A/N: This has been the toughest chapter, to date, to write and edit. This took eight drafts and I hope I did it justice. Thank you so much for your kind words, so far. I really love hearing what you think. Happy reading!

9.

After it all

"I don't want to fight with you, Regina."

"So, what the fuck do you want, David?" She snaps.

I. Drift

It starts off like any other day before she ruins it.

She wakes to the soft patter of rain against the bedroom windows. There goes David's plan for a morning walk, she thinks. The pillow beneath her head is hard and warm. And as she buries her face into it, she realizes that it smells like David because it is David. This is not the first morning that they've woken up together, tangled in the sheets, since their first kiss three weeks ago. They've shared several kisses since then, small pecks to full on make out sessions between Ethan's eating and sleeping schedule. She has found that she cannot stop touching David. That if she stops, he will disappear into a void, and she will never see him again. She watches him sleep for a while, tracing small patterns across his chest. A square. A star. A heart.

Her postpartum appointment was bumped up two weeks and is scheduled for this morning at eleven with a midwife at the hospital. It is still early, though, and she doesn't have to leave for another three hours. And Ethan—sweet, little Ethan—has been asleep for five hours straight. It is his longest stretch of sleep yet. She sits up a little in bed to peer into the bassinet beside her and is thoroughly surprised to find him awake. A deep frown mars his face and a pout tugs at the corners of his lips. It a combination of his c'mon, you don't see it? That is your face, as described by David. And his hold me right now, mom, or I'll scream face.

"Do you hear the rain, my love?" She asks as she lifts him from the bassinet before a cry can escape him. Ethan loves the rain. The soft patter of it against the window lulls him to sleep faster than a lullaby, faster than rocking or swaddling him. And he will stare out of the window during his wake windows and just watch as it pours from the sky.

She draws back the blackout curtains in the room to let a little light flow in from outside. When she looks down at him, he is smiling. It's not his first smile, that one had been all gums and reserved for Henry, the only person that he will suffer through tummy time with without crying. This is a small, half smile that tugs at the left corner of his mouth. A smile either way. He is one month old as of Monday and he has gained nearly three pounds. Right on the cusp of ten pounds at nine pounds and thirteen ounces. Soon he will be talking and walking, and she does not know if she is ready for that.

Footfalls down the hallway tell her that Henry is awake and getting ready for school. She wants to call out to him, but he gets weirded out even thinking about her breastfeeding. It's the same but different with David. Henry is going to avoid her completely. Whereas David is not going to walk into a room where she is actively breastfeeding. But if he is already in the room when she starts, he will stay. She suspects that it has something to do with him not experiencing it with Snow when Emma was a baby. The intimacy of it. And she will always feel a pang of regret at the thought that he missed out on the most important years with his firstborn. He would've been, and is trying to be, a great father to Emma and is a great father to their son and grandfather to Henry. You can come in; she always tells him. And then adds jokingly, I don't bite.

She wills herself not to cry as she looks over at him sleeping. Ever since Ethan was born, her mind has been riddled with memories from her dark reign and all of the pain she caused. She hates the fact that she has ruined his life in more ways than one. And she wants to shower him with kisses and wake him up just so he can hold her. But they were up late with Ethan until around two this morning. She will let him sleep.

It is not as physically painful for her to be away from Ethan for this long as it was when she first became a mother with Henry. She did not have David at home to take care of him and he was either in the care of Widow Lucas—a woman under a curse who hated her in their homeland—or some other qualified young adult that she paid for their time. Still, the farthest away from Ethan she has been so far, is her back porch. And even then, he is as far away as the living room where she can make it to him in a few easy strides. If only her postpartum checkup could've been bumped up two days ago when Ethan had his one-month checkup. Oh, he must miss her terribly. But he is okay at home with David, she reminds herself, pushing through the front door of Granny's diner. This is her last stop before going home to her boys. Minus Henry, who is now at school. And she is so glad that she ordered ahead because there is a lunch rush today. It's not something that Widow Lucas usually offers, but anything helps with a newborn, the old woman told her over the phone.

"Oh, I could just eat him up," Widow Lucas exclaims. "Look at those cheeks!"

Regina smiles proudly as she swipes through the photos on her cellphone to show the eager old woman. There's about a million of them from his first day up until this morning before she left for her appointment. Ruby exits the kitchen with her order in tow. The young wolf squeals with delight—it's funny how even a wolf can turn into mush at the sight of a baby—when her grandmother shows her a photo of Ethan and Henry. Ruby sits the takeout bag on the counter and peers over her grandmother's shoulder to get a better look at the phone. "Ooh, he looks like David!" Ruby says rather loudly. Finally, someone agrees with her.

