It helped him to know that he didn't have to interfere; to see something play out before him and resolve perfectly gave him a blessed feeling of peace about the road he was on. But he still watched. That was a habit he'd begun and couldn't stop. As battles between Snow and David raged on with Regina and George, he got better at feeling urgency. As their army built themselves up, stronger, faster, smarter, and the other two fell, more often than not he found himself spending more time in front of his mirror and his cauldron than he did making deals. There were some that were important, but very little mattered outside of what the Seer dictated was necessary. So he watched victory after victory as Regina's hopes and dreams were dashed, and King George's Kingdom was invaded by the boy everyone believed was his son. There were only a few, he figured, that knew the truth about David, something King George had found striking. It turned out that King George had been such a terrible King that despite shouting the truth about David at the top of his lungs no one ever believed him. They were all too happy to follow "Prince James" and Snow White. Day after day, week after week, month after month…he continued to watch their progress. Though, lately, he was almost certain that watching came from a place born of selfish desperation, than need.
Sometimes he thought that he watched because when he didn't, when he was left to his own devices, his mind began to wander. And the things he thought of were not particularly things that he wanted to think of. Mostly he thought of Belle and Baelfire, of the times they'd spent together, of the lives he could have led with both of them, how his life could have been different if they were still around him. Inevitably he always ended up summoning the fantasies he'd had of Belle when she lived in the castle; Belle dressed in white, Belle in the bed beside him, Belle with a baby in her arms...fantasies of things that would never happen. That was always where he cut himself off and got back to work. He let scenes play out on the crystal ball beside him as he spun, or in the cauldron when he wanted to stretch his legs. If he was feeling particularly antsy he might rise and start making potions, simple ones that he stalked his stores with, along with a little black bag he hoped to take with him to the new world…whenever that day came.
He was getting closer. Years of war had taken their toll on the land, the people, and the monarchs. As he watched Snow and David make plans for an intricate attack one afternoon, he knew without the help of the Seer that it would be done that night. It was too good of a plan, too well planned out for it to go any other way. They took George's Kingdom that night. Their final attack was on the castle itself, George's last stronghold. They conquered it so easily it was almost laughable. Knights and archers had taken the castle in the name of their Prince and Princess in less than an hour. George himself managed to sneak out a back door and into a boat, paddling away with nothing but the clothes on his back. And that was it. Taking a castle made them official rulers again and the Prince and Princess hadn't even stepped foot on the grounds, their army had done it for them. And a good thing they had. It was all been part of the plan. For as George's Kingdom lay smoldering on the ground, the Princess and Prince had paid one of Regina's guards well to tell her that Snow was alone in the woods. She wasn't of course, but Regina, seeing no other way to win, had taken their bait and gone after her. Foolish child. So blinded by hatred she couldn't see what was coming.
She'd been too easily drawn into a carefully laid trap her stepdaughter and the fairies had set. And that very night, she was captured and brought to King George's castle along with Snow and David. They weren't like ordinary conquerors though, and they weren't shepherds or thieves anymore either, the war had changed them, made rulers of them. And so, after Regina was taken to her prison cell, the new King and Queen didn't celebrate, didn't pause for a proper coronation, instead, they called their first council meeting in their new hall. It was there in the dark of night they decided Regina's fate.
The new King and Queen sat around the war table with their closest knights and friends; along with the four commanders who had stood with them through the war, he saw The Blue Bug, the seven dwarves, Red and Granny, and the cricket. He did what he always did, summoned the image into the mirror so he could listen, then sat, spun his gold, and watched. Then he listened to the Seer and waited to decide if anything needed to be done.
"I fear the Queen will never change. We must dispense justice," Jiminy advised.
"Agreed. What are our options?" David questioned.
"How about giving me five minutes alone with her and my ax?" Grumpy replied with what he thought was sarcasm, though might have been honesty. After what Regina had put them through with the war he wouldn't put it past the dwarf. "She's still restrained, right?"
"Yes," the Blue Fairy answered. "But the magic that we used to capture her, will only keep her powerless for a short while."
"How about banishing her to another realm?" Granny suggested just as casually as she was knitting whatever the hell was in her lap. He looked up to see how the Blue Fairy would react to such a suggestion, to see if she stated any way to get from here to there. But there was nothing. No sign of any reaction on her face. Not even for them. At least all involved got to be disappointed as he was.
"We can't. It would be unconscionable to condemn another realm to the suffering that we've endured," the cricket pointed out.
"Jiminy's right," Red added. "She's our problem, and we have to deal with her."
Their first call as rulers and not just commoners, the wolf was taking it seriously. That was comforting in a way, but also unnerving.
David rose suddenly from his seat to address them all, looking as Princely as a man ever could…someone had observed more than his fair share in the last few years. "Then only one thing is certain: as long as the Queen lives, the kingdom is in danger."
"Are you saying…"
"Yes," David answered Snow before she could finish her sentence. "We must kill the Queen. Thank you all."
David dismissed the advisors, but he wasn't surprised to see Snow and David hang back. He was determined to bring about this declaration, Snow was not. He could see it in her eyes. She wasn't against it, not entirely, but she wasn't convinced it was the right thing to do either.
"You sure this is what we must do?" she asked predictably when they were alone.
"What choice do we have? As long as she draws breath, she will come after us, after you."
Snow cocked her head to one side and held her gaze with his as if searching his eyes for something. It was the same gaze Belle had given him when she was asking him a question and he'd answered it in half-truths, like she had always expected his eyes to betray him. He wondered if they had, if that had been how she'd seen through him. He wondered if Snow could see something in David's eyes now that he could not. Perhaps it was a skill that only women possessed.
"There's always a choice," Snow urged. "You stopped me from killing her once, took an arrow to save her. Why is this different?"
"I took that arrow to save your life, not hers," David corrected sitting down beside her once more. "That was an assassination. This is an execution. If we don't stop her now, there's no telling what she'll live to do."
Snow shook her head. "It doesn't feel right."
"Will any execution ever feel right?"
"I've attended executions before."
"Is it ever easy?"
"No…but this…this doesn't feel right, David," Snow whispered. "It feels more like vengeance. Maybe there's another way."
"Snow…every second she lives is one second closer to her magic coming back. We have to strike before that happens and she gets away. Snow," David reached out and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, breaking her gaze and forcing her to look in his eyes. "We don't have a lot of time."
There was a long pause in which Snow sighed sadly before nodding. "Fine…I'll sign the order. We'll do it in the morning."
He smiled in amusement as she stormed out unhappily and he waved a hand over the mirror to banish the image. An execution, Regina's execution…he wasn't about to miss that. Especially because he knew, that with any luck, she'd live to take all their happiness away yet.
Yay! This episode! I didn't even really like this episode when it first came out but when writing this section I enjoyed it because once again it was actually an episode that Rumple very directly participated it. Personally, this chapter passes my own test. If I can't figure out where the "seen scene" ends and my stuff begins, I usually feel pretty good about it. So it's short, but I'm okay with how it came out.
Thank you Jennifer Baratta, Grace5231973, and Alarda for your reviews on the previous chapter. I'm interested to see what you think of this set of chapters. 2x10 was difficult to write, it was hard to get a grip on what was going on with Rumple and what kind of magic he was actually using, but I think I got it to a place that I like it! I had to break the episode up into more chapters than originally planned, but I'm happy with it and I hope you'll be happy with it too. Peace and Happy Reading!