I feel I should note that I work for a very large company that does it's main business over the Christmas period, hence why I've been rather silent of late (I've been working a lot). Heading into January, fic will be more frequent, I hope.

Killian woke slowly, blinking rapidly as the sun hit his face. He was sleeping with his face to the window, crediting Ruby with a faint smile as beams of golden sunlight crept across the carpet that was as hideous in the day as it had been the night before. The bed linen wasn't far better, improved only by the soft olive skin curled amongst the sheets beside him.

She groaned, covering her face with her forearm in order to remain asleep. No doubt she had a hangover as his own head wasn't entirely clear and she'd had far more to drink than he had. He watched her for a moment, waiting for her to wake but when she didn't - lying on her back with her upper half and one leg exposed above the sheets - he grinned.

Killian pulled himself up onto his elbow, smirking at the feeble attempt she'd made to shield her eyes and the adorable frown that creased her brow. He took the unguarded chance to study her from the top of her head to her toes, cataloging scars and tattoos and her near-invisible tan-line.

Beneath the arm she had raised to her head, he realised there was a thin line of text that ran from her armpit to her hip, across the strong ripples of her ribs. "There's no such thing as happily ever after." Is what it read and he found himself looking to her face, wondering if it's what she truly believed or if it was the product of a heart broken one too many times.

He smirked, noticing that the roses and apples he'd seen the night before was an intricately detailed vine that covered the majority of her left rib, touching the curve beneath her breast and disappearing behind her shoulder.

He trailed his finger gently along a vine leaf, smiling as she squirmed away, ticklish under his touch. She didn't pull away and he took that as invitation to continue his ministrations. He followed the stem of the vine until it ended at the base of her ribs, letting his finger trace it's own pattern down, circling around her belly button, across her hip and down until his whole palm covered the heart she had inside an ornate crown on the front of her left thigh.

There was a ribbon across the crown within which there was a line of text that made his lips quirk.

"Queen of nothing."

His heart ached for her, wondering what part of her heart these images and words had stemmed from.

Regina's eyes fluttered open slightly, protesting against the bright sunlight that was streaming across the room, casting golden shadows across their bodies; soaking the stark white sheets in golds and yellows and warmth. For a brief moment she smiled at him; it was a soft, sated smile that touched her eyes and glittered before him like a star. He returned it, dropping his eyes to her lips for just a moment, wishing to kiss those lips just once more.

He followed the line of her throat down, catching a glimpse of the faint red marks that marred her flesh; a sure sign that the previous night hadn't been a dream. Her chest rose and fell, breathing deeply and uncaring of how she lay bare before him.

It was then that he saw it. Entirely unadorned and lacking in the fanfare and colour of the rest of her artwork, situated low on her sternum in the valley of her breasts and small enough to disappear beneath the wire of any bra she could wear, was the most unremarkable of tattoos. It was small, able to be covered by the pad of his thumb and consisted of a thin-lined love heart with a single name inside.

He looked into her eyes for a moment, attempting to read her expression but it was entirely blank. Her smile was gone, replaced with a blank, distant stare; building up to a wall that was about to shut down.

Never having been a man of tact, nor a master of thought before speech, he asked the question that lingered on his lips like a curse.

"Who's Henry?"

Regina's expression closed off. For the split-second between the moment she registered his question and her decision to flee, he saw the tears that welled in her eyes. He thought for a moment that Henry may have been the man she had envisioned the previous night; the man that in her mind, she'd been kissing instead of him. But her reaction was far too violent for the two men to be the same.

At the name she was scrambling from the bed, not even meeting his eye. "I have to go." She muttered, tugging on her jeans without even caring for the panties she couldn't even find. She pulled her bra on, remembering suddenly - with an eye at the window - that her shirt had tumbled to the first floor.

Killian tripped out of the bed after her, getting tangled in the sheets as he desperately tried to follow. "Regina, wait!" He called, stumbling over the sheet as he tried to pull on a pair of sweat pants, tripping down the stairs as she dashed away from him, clutching her handbag to cover her chest.

Granny was in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for her guests and at the sound of thumping on the stairs she turned, with a spatula in her hand, just in time to see Regina stumble to the base of the stairs.

Regina froze where she was for a moment and the two women shared a look; in her eyes, Granny could see the pain she'd seen far too often in Regina's eyes. She knew it all too well. "Regina!" She shouted, dropping her spatula to the countertop as the young woman dashed for the front door.