She holds the conversation with them for a few minutes longer before telling them that she needs to get home to her baby. Widow Lucas makes her promise to bring Ethan around soon. Oh, and Henry, too. I have his good report card treat waiting for him. She tells her that she will bring Henry this weekend. As for Ethan, she's not sure when she will take her up on that promise. Storybrooke may be different than the Enchanted Forest, safer where some things are concerned. And although it is cut off from the rest of the world, it is still a big, scary, and abhorrently judgmental place. She is not ready to share him with the inhabitants of the town just yet. Speaking of the town's residents, apparently—unless her ears are deceiving her—there is talk about returning to the Enchanted Forest.

"She ruined our family, Emma," it is of no surprise to her that Snow and her daughter, the savior, are standing close under a covering near the corner of the building. She spied them upon her exit. Leave it to Snow White, ever the petulant child, to wait until she leaves the diner to go inside of it. "Do you really think that when we get back to the Enchanted Forest that your father will still want to be with that bit—"

"Snow…" Emma, dressed in her infamous red jacket, starts but her voice trails off. No child, no matter how old they are, would know how to respond to their parent in a situation such as this. She still doesn't call Snow Mom, or David, Dad, but she is trying to make work of their complicated situation of a life. And Regina can tell by her voice that this is not the first time they've had this conversation. Emma clears her throat, signaling to her mother that they are no longer alone. As if the sound of her heels echoing against the concrete didn't give her away already.

"Hey, Regina," Emma says.

"Miss Swan, Snow," she says cordially. "We're all adults. I was on my way out. You didn't have to wait for me to leave."

Snow shoves her hands in her pockets and stares at anywhere and everywhere but her former stepmother's face. She would smile if she Snow's words weren't weighing heavily on her mind right now. This is the first time that either of them has seen or spoken to each other since before Ethan was born. When Snow accepted her offer to serve as acting mayor, that had been a conversation they had over the phone. Snow removes her hand from her pocket to toy at her turtleneck sweater. There is no longer a wedding ring on her finger. The divorce was finalized quickly and quietly. Not even she knows the specifics of it. But she is sure David will tell her when he is ready. Still, she looks down at her wrist and is glad that her coat sleeve is covering her newly gifted bracelet. The wounds for lost love take years to heal, as she has come to know.

"David tells me that the baby is happy and healthy," Snow says, her mouth a think pink line. "Congratulations, Regina."

She is not sure what happens between the time it takes her to bid farewell to the mother daughter duo and walk up to her front door. But she is there suddenly, turning the key into the lock. The lights are flickering in the living room because Ethan hates tummy time. David is there trying to comfort him, telling him that it's okay, buddy. She rushes over to her baby and lifts him onto her shoulder, and she yells at David to, "Get out. Get out. Get out!"

II. Fragments

Her hands shake terribly as she seethes. She has been washing the same bottle for the past five minutes. And the stupid top half of it slips out of her grasp and clatters to the floor. With it goes the last of her patience and she slams everything remaining in her hands down into the sink. She wants to curse to the high heavens, but her eyes immediately shoot toward the baby monitor sitting an arm's length away from her. It took her a solid hour of pacing the living room—she thinks it has something to do with him not seeing her for an extended period this morning that he wouldn't let her put him down—to get Ethan to sleep. If he wakes up now, she just might flip her lid. She runs her wet hands through her hair in frustration instead. Takes deep breaths in and out.

"Fucking say something, David," she rubs at her eyes, and they burn from the remnants of dish soap still on them. He had walked in right as she had her outburst. And although he has remained quiet behind her for a little over two minutes now, she can hear his thoughts screaming at her. When she turns around to face him though, he is just leaning against the fridge dressed in the same blue pants he went to sleep in the night before, a gray hoodie covers his bare chest.

He is just as sleep deprived as her. The lack of sleep, though they got that lovely five hour stretch last night, is getting to them both. And while neither of them are necessarily new parents—he is more so than her—it takes a toll when you haven't done something like this in almost eleven years or ever. At least she can magic a change of clothes when she needs to.

She doesn't even know why she is angry at him. At least, there is no logical explanation for her to be angry at him. But she came home and lashed out at him for no reason at all except that picking fights is what she does when she is confronted with uncomfortable truths. It is comical how one single encounter can alter the course of her day, ruin her mood. That is something she will have to work on with Archie's help in the future.

"Go ahead and say it," she huffs.

"Say what?"

"That I'm overreacting. That I need to calm down." Both of which are true, but he won't take the bait. Knows never to take the bait. He has never said those things to her before, what will make him say them now? Because what Snow said is true, this—whatever it is—won't last. And he will leave her and go back to the Enchanted Forest to be with his family. His real family.

"I don't want to fight with you, Regina."

"So, what the fuck do you want, David?" she snaps.

"I want you!"

