A/N: I hope everyone is having a nice Good Friday - for those of you who're celebrating it. I'm having kind of a good friday myself, writing, reading your lovely reviews and being happy that you love my story. Thank you all so much.
Henry opened the door for his grandfather.
"Hey, David," he greeted him.
"Hey, Henry. How are you?" David walked through the door into the wide atrium of the mayor's mansion. He gripped the boy's shoulder companionably for a moment, smiling at him. But the smile didn't quite reach his eyes and they didn't linger on Henry. Instead David was starting to look around the hall. "Where's Regina?"
"They're up...," Henry started saying but then they both heard voices from the upper landing as Emma and Regina made their way down to them.
"Hey, David," Emma greeted. She was holding her lover's hand and it didn't feel quite as naturally as it wanted to appear. Maybe they would have come down holding hands even if David hadn't been there to see it but David seeing it gave it an additional meaning, possibly even turned it into a provocation. But Emma's father did what he'd done the last few weeks with everything he didn't like seeing - he ignored it.
"Hello, David," Regina said.
He nodded in the general direction of them but didn't say anything.
Emma and Regina reached the hall and they looked David up and down.
"Did this outfit come with a hat and bow and arrow?" Emma asked looking at the green tunic her father was wearing.
"Does it really look so much like a costume?" her father asked looking down at himself.
"Well, the leather pants and boots kinda make it a little better," Emma answered.
They had agreed that Regina and David should go back to the Enchanted Forest in simple clothes, clothes that would make them look more like peasants than the royalty they both were. But Storybrooke wasn't really equipped for the peasant life in Fairy Tale Land and the only thing David had found on such short notice was a Robin Hood costume at a local shop. He'd refused to wear the stockings that went with it but the green of the shirt still didn't look like anything anyone would have worn in their home realm.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that your dress fits the occasion perfectly," he commented on Regina's outfit.
"That was Ruby's doing. She remembered that Belle had some dresses from our land. I went there this morning," Regina told him.
"Hm," David simply made and then they were standing around a little awkwardly.
"Why didn't mom come with you, I thought she was gonna be here?" Emma asked after a short moment.
"She's gonna be here later. She wanted to talk to Gordon about something or other."
Emma nodded.
David was readjusting the belt that held his scabbard and sword.
"You don't happen to have a cloak, do you?" Regina asked him when she noticed it.
"It's too warm for a cloak," David gave back.
"That may be but that sword looks valuable and could attract thieves."
"So what do you want me to do? Leave it here? Now that would be really convenient, wouldn't it?" he rose to the criticism.
"David," Emma warned.
"My mom's not trying to kill you!" Henry yelled at David and they all turned to him.
"Of course not," Regina said and put her arms around the boy. "It's okay, Henry. We're all... under a lot of pressure. And David didn't mean that," she told him.
"Yes, he did," Henry answered in a low but angry voice.
"I'm sorry," David said. "Maybe we should call this off."
"No," Emma said. "This needs to be done and it should be done by the two of you. It's your kingdom, David, and it's Regina's magic that'll get you back there. You need each other, whether you like it or not."
David looked from Emma to Regina. Then he looked at Henry. He nodded.
"Alright, let's do this then," he said.
Regina took a deep breath, then she took the silver cube from her bag. She stepped in front of the full-length mirror and touched the cube with her index finger. The cube morphed into a small pyramid with a glowing green stone at the top. Regina aimed it at the mirror and the surface rippled, the image changed from what it mirrored in the mansion to Regina's private quarters at the castle.
"Impressive," David said.
Regina touched the pyramid with her index finger again and it morphed back into a cube. She turned.
"It's a simple spell but effective. You know how to do this, right?" she asked Emma.
"I'd still rather you take it with you, just in case," the blonde said.
"If something happens to us, the cube could get lost and you would never be able to open another portal to... find us, Emma. This stays with you. You do know how to use it, right?"
