Tears welled in Regina's eyes as she sat in her car. She could smell the rain that was just getting ready to be unleashed on the small town even though the windows were rolled up. She was glad for it, maybe it would obscure her tears. She glanced over at the lather bound book sitting in the passenger seat and felt her gut clench and the tears slip down her cheeks.

She regretted the day she had ever seen that stupid book. She was going to make sure to burn it to ashes as soon as she could. Emma was an intuitive, she had no doubt about that, but maybe she was too good to smell the deception when it was present.

It had been almost four weeks since their attempts to use the spell to conceive and she had been concerned that if they tried again that they ensure they were actually doing things properly. Begrudgingly, she had made her way to Gold's pawn shop and showed him the spell.

Immediately he had recognized the spell and the book. The book had been intended to deceive, created by a dark one long ago. Some spells were real, and some were fake. Discrete marking on each page indicated its veracity and the spell they had been attempting was most decidedly fake. She had not revealed anything about the situation to Gold, only asked about the book. Giving knowledge to that imp was always a bad idea.

Now she had to tell Emma, and that thought made her stomach hurt. Things had been so nice between them in the last couple of weeks, relaxed even. After the window for spell attempts had closed they had actually not spent much time obsessing on whether or not they had been successful. They had lunch dates, watched movies together on the couch, cooked together, and it had been great. This would crush Emma, just crush her. She felt deceived and angry. She wanted to rip someone's heart out for this. She wiped her tears and grabbed the book off the seat. This damn spell book would be a good start. She ripped it open and gripping each corner began to start to pull it apart. She nearly jumped out of her seat when the passenger door swung open.

"What are you doing?" Emma asked. She leaned into the car, and appraised the situation. Regina sat open mouthed, her face tear stained and grasping the open spell book with two hands.

"I don't like elvish-latin whatever either but its not that bad." She slipped into the passenger seat and closed the door. She was wearing a red turtleneck sweater and a black Sheriff's Department windbreaker over it. She took the book delicately from Regina and set it on the dashboard.

"What's going on?" She look over her shoulder at the pawn shop the car was parked in front of and back at Regina. "Did Gold do something to upset you?"

Regina nodded. "You could say that. I was worried about that spell and considering we may have to do it again I…"

"Don't worry about it," Emma said, cutting her off.

"Emma, we know that we probably had it wrong and I thought he may know why."

"Well, I know you would probably prefer not to do it again, since you're not a fan of wands," she said, giving Regina's lap a little pat. "So I went and got a test."

"But it's too early," the brunette insisted.

"Not for blood tests." She leaned up a bit she she could reach into her jacket pocket and retrieved a folded paper which she handed over to Regina.

The mayor was horribly confused. She took the paper and unfolded it, looking at a printout of rows of numbers and acronyms she did not understand. One row was underlined in blue pen.

"The underlined row; if I'm pregnant than that number should be greater than 5," Emma explained. "Which as you can see it is."

"But…I don't understand. That spell, I…he said…" She looked at the paper in her hands and back at Emma. "It shouldn't have worked."

"Well, he must be wrong because there's the evidence. We're pregnant."

"We're pregnant," Regina repeated numbly. She looked at the paper and then her eyes snapped back to Emma. "We're pregnant!" she exclaimed.

Emma smiled. Regina was kinda cute when she was confused. "Yes!"

Regina managed to somehow to practically get herself into Emma's lap when she threw her arms around her.

Emma enthusiastically hugged her back. Regina slipped back into her seat and looked at the paper again.

"He's wrong, he's wrong! What now? Did you make your follow up appointments? What about vitamins? Should we go get those now? We should go get those right away."

Emma laughed, flashing her dimples. "I do need to get those, yes."

"Then let's go." She grabbed the keys in the ignition and gave them a turn to no effect. She frowned at the steering wheel and tried again, and again nothing.

"Do you have the clutch in?"

The mayor slumped back in the seat and closed her eyes. "Oh my God."

"How about we walk? It's nice out and its not that far."

Emma was enjoying watching how spun out Regina seemed to be, she was practically loopy she was so excited. Her head must be spinning, she thought. She knew Regina had had her doubts about this even working so to have evidence that it did appeared to have rocked her world. She didn't know what Gold had said about the spell but Emma knew it didn't matter. Their magic was enough, it always had been. She took the other woman's hand as they made their way down the sidewalk, past the dark Mercedes and her Sheriff's patrol car that was parked behind it.

"I didn't see you pull up," she commented. "I was so preoccupied."

"I noticed. I was on my way to see you about the test and saw your car here. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going to have it done, I didn't want to get your hopes up."

"Do you realize what we've done, Emma? It's unbelievable, it's…unheard of. " She took a deep breath and linked her arm with Emma's, pulling her closer. "I can't believe it."

"It's a little overwhelming. Want to get ice cream after we pick up the vitamins?"

Regina nodded.


Life went back to normal; normal for Storybrooke that was. They decided not to tell anyone for now considering how early it was in the pregnancy, they were both realists and understood a miscarriage was always a possibility. That's why they worked together, they weren't starry eyed romantics like Snow and her dopey husband, Regina thought.

And speak of the devil. The phone on her desk began to ring with a call from none other.

"Yes, Snow?" she answered cheerily. "Talked to any birds today?"

"I need to talk to you," the voice on the other end said sharply.

"Okay, what about?"

Her office door banged open and a young woman entered, out of breathe and her dark hair coming loose from her pony tail.

"Miss Mills, ugh, ma'am. Sorry to barge in but I just got a call from someone about an ogre in the woods! Says he knows right where it is, just saw it!"

"Snow, I'll call you back. Grab your bow." She hung up the phone. "Where?"

"Should I call the sheriff's office?"

"No, I'll handle it. Tell me where."


After a trek through the woods and a rather unexpected admission to Snow Regina stood in a dark cave, staring at a bearded ogre that stood outlined in the shadows. Snow was behind her, bow drawn and arrow aimed. Regina however made no such obvious moves.

"You are smaller than I expected, your majesty," a deep voice said that rumbled through the cave.

Regina stood erect and queen like in her posture. "Well, I imagine most people are in relation to you."

He stepped closer, his breathe sounding like bellows. He had red hair and an unruly beard. "You are allies with the bandit now? The traitor?"

"Things are different here. How long have you been here?" She noticed he was wearing a heavy green canvas tarp with a hole for his head and what appeared to be cable tied around the middle as a crude belt.

"I pay no attention to such things," he grumbled.

"You have been out more, people have noticed. You dented a car."

"Thorn in foot, needed something to lean on. Looking for something to eat."

"Are there any more of you?" Snow asked. She eased her hold on the bow but just barely.

"No," he said.

"Hmm," Regina tapped her finger to her lip in thought. "If you promise not to eat anyone would you be interested in a job of sorts? We could definitely improve your living accommodations and get you fed regularly. It has to be better than the way you're living now."

"Your Majesty will keep the townsfolk from killing me?"

"I will, but if you kill anyone I'll turn you into an ogre candle, got it?" She flared a fireball in her hand for emphasis. It lit up the cave with a flash and then was gone.

"What's your name?"

"Jimvaristhine."

"Nice to meet you. This is Snow White, as you know. Mind if I call you Jim?"


A/N-Now we are back to where Chapter 1 was. Thank you to everyone whom has left comments and followed, it really keeps my enthusiasm for this story alive. Sorry my chapters are so small, I think I get impatient with my own story :)