Seconds later Killian came bumbling down the stairs, grasping for the front door to desperately chase after her. "Don't." Granny halted him with her strong hand on his bicep. He tried to shake free of her but she wouldn't release him; standing firm as they watched Regina dash around the outside of the house - her figure a blur past the windows - to where her shirt had fallen the night before. She ran back around to the front, grabbing her jacket from where she'd left it on the stoop. "Don't." Granny reiterated in a gentler tone, squeezing his arm to soothe him but Killian's eyes followed Regina until she disappeared from view.

"Where were you?" David asked as he walked out the back of the club, seeing Regina with her feet propped up on a mixing table, nursing a large mug of coffee, steaming in her lap.

The club was otherwise empty; Neal and Emma didn't open up until later in the afternoon, leaving the morning for David and the band, setting up and taking down equipment and on certain days, like that day, holding auditions for a new drummer. Mr Gold, the patron of the club and Neal's morally questionable father, had struck a deal with David - either they find a new drummer, or they find a new venue.

Regina had a distant look in her eyes - eyes that were rimmed red from crying - and David frowned down at the bottle sitting on the floor by the leg of her chair. He needed her sharp for their slew of interviews and he knew if she'd already started, his chances for keeping her sober were slim. "Really? Regina, it's barely lunchtime and that bottle's already half-full."

"I prefer to think of it as half empty." She groused, taking a sip of her spiked coffee, breathing in the vapors of the warm whiskey as she slouched down further in her chair.

"What happened?" He spoke gently, pulling a stool under him so that he could sit close to her, awaiting her answer. "I came by your place this morning, but you weren't there."

She wouldn't meet his eye as she lied. "I left early."

"Regina," His voice held a warning tone.

Regina sighed. "I was fine, David. I promise."

He reached up to grip her chin gently, guiding her face to turn to him and she knew the look in his eyes. It was the expression that asked her, with his heart out on his sleeve, to look him in the eye and tell him that. So she did.

"I kept safe." Oddly enough, she found herself believing the statement, for even in the moments the previous night where reality shone through and she met the sharp eyes of the dark-haired irishman, she hadn't been afraid. He wasn't Daniel - no one would ever be Daniel again - but he had tried, for her sake, to be as close as.

Waking in the sunlight with his eyes on her had been unexpectedly pleasant. She'd even thought for a moment, that there could be a chance she could get used to being scrutinised like that; adored for her scars. But the reality of it was too heavy and too much. At the sound of Henry's name it had been impossible not to break down, no matter how hard she tried.

"Then what is it?" David gently brushed a hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear and Regina sighed, leaning into his hand for just a moment. "You've been crying."

"Just a bad day, that's all."

"Reg,"

She sighed. "I," She swallowed and he could see the tears start to well in her eyes again. She pressed her lips tightly together, fighting it, but her throat constricted and her cheeks enflamed as she sobbed out the words. "I thought about Henry this morning."

David didn't waste a moment pulling her into his arms; Regina curled into a ball, pulling her legs up to her side as she wracked with painful sobs. She clung to him, practically crawling into his lap as he held her; arms tight like a vice so she'd know he wasn't about to drop her. He'd made that promise and he'd swore to himself that regardless of where their lives took them, the vow to always be there for her, was forever.

He soothed her, rubbing his hand up and down her back until the painful sobs became short whimpers muffled by his shirt. "It's alright, Regina." He smiled, kissing the top of her head. "It's alright to think about him."

"I can't do it without falling apart." She croaked. "It's been twelve years, David." She breathed heavily against his neck and he could feel the hot moisture of it, sending shivers down his back. "Will this pain ever go away?"

"I don't know," He spoke quietly and honestly, keeping his voice as level as he possibly could, even though he could feel his own composure starting to break. "I don't know if it can."

"So what do we do?"

He hugged her tighter, kissing her temple and soothing her hair with his broad hand. "We keep moving."

"Sometimes I just think of how beautiful he'd be, how smart," Her voice wavered. "He'd have been so smart, David, smarter than us."

"Smarter, more handsome, more talented." David agreed, his voice lowering to a whisper against her ear. "He'd have had the best of both of us."

"He did."

"Yes," David smiled against her ear. "He did."

David kept glancing in Regina's direction throughout the auditions. He knew she wanted to be there about as much as he did, but she was struggling to even feign attention as an ex-biker with a beer belly, wearing a shirt with Regina's face on it, beat the hell out of their drum kit with less finesse than a bull in a china shop.

It was in auditions like these, he was glad they had retired Daniel's set.