Emma nodded slowly as Regina placed the cube into her hands. They held onto it together for a moment and Regina smiled confidently at her lover.
"Good," she said. She lay a hand on Emma's cheek and then kissed her.
David turned away from them and stepped to the mirror, meaning to hurry their departure. He hadn't come here to see the Evil Queen show him that she had powers over Emma he couldn't even begin to understand.
"David?" Emma said and he turned. She walked over to him and hugged him. "Be careful and... bring her back to me," she asked of him.
He looked into her eyes. There was love there, so open, so vulnerable and yet so strong. And it wasn't just Emma's love for Regina, there was love for him and Henry. He felt overwhelmed by the feeling behind those green eyes that were so much like her mother's.
"I'll do what I can," he promised around the lump in his throat and she gave him a smile.
David turned to Regina who was standing with Henry behind him.
"Ready?"
She nodded and he stepped through the mirror. Regina followed him but turned back to her family one last time:
"I love you two," she said. "Or three." Then she stepped through the mirror and was gone.
Regina felt an exhilirating tremor run through her as she entered her castle. She was home and for a moment, she felt like spreading her arms and twirling around and laughing from the giddy feeling in her stomach. But then she looked back through the mirror and saw Emma and Henry standing there, both with the same worried expression on their faces. She smiled back at them and put her hand to where the glass should have been.
"I'll be back," she said, knowing that they couldn't hear her but that they would be able to read the words from her lips.
"We should set out as soon as possible. Is there something you need from here?" David asked from behind her and she was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes at him.
"No, but there's something you'll need. Come with me," she told him and lead the way out of her chambers. She walked along the corridors like the queen she's been here and it worried David a little that she felt so at home once again - even after 30 years. Something else worried him, too. While the whole realm had been at sleep while the curse lasted, it had been awake for about two years now, yet no one seemed to have entered the castle and Regina didn't behave like she had expected anyone to.
"Why is no one here?" he asked ominously and she half-turned at him while still keeping her pace.
She smiled.
"I sealed the castle. Nobody can enter it from outside, I've seen to that."
"So while everything else was destroyed by the curse, you made sure your own castle wouldn't even get entered by anyone that you felt didn't belong here?" he asked.
"That is correct," she told him proudly.
"Even though you didn't plan to return?"
"I thought that there might be a time I'd be back. I just didn't know when that would be and I wanted... to come back to my castle, with my things. Is that so hard to believe?"
"No, it's actually rather typical," he said.
He didn't ask any more questions until they had made their way to where Regina had set out to. They were in the guards' quarters now, David could tell by the way these were set up, the armory around the place. Regina entered a dormitory.
"There should be something for you to wear in those chests," she pointed. "Maybe you can find a scabbard that doesn't look like it belonged to a king. You can leave yours here and we can pick it up when we leave again."
She looked at him and he nodded slowly.
"Good, meet me in my garden when you're finished," she told him and left.
David found Regina where she had said she'd be. What she had referred to as a garden was really a stone terrace with a hole in the center where Regina's apple tree had stood. She was sitting on a bench facing away from the castle and toward the Enchanted Forest.
He came down the steps from her chamber and approached her quietly. He didn't mean to startle her, he was just so taken by the view of... home that he walked almost reverently to where she sat. He stood beside the bench overlooking the realm.
"It's beautiful," he said.
"From up here at least," she said and he looked at her questioningly. "It might not be when we go and see it. Things will have changed, maybe there's fighting, maybe a war or two. We can't see that from here," she explained.
He nodded.
"We should probably go," she said rising from her seat.
"Really?" he asked surprised and she looked at him quizzically. "I thought you would try to... talk some sense into me again as soon as we came here."
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"I have nothing to say to you," she said.
"You're not even going to try to win me over to... your perverted idea of a family?"
"Perverted?" she asked.
"You and Emma are practically related," he said with a slight smile and it was clear he was trying to get a raise out of her.
