A/N: Sorry about describing Belle as a "blonde"—I was definitely remembering the actress's part from Lost instead! Oops! I've tried to correct the prior chapters and will try to remember that Emma is the only blonde on this show. Thank you to Dakota for pointing this out.
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"What do I say when I tell the town that I've lost our chance to get back their beloved Queen and Princess?" David asked her.
This was the moment. Should she tell him that his chance to regain his family was not destroyed with the hat?
"David," she said, squeezing his hand, both to get his attention and to strengthen her resolve. "You might not have to say anything." The magic between their joined hands crackled comfortably; they had become accustomed to the sensation.
He looked at her, perplexed. Surely, she wasn't suggesting that he lie to the entire town? Then again, maybe she was . . . but she wouldn't give Henry false hope. That was too cruel.
Regina pushed the words from her lips with physical effort. She couldn't believe she was going to suggest this particular back-up plan. The thought made her sick; panic still dancing on her nerves. "We might—might—still be able to get them back."
There, she said it. There was no going back now. She would just have to make sure, absolutely sure, that this plan worked.
"Really?" Hope sprung in David's chest. Maybe he hadn't failed his family after all.
Regina nodded, allowing a small smile to escape at the man's tentative excitement. "We weren't even certain the hat would have worked. It might have, but it was by no means a sure thing. George destroying the hat just forces us to focus on a different solution—maybe a solution that we should have focused on from the beginning."
"We can still get them back," she assured him. "We will figure it out."
Her confidence was compelling. He was suddenly and intensely grateful that she was on his side, particularly because she really didn't have to be. In that moment, gratitude—and a flash of something else—surged through him, and he closed the distance between himself and Regina, cradled her head in his hand, and kissed her.
Regina froze in shock as she felt David's lips move against hers, but when he wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer, she melted into his embrace, giving herself over to the sensations. He nipped at her lower lip, and she granted him entry as he deepened the kiss.
If David had given any thought to the kind of kiss he intended to give Regina before acting on the impulse, he would have told himself that he merely wanted to express his gratitude to a new-found ally in his quest. With Regina in his arms, however, skimming one hand down his spine and another through his hair, it was clear that this kiss was the complete opposite of platonic.
It was as if the two of them couldn't get close enough to each other. The golden magic from the morning was back in full force, pulsing and popping, but David and Regina were too focused on each other to notice. He peppered kisses down her throat, as he pushed them back onto the table.
Regina could not believe this was happening. She hadn't been this turned on in a long time, and David's stubble along her throat felt so, so good. She couldn't get enough. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt to pull him to her mouth for a searing kiss. As their tongues dueled for dominance, his left arm slid out from its braced position against the top of the table into a stack of books, sending them to the floor.
The sudden crashing of the books jerked Regina and David out of the moment. They pulled their faces apart and gazed at each other in embarrassment and confusion. As their passion-induced haze began to clear, light blushes spread across their cheeks. They each cleared their throats as David awkwardly disentangled himself from Regina, and she sat upright on the table.
"Well," Regina said, avoiding contact with David's eyes. What the hell was that? She had assumed that their kiss that morning had been due to a temporary hallucination by David, but she didn't have any such excuse for this little interlude of theirs. And, David's motives aside—what the hell was she doing? She hadn't exactly pushed him away.
Quite the contrary as a matter of fact.
Sure, she had set out to seduce clueless David Nolan not too long ago, but that was for the purpose of torturing Snow White with the possibility of satisfying, yet meaningless, sex. That scenario had been the result of careful calculation.
There was nothing calculated about her current situation. She hadn't planned a deliberate seduction, but it was still meaningless, right? It had to be. Anything with David had to be meaningless. Her meaning had been lost long ago.
Clearly, it had just been too long since she'd scratched this particular itch, and Snow White's husband was attractive. So, she'd lost her head for a bit. It didn't have to mean anything. She'd just have to make sure it didn't happen again. While she was perfectly happy to seduce pre-curse David Nolan, she couldn't have Henry angry with her for breaking up his favorite "True Love" couple. No, she shook her head; a few good—really good—kisses weren't worth it.
David was flabbergasted. What was wrong with him? This woman was doing nothing but trying to help him—help him get his wife and daughter back, no less—and he had accosted her twice in the same day. What was he thinking? Regina was gorgeous, certainly. Even now—especially now—he thought, as his eyes flitted over her disheveled appearance. But that was no excuse for his behavior. How could he do this to Snow? It didn't make any sense. He loved her. He had woken her up from a sleeping curse—administered by the woman he had just been ravishing—with true love's kiss. What was going on? And what was all of this crackling yellow magic?