"Thank you," David nodded, scratching the man's name off the list as he smiled reassuringly. "We'll be in touch."

"Can I get an autograph, before I go?" The biker was six foot tall, had brick pillars for arms and was covered, from wrists to neck to ankles, in tattoos. His long, corkscrew beard had wisps of grey and the back of his bald head had two eyes, tattooed.

David looked to Regina, as the man looked to Regina, with hope in his eyes. He didn't want to piss the man off more than necessary. Perhaps if Regina could placate him with an autograph and a selfie, the blow of not getting the gig might not be as hard.

She continued to stare into space.

She was sitting with her legs propped up on a table, one straight and one bent. The wet-wash of her jeans reflected in the stage lights and the rest of her blended into the shadows. Lounging back in her chair, she had abandoned the coffee from earlier in the day and instead, cradled the almost empty bottle of whiskey against her stomach.

"Regina," David urged, but she didn't budge, lost in her own head. He turned his eyes back to the guy on stage, blinking up to see the burly man with an otherwise terrifying appearance, gushing at Regina. "I'll tell you what, she's not feeling great today. Come by the gig on Friday and you can have twenty minutes backstage to meet the whole band."

The tone-deaf biker beamed at him, jumping down from the stage to shake his hand before heading toward Regina who had turned her head up with a look of complete boredom. David diverted him, blocking his path gently and ushering him from the room.

Regina returned to staring into space.

"You've got to acknowledge some of them, Regina." David sighed and she shrugged her shoulders.

"Bring me one half as good as he was and i'll acknowledge them."

David dropped back down to his chair with a huff, picking up his clipboard as he threw her a reproachful look. It didn't matter though, because Regina had pressed her eyes closed, drained the last mouthful from her bottle and let her head sag over the back of the chair.

"Next up, Killian Jones."

"Don't tell me if it's another groupie, I don't wanna know." Regina groused, keeping her eyes closed and her head back.

David's eyes lit up immediately when the man walked out on stage, dressed unimpressively in black jeans, a stretched black t-shirt and a black leather jacket. No sign at all that the man was a Royals groupie, which eased David's apprehension. Perhaps, finally, this was a real audition.

David watched as Killian Jones looked out towards them, seeing a smirk touch his lips as he looked to Regina. She'd kept her eyes closed; she had no knowledge of the man's appearance but for the sound of his shoes on the creaky stage.

"When you're ready." David urged and he inclined his head before taking a seat behind the drum kit.

Without a word, Killian dropped them right in the bridge of the set they'd played the previous night, when he'd seen Regina for the first time. She sat up suddenly, her back as straight as an iron rod as the sound touched her ears.

Her eyes blinked open with excitement; finally, someone who could actually play. David watched her, surprised, when the look of excitement quickly dropped from her eyes and she stood up to leave.

"Regina wait!" He called after her, grabbing her arm.

"Not him."

"But he's good, Reg, come on. If we don't find someone today, Gold's going to sever our deal."

"Not. him." She ground out, glancing over David's shoulder at the expectant Irishman who'd stopped playing so suddenly when she'd stood up.

"I want him."

"I don't."

"He's in."

"He's not." Regina glared but David didn't back down.

"No."

"Regina," He sighed.

"David, no. Not him."

"If I may interject..." Killian started, but David and Regina spun around at the exact same time, their voices in perfect sync as they answered in unison.

"No!"

"Right." Killian tapped his drumsticks against his leg, sheepishly averting his eyes to the floor.

"David, he's only going to be trouble."

"Why?" David squeezed her arm gently. "How do you know him?"

Regina's hackles grew in defence and she flinched, looking away from his eyes. "I don't."

"So what's your problem?"

Regina threw her arms up in frustration, storming from the room in her rage and shoving a stack of empty milk-crates to the ground in her anger. She didn't have an appropriate argument that wasn't going to lead David straight to the truth. That this man had effected her.

"So…" Killian shrugged, still sitting behind the drum kit with a perplexed look on his face as David turned back around to face him, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

"You're in."

"Won't she kill me in my sleep, or something, if you make that call?"

David chuckled. "I'll handle Regina. You're the best we've heard all day and Regina knows it. Five percent of the takings for each gig, be here at least a half hour early for rehearsals and I'll speak to Neal about getting you some work in the club."

Killian opened his mouth to respond but David cut him off.

"Emma may have already mentioned you were staying at Granny's with nothing but an Oreo to your name."

Killian smirked, pointing his drumstick at the man. "I'll have you know, I have five bucks to my name and the Oreo was breakfast."

