"Are you sure?" David spluttered and Regina stared at him, at a loss. "Right," He cleared his throat. "Of course you're sure." Regina hugged herself tighter, turning her body away from him as he brushed a hand anxiously through his hair. The two of them awkwardly stood in Regina's immaculate kitchen, each of them avoiding eye contact as David let the news sink in.

"How is that even possible?" He suddenly boomed, causing Regina to flinch at the unexpected volume of his voice. "I mean, I know how it happened," He cleared up; knowing that the eye-roll from Regina bellied an oncoming sharp retort about his understanding of where babies come from. "I mean the curse..." He started, scrubbing at the top of his head as if continued friction against his scalp would help his brain put the pieces together. "I thought time, us; everyone was frozen."

Regina slowly shrugged her shoulders. "Since Emma came to town, things started to shift, the curse was weakening. Clearly, by the time you spent the night," She hesitated, meeting his eyes and knowing as soon as she mentioned it, they both flashed back to that moment. "Clearly that night with me, the curse was weakened enough."

David seemed to consider it for a long moment, watching Regina watching him as she twitched uncomfortably and avoided looking at him. He seemed to be pondering something; something that was causing his palms to sweat because he was suddenly rubbing them together and he'd sucked in his bottom lip.

Regina braced herself for whatever insulting idiocy that was about to escape him.

"You didn't," He seemed to struggle over how best to ask. "You didn't...make this happen, did you?"

She narrowed her eyes and she could see David swallow at her barely contained rage. "No." She stated, dropping her arms quickly and storming passed him for the second time that night.

She wanted to escape him. She'd known he couldn't help himself from asking and if she were honest, she knew she couldn't blame him for wondering. There was certainly a strong case against her. But the fact of the matter was, she was as surprised by the news as he was.

"Regina, wait!" He called after her, chasing her down the hall and reaching to grasp her arm, just before she got to the stairs. He spun her back around to face him. "Look, I'm sorry, that was thoughtless of me. It's just," He sighed, letting her arm fall back to her side. "it's just a lot to take in, that's all."

"It's a lot for me too, David."

He nodded slowly, meeting her eyes apologetically. "I know, I'm sorry. I just..." His eyes pleaded with her. "What are we going to do?"

"You're asking me?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know, David. The whole town is about to accuse me of using this child to sabotage your relationship with Mary-Margaret, just to hurt her and you're asking me what you're going to do?"

David's eyes opened wide suddenly. "Oh my god; what will I tell Snow?" He choked on the word and for the briefest of moments, Regina felt that old bubble of satisfaction at seeing their suffering, but she squashed it quickly, finding no pedestal from which to gloat; not this time.

"And Henry." She sighed and could feel David's eyes on her as she dejectedly lowered herself to sit on the stairs. "He's going to think the exact same thing you did, and I don't know how I'm going to convince him of the truth."

Silently, David sat down on the step beside her. She could feel the warmth of his thigh against hers through the thin fabric of her trousers. She pressed her eyes closed for a moment, reliving the feeling of his lips against her throat before she straightened her back and stared ahead of her. "How about we keep it just between us, for now?" David suggested.

"It'll be impossible to hide, eventually."

"True," He nodded, searching the wall ahead of them for whatever held her rapt attention. "But maybe by then we'll have a better idea of what to say."

"A manner of weeks, David, that's all we have. I can already feel my body changing."

For a faint moment, Regina saw something in his eyes as he looked at her. There was a sparkle there; a strange sense of wonderment as his lips twitched – fighting a smile. But he buried it, hiding it behind a cold stare as he pulled himself back up to his feet. He couldn't appear to relish the fact that he was going to be a father again – to a child he was going to see grow and learn – especially not when that child's mother was his enemy.

"How are you?" David asked; his voice was quiet on the other end of the line. Regina could hear him shuffling around a little and hesitated on her answer. She could tell he was nervous, or distracted even. It was easier to believe the second so that she didn't have to imagine that he cared at all.

"How do you think?" She snapped, viciously.

There was silence on the line for a moment before Regina rolled her eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry, David. I..." She took a shuddering breath, trying to fight the image of Daniel's twisted expression from her mind. "It's hard."

"I understand."

"No," She tried hard not to sound venomous, it didn't help that the hurt seeped out anyway. "I don't believe you do."

"I lost Snow once; I thought I'd never get her back. And she's gone now, Emma too."

"Ah," She smiled sardonically, even though she knew David couldn't see it. "But you did get her back, you always do – no doubt the two of them will waltz back through that door in no time. And that's where we differ, David, because I will never see Daniel again."

"Regina," He started but she cut him off.

"Just forget it, David. You don't have to pretend, the child won't know if you called every day to make sure I have been eating my greens, so just stop it."

"Regina,"

"No," She paced, running her open palm across the slight bump of her belly, wishing she could convince herself it was Daniel's child that grew inside her. The idea softened her resolve somewhat and David's continued patience on the other end of the line went a long way to calming her annoyance.

She'd done her best to hide the pregnancy, but it was getting harder. Her face was getting heavier and though the more forgiving of her normal clothes still managed to hide the slight changes, sitting at home in her living room, wearing a fitted sweater, she could see the rather prominent change. It wouldn't be long until it was impossible.

"I really don't want to talk about this anymore, David."

David sighed, hearing the annoyance in her voice, though it was laced with the sadness that wasn't bound to leave her for some time to come. He was fairly certain – though he'd never call her on it – that he'd even heard a faint sniffle down the line. Her pride would never own it, so he let it rest.

"Alright," He sighed, knowing there was no way he'd be able to console Regina, let alone a hormonal Regina who'd just lost the one person in her life she'd ever truly trusted. "We don't have to talk about it anymore."

Regina hated lying to her son. She'd promised to do better, to be better. But ever since she'd found out about the baby, that's all she seemed to be doing; lying. Henry was warming to her, seeing her efforts to avoid using magic, even to the point where her presence was welcome at his bedside when he'd awoken to a particularly horrible dream.

David had reluctantly let her stay, insisting that she sleep as much as she could and did his best not to fuss over her when Henry could see or hear them. She tamped down the feeling of warmth that radiated through her, when he gave up his cushion to rest between the chair and her belly, doing her level best to ignore that her comfort meant anything to him.

But then suddenly, it was David under a sleeping curse and Henry sitting by his bedside; reading him stories from his book and wishing he'd just wake up and look him in the eye. Regina hated what she had to do, but Rumple was right. She wanted to be better and she needed to be, for her children – that meant doing anything she could to prevent her mother from coming through the portal.

Her children.

Regina paused in the small passageway between the front of the shop, and the small room at the back where she could hear Henry's quiet voice reading the tale of Snow White to his sleeping grandfather. She wanted to sob at the idea of it; that her son loved these people – these people that she'd wanted dead – and that this new child, this small being inside her that she had already come to cherish, would be so irrevocably linked to them.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the room; resolved to put her children before everyone and everything else.

To be continued.