"Did you put me under a lust spell?" David asked her abruptly. It was the only explanation for why he felt so bewitched by her. For why he would betray his wife like this.
Regina looked like he had just slapped her, and she immediately closed herself off. In a carefully neutral tone, her face betraying nothing, she said, "No. And you can be sure I didn't, because, if I had, those books hitting the floor would not have brought us to our senses, and you definitely wouldn't think to ask that question." Horrid man. As if she had ever needed to use a lust spell.
"We would be otherwise occupied," she said the words deliberately, moving back into his personal space in an almost predatory manner. She was rewarded when she heard his breath hitch and saw the pulse in his neck quicken. Lust spell, indeed, she thought smugly.
David instantly regretted the question. How could he hurt her like this? He had accused her of something deceitful and malicious when she had been nothing but stalwart in his quest to regain his family. "Regina . . ." he spoke her name apologetically, almost pleading.
But her walls were back up and stronger than ever. She moved away from him briskly, straightening her clothes and adjusting her appearance to remove all evidence of their . . . indiscretion.
She cut off his apology, "You're picking up Henry?" It was more of a statement than a question, and her business-like, authoritative manner was more reminiscent of the pre-curse mayor than the thoughtful, clever woman he had begun to know and value.
At his nod, she said, "Good. Tell him I love him." Without looking at him, she strode purposefully out the door, leaving David alone in the library.
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"Need any help with that?" Regina asked, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed.
"Of course not," Granny replied, as she struggled to put the mangled freezer door back onto its broken hinges.
Regina smirked. "My mistake," she said dryly. "Would you like any help?"
Granny leaned the door against its frame and looked at the dangerous woman in her pantry. At least now she understood why her dining room had gone suddenly quiet a moment ago. Judging by the sounds of clanking silverware, however, her patrons had recovered from the surprise of seeing the evil queen.
Granny gave her an appraising look. Regina was certainly not at ease, but she didn't seem aggressive.
"Sure," Granny said. Red probably wouldn't be back until morning anyway, and she wanted the use of her freezer. Her lasagna needed to go back on the menu.
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David was berating himself as he walked to pick up Henry. Some charming prince he was, kissing his wife's mortal enemy while she was enduring heaven knows what in another dimension. How could he do this? Even under the curse, he hadn't betrayed Snow in such a way. She, in the meantime, had slept with Whale, he thought bitterly. I mean, he had been with Kathryn, but he had thought he was married to her . . . .
Why had he been immune to Regina while under her curse—when giving in would have been forgivable—only to now be acutely drawn to her—when he should know better than to act on it?
He knew the answer to this particular musing, even if he wasn't ready to contemplate the implications. Even in his cursed state, he had recognized that the mayor was all artifice and that her actions were carefully selected. Genuine emotion was absent from his interactions with Mayor Mills.
Regina, on the other hand—the Regina that had approached him to work together, the Regina that had chased his toad-self around her house, the Regina that had allowed him to savor her mouth—she was real.
She still held tightly to a private pain—of that he was sure—but the glimpses of emotion she allowed him to witness were honest. And in those moments when she allowed him to see pieces of who she really was . . . well, she was enchanting.
How could he do this to her? She was working to redeem herself. To become a better person for her son. To do the right thing and help him bring back Emma and Snow. And he repaid her with an inability to restrain himself and an accusation that it was her fault. How gallant.
"Sorry," he responded automatically as he bumped into someone walking the opposite direction. He looked up, "Archie, hi."
"Hello, David," the town's cricket turned therapist replied, pausing in his walk. "How are you?"
David laughed the sound of someone who did not find anything funny. "Not good, Archie, not good at all," he answered honestly. "How are you?"
"Better than you, I suspect," Archie replied. "Want to talk about it?" he offered gently.
David shook his head. "Not today." He didn't know what to think, let alone what to say. "I might be in a love triangle with my 'true love' and the Evil Queen who tried, but didn't really try, to kill us both," he blurted out.
Clearly, something was wrong with his impulse control today.
Archie's eyebrows hit his hairline, but, in a true credit to his professionalism, he recovered a carefully neutral expression almost immediately. "That sounds . . . complicated," he said diplomatically as he indicated a bench for them to sit on.
This could take a while.