"Bit dramatic, don't you think?" The voice so close to her ear startled her and she jumped away, her shoulder hitting the grafittied wall of the club in the dingy loading dock. "Bit jumpy too." He smirked and Regina rolled her eyes. Dropping her cigarette to the ground, she stomped on it without uttering a word, before she stormed back into the club.

"Come on, Regina, give me a chance."

"David may have picked you to join the band and you may have been the best drummer we've heard all day, but that doesn't mean I ever have to talk to you."

"What happened to the Regina from this morning?" He frowned, his voice soft and just hurt enough to get her attention. She stopped walking away from him, frozen on the spot in the shadow between two narrow down-lights in an otherwise dim corridor.

"What happened to the soft, gentle Regina that smiled in the sunlight and snorted in her sleep?"

Regina's resolve wavered for just a moment as she slowly turned around to meet his eye. "She made a mistake."

"Did I do something wrong?"

Regina turned her eyes to the floor, avoiding his.

"Because if I said the wrong thing, Regina, I apologise. I'm an idiot, and I say the wrong thing more often than not," He released a deep sigh with the smallest smile twisting his lips upward. "But last night, you have to admit, was pretty amazing."

"It can't happen again." She turned to leave but he grabbed her arm and Regina stopped there, starring at his hand.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want it."

"If that was true, you'd be able to look me in the eye when you said it."

"Doesn't matter," Regina pulled her arm from his hold, looking him square in the eye with an intensity that had him pulling back. "You don't want this."

"You can't know that."

"I do." She shrugged, taking a step back and slowly wrapping her arms around herself; retreating inside her shell. He'd seen a glimpse of her that morning; he'd seen the beautiful woman that was hidden behind all of that incredible pain and he'd wanted her. For that split second, when she'd smiled and the sun had warmed their skin, he'd wanted her more than he'd ever wanted a single thing in his whole life.

Regina gasped loudly, stumbling back into the stage door as he accosted her. Her head hit the plywood, their teeth chattered together as his lips pressed hungrily to hers. He expected her to push him off, to shove him back and to slap him in the face; but in an instant she was kissing him back, biting his lip, pulling his hair and tugging on his shirt until he could hear the stitching splitting.

He wrapped his arms around her waist, his broad hands roaming the expanse of supple curves beneath weatherworn cotton and ripped denim. His fingernails found the stitching of her jeans at her thighs, scratching down the edges as she dragged herself up on her toes, breathing desperately through her nose as her full lips refused to release him.

"No," She quivered, struggling to push him away. They were both breathless and she couldn't bring herself to look at him as, with harsh, shuddering breaths, she held him at arms length.

"Regina, I…"

She cut him off with a soft voice, barely loud enough to make her stand. As she slipped out from between him and the door, making her way back down the hall. "No."

Regina sat with her feet dangling off the fire escape of her third storey apartment. The street below was bustling and the sound of bickering taxi's and pushy buses drowned out her nagging thoughts. Alone with her thoughts wasn't ever her favourite place to be which was why alone with vodka and silence always seemed so much more appealing.

She couldn't get his eyes out of her head. They were so bright, so blue and somehow, they were as damaged as her own. The thought pained her, because she knew there couldn't possibly be a way for them to help each other at all.

He was right. That night had been amazing and as she pressed her eyes closed and remembered the sun kissed morning, she realised how special it really had been. She hadn't even known his name; he was an irishman camped out on Granny's porch with a working lighter and a whole in the knee of his jeans. His near-raven hair stuck up in all directions and his eyes were as blue as the ocean. As deep as, as well, if she felt like being poetic.

She took a drag of her cigarette before pulling the cork out of a bottle of chardonnay she'd been keeping for a dinner party, with her teeth. It had been David's idea to have all the band around to her place, to prove she was still human. But having brought the Chardonnay and handed it to her with all but a knife at his back, she knew - by the choice of wine alone - that it was Mary's idea.

Regina took a long sip. "Bottom's up, Mary-Margaret." She toasted the sky and chuckled to herself when she didn't get a response.

"You know, it's one thing to get drunk in a group but to drown yourself in Chardonnay on your own is a bit sad."

"Get lost, David." She grumbled, refusing to turn around and look at him, standing in the middle of her living room with his hands in his pockets.

"I came to see how you were. I haven't seen you in nearly a week."

"I haven't missed a gig."

"You know what I mean."

"He's good, I'll admit that; wonderful addition to the group." She took another sip of the wine. "Doesn't mean I have to speak to him."