Regina turned toward the view of the country again. She looked out over it, taking a deep breath. To David she seemed calm, in complete control of her emotions but Regina felt a darkness stirring deep inside her. She knew its danger, she knew how powerful it was and how seductive to even just imagine that she could hurl this little bastard through the air and onto the hard, unforgiving ground of his own kingdom by the flick of her wrists.
"Did you know that Leopold didn't like the view from this side of the castle? His chambers were at the other end of it, where the sun shines for most of the day, where there are fields and the sea?" Regina asked David and he shook his head. "Here on this side, it's darker, cooler in the summer, yes, but darker. And the view is of the forest, also dark. Leopold thought that if enemies were to attack they would come from here. If any kind of danger would befall his kingdom it would come from this side. And, of course, there were the poor of the poor living in the woods, thieves, murderers, beggars. Leopold was afraid of things lurking, of the dark, of an unknown enemy sneaking up on him."
"Snow never told me about that," David said into a pause Regina made.
"She didn't know. I'm fairly certain that even he wasn't conscious of this fear. But it became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. You know, I didn't choose these quarters for myself, Leopold appointed them to me after we got married. He wouldn't let me live in his beloved first wife's chambers next to his. And so, the enemy did come from the dark - the darkness within his own home."
"Are you trying to say that by giving you the chambers on the north side of his castle Leopold made you kill him?" David asked with an unpleasantly condescending tone in his voice.
"No, but if you put a plant in a closet it will wilt and die. I didn't become the Evil Queen overnight, David. It was a gradual process. You don't know anything about it or me from that time, so stop pretending that you do. I'm happy right now, I'm happier than I've ever been in my whole life. If you want to take that from me - well, I won't let you. And I also won't let you put me in a closet to wilt and die inside. That's part of what happens when you debase my relationship to Emma. We're not related, we're in love. Deal with it or don't, I don't care. Just don't think that if you choose not to, you'll still have a right to be part of Emma's life. Or Henry's."
"I wondered how long it would take for the Evil Queen to appear once we were back here. It didn't take her long," David said.
Regina took a step toward him and for a moment his condescending smile seemed to falter as he reached for his weapon. But she merely looked up at him from up close.
"If you think this is the Evil Queen, we're in a lot of trouble should she actually make an appearance. Make no mistake, David, right now I'm just a lover and a mother, you're not ready for the Evil Queen. And neither am I," she told him and turned. She took the steps back to the castle and after a moment's hesitation David followed.
Emma and Snow were sitting in the mansion's kitchen where they were most likely to hear any noise coming from the hall. They hadn't made the decision to sit here consciously, it just felt like the best place to be for both of them. They were drinking hot chocolate because it was Emma's beverage of choice since she decided to give up her beloved coffee as long as she didn't know whether she was pregnant or not.
"Do you think they're going to be alright?" Snow said with a worried look toward the hall.
"I'm not sure. I mean... I don't think they're going to run into any trouble they can't handle but... if you ask me if they'll get along, I actually don't think so," Emma answered truthfully.
"And yet you wanted them to do this," her mother contemplated.
"The way I see it, this is their last chance to... overcome their hatred. If they don't then you will leave for the Enchanted Forest and we'll stay here and nothing else changes. Dad will be mad and maybe won't even visit. And if he does, Regina won't want to let him near me or Henry or... possible future children. That's not the kind of family I want."
Snow nodded. She smiled at Emma who had laid her arm protectively around her middle as she talked about 'possible future children.'
"Do you really think that... you're pregnant?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure... and yet not sure, you know, because... well, I've never made a magical baby and neither has Regina. Maybe it didn't take," Emma said and an adorable blush appeared on her cheeks.
"I don't want to pry but... how do you even make a 'magical baby'?" Snow asked and they looked at each other. They both started laughing, not because it was funny but because it was awkward and just a little comical to be even talking about this.
