the bassinet beside her bed. He looks so much like David, she thinks, as she lowers him onto the mattress, dropping a kiss to his forehead. This has been the topic of heavy debates between she, David, and Henry. The two of them think that Ethan looks like her.

She magics her cellphone from her bedroom to take a picture to send to David. This is their first morning without him since Ethan was born. He is meeting with Gold to draft divorce papers for he and Snow White. She hadn't expected the proceedings to move along as quickly as they are. Nor did she expect any formal papers to be involved. But they aren't in the Enchanted Forest anymore and she doesn't really have a say in how any of it goes.

David arrives home just in time for diaper duty. She's sitting in the rocking chair with Ethan on her chest. They have each been practicing skin to skin with him for at least thirty minutes a day. He has just been fed and burped. She traces slow circles on his cheek. David steps further into the room, he has been lurking in the doorway. Something she has noticed him doing a lot of, just watching her and their son. He asks if Ethan is awake and before she can respond, they both hear their son grunt and feel his diaper. She laughs.

"Is that for me?" David asks Ethan as he lifts him into his arms, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. And then he asks her, "How was your day?"

She tells him that it was eventful, that she got a lot of laundry done. He still can't seem to wrap his head around just how much laundry a small thing can go through. She looks down to rebutton her shirt that is still open from feeding and skin to skin. But her head snaps back up when she hears David yelp, Whoa! He is standing about a foot away from the changing table with one hand reached over to hold the unfastened diaper close to Ethan.

"Did he get you again?" she chuckles. David looks over his shoulder and grins at her, tells her yep. And she remembers that first night home with their son when it first happened. David fumbling through the dark, I got him, I got him, I got him!

Ethan flails his arms and legs as David cleans him. She pouts as she always does when he cries. But it is short lived when she notices Trudy the Rocking Horse—as dubbed by Henry—rocking slightly in the corner. It only stops after a clean diaper is fastened on him and a clean onesie is buttoned closed, and David puts him up on his shoulder. She stares at her brown eyed boy with wide eyes.

"Hey."

She is lost to her thoughts when David finds her sitting on the back porch. This is not the first time since giving birth that she has come out here to think about things. He tells her that Ethan is in his swing and that Henry is watching him when she asks. She nods, toying with her necklace as he takes a seat beside her. They sit in silence for a while. And before she knows it, she sniffs out a laugh. Shakes her head at the fact that she is crying right now.

"I'm okay," she wipes at her eyes. David wraps an arm around her shoulder, pulls her close. "I'm okay. I just…"

"You can talk to me."

It is the rocking horse, of all things, that has her in tears right now. Her baby has magic, and while she has always known this. It is so very real now; she has seen it with her own eyes. And she knows he must be powerful if it's starting to present itself now. She thought she had a few years to sort things out, figure out how she would teach him. Her mind is also plagued by all of the terrible things that she has done. "What if he…is like me? I've ruined so many lives with magic."

"Regina, when is the last time you used your magic for bad?" David asks. He is talking in that studious voice of his, that expects an answer from her. So, she tells him about the things she did before her curse broke. "And how long ago was that?"

"I'm serious, David."

She knows that he is trying to be helpful. To make a joke out of the situation. But that is not the only thing that she is crying about. Her mind keeps going back to that night they shared together. When they created Ethan. She tells him for the first time that she cried when he left.

"It's not like what you and Snow had," she whispers.

"That's because we're David and Regina," he tells her. "No, it wasn't like I came home and carried you upstairs to bed. And I really am sorry that I didn't stay. But Ethan is here now. He is loved and he will grow up with so much love that he won't even think about dark magic. That's why I'm here to be the fun parent."

She nudges him with her elbow and tells him to, "Shut up." But she smiles widely at him. She will forever be grateful for him for just being there with her through it all. And she is so very glad, that the life she birthed into this world was created with him.

"I got you something," he says.

"For what?"

It's not her birthday. Or a holiday. But he produces a neatly wrapped gift from his back pocket and hands it to her, anyway. She gasps when she sees the bracelet inside. It is gold—real, gold—with two charms: a cradle and a book. Simple, like Regina Mills. Not the mayor, not the queen. Just Regina. "One for Henry. One for Ethan. We can add more charms as the years go on."

"David…" is all she can think to say.

"Thank you," he tells her. "For growing our son."

She kisses him full on the mouth. It is the softest of kisses and when his tongue requests entrance into her mouth she grants it. The first time that she kisses him is under a cloudless night sky with a full moon, a billion tiny stars.

to be continued

A/N: This is my first time attempting to write full on smut. Please go easy on me. See you soon.