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Fixing the door with Regina was going surprisingly well. Reshaping and rehanging a freezer door was definitely a two-woman job, and the queen was an impressively hard worker, particularly for royalty. She also seemed to know her way around a set of tools.
Grumpy, having heard about the broken door, had even dropped by with Astrid to see if Granny needed any help, but the two women were handling the repair well on their own. Just as well, since Henry was next door buying ice cream, and they needed to return home in case David came by to pick him up.
Amazing, Regina thought as she watched the couple leave. She takes ten years off his appearance. Even as her heart ached, a tiny part of her acknowledged that it was nice to see such unassuming true love. For true love it most certainly was. She hadn't witnessed it breaking a few of her more powerful curses without learning to recognize it.
"Red told me, you know," Granny said, as she and Regina continued to hammer the metal back into a mostly door-like shape.
"Told you what?" Regina replied, deliberately misunderstanding her.
"That you like me," Granny said simply with a small smirk.
Regina let out a huff. "I knew she wasn't to be trusted," she muttered.
Granny just grinned wider.
"We are not going to hug this out," Regina snapped, but without her usual abrasiveness, "So if you could just hold this door in place, that would be helpful."
" 'Hug it out,'" Granny parroted. "I wouldn't dream of it," she said, the grin still plastered on her face.
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David shook his head at the bench Archie indicated. "I don't know why I just told you that, but I really don't want to talk about it."
Archie nodded in understanding. "Well," he said, "If you ever do," he shrugged, implying the obvious invitation.
"Thanks, Archie," David said, clapping him on the shoulder.
"You're welcome," Archie said as David began to continue toward Grumpy's. "Oh, and David?"
"Yes?" David asked.
"Regina . . ." Archie struggled with what to say. He suspected that the prince didn't know that Regina was subjecting herself to regular therapy, and he didn't want to violate her doctor-patient confidentiality, however fictional his medical license might be.
"Just, don't be too hard on her," Archie said. "She could use a friend." He might have crossed a line with that comment, but he didn't believe the broken queen was irredeemable, and if the man in front of him was falling in love with her, then he could influence how difficult Regina's redemption would be . . . or whether it happened at all.
"And cut yourself some slack as well," Archie added. "You might've been in a coma for most of it, but you still spent twenty-eight years not married to or remembering Snow. You're allowed to be confused."
"Thanks, Archie," David said with feeling, returning Archie's reassuring smile with one of genuine gratitude.
As both men went on their way, David continued his walk to Grumpy's with no less to think about, but with his load a little easier to carry.
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The diner long closed, Granny and Regina stood back, admiring their work. The freezer door was reattached, and the seal was appropriately tight. Not bad considering it had been severely mauled by a wolf the night before.
Granny nodded in approval and turned to her unexpected assistant. "Want a nightcap?" She wasn't born yesterday. The proud woman beside her was clearly avoiding going home to a large, empty house. Granny thought helping her avoid Henry's empty bedroom for a little while longer was a fair trade for a few hours hard labor.
"Sure," Regina said. "What are you having?" She grinned broadly as Granny held up a bottle of amber liquid and headed toward the counter.
"I still can't believe your lasagnas are frozen," Regina told Granny as she poured the liquor into tumblers. "And you don't reheat with magic?"
Granny chuckled, "Nope. They are just that good."
Regina nodded her head in agreement. "That they are."
The two women drank in—relatively—companionable silence for a few moments. It had been a bizarre and hectic day, even by fairy tale standards, and the break was welcome. This was why she liked Granny, Regina thought. The woman understood the value of quiet.
When their glasses were emptied, Granny spoke.
"He's not yours, you know," she said bluntly.
The fact that Granny's statement could apply to Henry or David was not lost on Regina. But both knew the diner owner was referring to Snow White's charming prince.
"I know," Regina replied, looking down at her hands. Mine is dead.
"Thanks for the drink," she said as she stood and began buttoning her coat.
Granny just nodded and washed the tumblers.
Regina was nearly out the door when she decided to turn around and speak.
"Do you have any fresh rosemary you'd be willing to sell me?" she asked abruptly. "My herb garden was recently trampled by an angry mob, and, as you know, fresh herbs make all the difference." In cooking and in magic.
Baffled, but having no reason to object to the woman's request, Granny asked "How much to do you need?"
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A/N: I hope y'all aren't too mad at me for the Evil Charming roller coaster in this chapter. Hopefully the cameos by Granny and Archie made up for it a bit. Thanks for hanging in there with me, and please review! Chapters 13 and 14 will follow within the next couple days.