"Erm, well... I mean. It was very... intimate and... but it was basically... we lay our hands on my tummy and concentrated on what we wanted - a baby. It was intense and... it was like the whole room was just filled with love. It was overwhelming," Emma closed and looked at her mother for a reaction.
"It sounds... intense and... lovely."
"It was... it is. I can't describe the way Regina makes me feel. I've never felt what I'm feeling for her. She's my love."
Snow nodded.
"And you don't worry at all for her going back to the Enchanted Forest?"
"Of course, I do. But I know she can handle it, just like I knew she could handle being at Rumple's shop. Regina is a remarkably strong woman but she doesn't always trust her strength. She trusts herself more when I trust her first," Emma explained.
"I think you're the only person she's ever let so close and know her so well. I'm... actually amazed at your relationship," Snow said.
"So am I. I never... I mean... I...," Emma laughed at her own inability to form words. "We met under extremely emotional circumstances. She was afraid I would take Henry from her, I was afraid... to lose him again... and then everything fell apart but... that first moment, when we were both scared and vulnerable, I think it stayed with us, made us know each other... better than people usually would at first meeting - maybe. That's how I feel at least."
"I feel that way about David. Of course, our first meeting was... so different from yours but... I had a feeling of knowing him in that first instance. Soulmates," Snow recalled.
Emma nodded.
"Too bad we don't trust these first moments. Life would be so much easier if we actually believed in love at first sight," she said.
"Yes, but then we would have to overcome ourselves, our experiences, our personalities, even. For all David knew I was a thief the first time we met. For all I knew, he was someone worth robbing, someone rich who didn't care for anybody but himself. We were both wrong... well, I was a thief but I didn't just steal for myself, for profit. They were hard times but... God, I had a ball back then, living on the edge, taking risks." Snow laughed at the memory of a reckless younger self.
"You miss the Enchanted Forest, don't you?"
"I do. On the other hand, I like it here, too. If... if it wasn't for David wanting to go back so bad and... well, the responsibilities I have toward my people, I don't think I would go back, not permanently at least," Snow admitted to Emma what she hadn't told anyone, not even David or Ruby.
Emma looked at her in surprise.
"Wow, I would have thought you... couldn't wait to go back."
Snow shook her head.
"I had a long talk with Gordon today about what he wanted. Staying here or coming with us... it made me realize that... I'm happy here. But I can't stay. I would never be happy without David and I wouldn't be happy if I knew I'd been selfish and let people at home suffer because of it. But Gordon has a choice."
"And what has he decided?" Emma asked.
"He hasn't yet. He's going to think about what he wants. I told him he'd be welcome to come to the Enchanted Forest with us, live in a castle, and all that. Or stay here, get an education, a job... he's such an intelligent young man and he's also good. I mean... we have our differences and he's been with Pan for a long time but... he doesn't do things out of malice or ill-will, he sometimes does... bad things because he doesn't know better."
"Do you want him to come back with you?"
"I would like that very much but it's his decision. He's 17, I think it would be wrong to drag him to the Enchanted Forest when in a few months he's of age and will just come back here because he never wanted to live there."
Emma nodded.
"You know, I think Henry would like to live in Fairy Tale Land, too. I mean he knows that Regina doesn't want to go back and that I... I'm not really into it but... I think he wants to. Of course, he's too young to decide that for himself yet but he's probably gonna visit you really soon."
"We'll love to have him, you know that. And you and... Regina. You all will always be welcome," Snow told her.
"Shouldn't you discuss that with David first?"
"I won't have my daughter think like she's not welcome in my home, not my daughter and not my daughter-in-law. David will just have to live with that," Snow said with conviction.
Emma slipped from her chair and hugged her mother.
"Thank you," she said as she pulled back again. "Now, would you like another cocoa, or maybe something else?"
"A tea or water, maybe?"
"Sure," Emma said.