"And that means you stop speaking to me too?"

Regina shrugged her shoulders and David sighed. He let his eyes roam around her apartment. She didn't have any pictures on the walls, there was a piano in the far corner and a sofa with a tattered old blanket draped over the back. There was a stack of records sitting haphazardly in a pile next to her foster father's old record player and a small cactus she'd managed to murder through neglect.

The whole apartment smelled of cigarette smoke mixed with lavender, an odd combination that had him tilting his head at her back in confusion.

"Come on, you can't avoid him forever."

"I can."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"We slept together." She blurted out and for a second, David's eyes widened before his lips pulled in a gentle smile and his expression softened.

"I know."

Regina spun around, nearly knocking her bottle off the edge of the fire escape. "That rat-bastard!" She hissed, scrambling to her feet and tripping back through the window; she got her foot caught on the sill and stumbled against the couch before she could right herself.

"He didn't tell me, Regina."

"Then how did you…?"

She was looking up at him with wide, nervous eyes and he took pity on her, reaching out to grasp her hand as he guided her to the sofa. "We were together all through high school, we were married for three years and we've been friends for nearly twenty." He smirked, touching his knuckle to her cheek bone affectionately. "You think I don't know the face you get."

"What face?"

David's expression grew into a full grin and she could feel the laughter bubbling to the surface. "You know the face."

"I don't believe I do."

"Well," He cleared his throat. "Let me remind you." He repositioned himself on the sofa, pulling his leg up so that he could turn to face her, his eyes intense but the smirk on his lips betraying his mirth. "Two weeks before senior prom, you had some sort of fight with your foster mom and we drove up to the Hollywood sign. Just the two of us," Regina's cheeks were starting to burn and she averted her eyes, looking down at the foil wrapping around the neck of the bottle in her lap. "Wide back seat of an old Cadillac, a little bit of stolen beer, Heart playing on the radio…"

"Okay," Regina laughed, smacking at his chest to shut him up. "Okay, I get it."

"You had a different look when you were with me, with Daniel too."

"I don't love him."

"I know, it's not that face either," David looked down, fiddling with the edge of the tattered blanket. "but he likes you."

Regina shrugged. "I don't know, David. I'm in too many pieces," She met his eye. "And so's he."

"Maybe that's a good thing."

"Or maybe it's the worst." She sighed. "The last thing I need is to end up with someone just like me." She dropped her head to the back of the sofa, starring up at the ceiling. David reached for her locket, resting it's weight in the palm of his hand before he flipped the latch open.

Inside was the tiniest wisp of soft, chestnut hair beside the image of a regal, beautiful woman and a man with a strong jaw and dark, warm eyes. "They'd want you to be happy, Regina."

"They'd want a lot of things, if they were alive."

"Regina,"

"That's just it, David. Everything i've ever had worth a damn has been taken from me. My parents," She snapped the locket shut and opened her eyes. "Henry, Daniel," She sobbed. "Even you,"

"Hey," He shuffled closer, wrapping his arms around her. "I'm never going anywhere, you know that."

"That's not the point, David."

"Well, maybe we should focus on you." He gripped her hand a little tighter, pulling it into his lap. "I know you're not happy."

"What clued you in, Sherlock?"

David gave her a reproachful look and Regina glanced away with a smirk. "I don't like seeing you like this, Reg. I don't like walking into your dressing room when you're half-baked and so drunk you can't see, right before we go on stage." He guided her eyes back to him with his finger curled gently under her chin. Tears shone in her eyes but she didn't let them fall. "You have a wonderful talent, Regina and I don't want to walk into that room one day and find you in a state we can't come back from."

"David I,"

"No," He cut her off. "Before you tell me we're not there yet I want to make something perfectly clear." He bopped her nose. "I love you, Regina," She smiled shakily. "I always have and you know, I always will. So I don't want to lose you to this. You know we're there; we've been there for quite some time."

Regina's eyes dropped to their hands and she breathed out, ignoring the lone tear that trickled down her cheek.

"What do I do?"

Leaning over, David pressed his lips to her temple and she could feel the corners of his smile against her hairline. His breath on her face was warm as he spoke, so quietly and gently. "You ask for help."

"David,"

"All you have to do is ask, Regina."

She looked up at him with eyes that had turned red and puffy from a mix of tears and chardonnay that was too expensive to be drinking alone on a rusted old fire-escape and she let out a sudden, shuddering sob.

"Help me."

To Be Continued.