The admission is not far off from left field, she's known for a while now that it was coming. Still, she gasps. Stands there with her mouth gaped open in shock like he just sucker punched her in the gut. She shakes her head. There is not a sane explanation as to why a man of such stature as David Nolan—Prince Fucking Charming—would ever openly admit that he has feelings for the Evil Queen. His former enemy, even if it was by proxy. The woman who cast a curse that forced him to send away his daughter and forget his True Love for twenty-eight years. A woman that he has shared a bed with for weeks. That he only kissed for the first time three weeks ago. The adoptive mother of his grandson and biological mother to his only son. Surely, there is no fucking way that this is happening.

"Fuck, Regina," David says. He rubs a hand across his face. "I have wanted you…this for a while now. And I didn't want to tell you like this. But if this is not something that you want, if you want me to pack my stuff and leave, just fucking tell me."

He takes a step toward her, and she takes two steps back until the edge of the counter bites into her back. David stops. And the cloud of purple that she conjures does little to hide the rejected look on his face.

There are many things that she has always believed she would take to her grave, where she will rest alone. But her mind contains fragments of a whole that was shattered and never fully pieced together since her mother killed Daniel. Most people, herself included, fail to realize that the act of childbirth is not only traumatic on the body—she considers her experience to be beautiful—the mind suffers as well. And is has loosed all of those dark things that have been hidden within the depths of her mind. She does not know how to put into words her feelings. So, she lashes out, ruins things.

They are the very dark things that pull her away from her dreams at night. That bring her to tears when she looks at her sons. That prompt her to reach across the bed and cast a protection spell on David while he sleeps. The good shepherd who should have killed her, if only to honor his family. But instead has been one of the only constant things in her life for nearly a year. He has reached down into the very sinew of her and has helped her piece together what remains. She has never felt more whole than when she is with him.

And when she looks down at her baby—she magics herself into the nursery because even she isn't that cruel to just leave—she sees all of the good that lies beneath the surface of her, personified in this nine-pound baby. When she looks at her boy, all she sees is David. And she has an unfathomable fear of losing him. It hits her with a fierce clarity that if David leaves her, she may never recover. That will be her end. She pushes open the door with enough force to almost wake the sleeping newborn behind her. And her knees buckle at the distant sound of the shower running in her en-suite bathroom.

III. Resolve

He is still here. The distance between the nursery and her master bathroom seems doubled as she walks the length of it. How she makes it there without her knees giving out, she has no idea. The water from the shower is lukewarm as she steps into it. David stills when she wraps her arms around him from behind. For a brief moment, when his hands circle her wrists, she thinks he is going to pull her away. He does not pull her away, just loosens her grip enough to turn around so he can hold her tighter against his chest.

She has taken her heart out many times. But she has never been more ashamed of all of the evil that she has done as she is now. The weight of it in her hands is insurmountable but it is a small, dark thing. What little red there remains shines brightly before him and Henry and Ethan. This is how she bares her soul. He takes it in his hands. The only thing that she has seen him handle more delicately is their son.

"This is what you want," she whispers. "This is me."

"I'm not going anywhere," he guides her hand to his chest. "Go ahead, take it."

Her fingers hesitate over his chest before reaching in to grab his heart. It is pure and red, and it glows brightly at her touch. She doesn't know how long they stay there holding each other's very being. But at some point, the water is turned off, and the hearts are returned to their rightful places.

Their hearts are very present as she arches away from her bed, her knees pressing into David's ribs as he makes slow, passionate love to her for the first time. The sound of her own heart beating in her ears drowns out everything else as a white heat washes over her and her release nearly pushes David out of her completely. And when she wraps her arms around his neck to pull him down for a searing kiss, as he fills her to the hilt again, she can feel the thump, thump, thump, thump of his heart against her chest. It is as if it is calling out to her. Take me, I'm yours.

It is a very good thing that Henry is with Emma tonight. Because when David comes with a groan, a scream rips from her throat as a second orgasm takes her by surprise. David holds his weight on one arm, the hand pressed into the mattress beside her head. The other rubs smoothing circles against her twitching left thigh. She stares up at him, his blue eyes are still darkened by arousal, and a slow smile stretches across her face. The bracelet that he gifted her glistens against the light of the bathroom as she reaches up to smooth his tousled hair. He smiles back at her.

Her life is a montage of before and after, an unbroken circle. Before Daniel, and after his death. Before her curse in the Enchanted Forest, and after it in Storybrooke. There is her life before Emma Swan, and after her arrival. Before and after Emma and Snow fell through the portal. Then there is her life now, with David, after it all, and she has no clear direction of where it is going. The question that plagues her the most is that if this is before, what the hell is going to come next?

"I love you, David," she says.

to be continued

A/N: Hopefully, I didn't scare you too much with part two. I really wanted to toy with Regina's emotions in this chapter. Because I know that it's not always sunshine and rainbows after having a baby. I have also finally figured out the ending (there are still plenty of chapters left, don't worry). And as a thank you for sticking around and reading, I would love to incorporate any suggestions or ideas that you would like to see. See you soon!