Mmmmm this chapter gets me every time! Ah but I love it :) And I just had to bring the term 'magic smoking' back! enjoy!

"Regina," he huffed in frustration as he stumbled over yet another log.

"Yes Charming?"

"I seem to recall you being able to magic smoke yourself from one place to another with little effort and very little time. So why," he pushed himself up over another fallen tree that she climbed up effortlessly despite her choice in footwear, "are we trudging through an overgrown forest again?"

"Because 'magic smoking', David, requires a fair bit of magic and with the skills my mother has I doubt she would have too much trouble following a magical signature such as my own in a land with a very limited amount of beings capable of using magic."

"So you're worried she has magic radar or something?" He laughed quietly but his suggestion was serious as he took her offered hand and allowed her to help him up.

Regina laughed and rolled her eyes at his comparison to technicality, "yes David I suppose it is like a magic radar of sorts," she leaned back a little to counteract his weight as she pulled him up and when they both stood straight they were close to one another once more, their bodies nearly touching. She felt his hesitance to let her hand go and it made her smile just a little.

She had to gently pull her hand from his grasp but she lifted it again so her fingers moved over the stubble that had grown on his jaw. With an approving nod and a smile she knew would drive him crazy she flicked her finger off from under his chin and leaned in a little closer just to play, "you look good with a little scruff."

As if his heart wasn't racing enough. Her raspy voice that was lowered to a near whisper that taunted him by dancing over his mouth and against his ear. He clenched and unclenched his jaw repetitively and found that despite closing his eyes the images that flew behind them were no less graphic. He was severely lacking in self control but with what restraint he had left he kept himself from pinning her against a tree and tearing her clothes off while he kissed her until she couldn't stand.

He was so close to grabbing her arm and pulling her in to him when she turned to leave but he mustered whatever control he had over himself and stayed put but allowed his eyes to open and watch her leave. He swore under his breath as he shook his head and rubbed his hands over his face with a deep breath to clear his mind.

Regina hummed a soft laugh and turned on her heels and continued on her way, lifting her chin a little with a smirk when a few moments later he decided to follow her again. "We should be able to get to the beanstalk tomorrow unless we come across any unexpected delays," she looked over her shoulder with an innocent smile on her closed lips.

...

"Hey kid! This is great! Watch this!" He laughed in to the video recording and placed the phone on Regina's shoulder only to have nothing happen, "oh Regina come on!"

Regina laughed and looked over her shoulder as they continued walking, "you are a child."

"Come on it's funny! Do it again," he laughed and watched her eyes roll on the screen of his phone, "please?"

"Why?"

David leaned forward a little and smiled at her, "because I asked you too," she scoffed quietly and rolled her eyes again but the smile on her mouth was not well hidden. After an amused shake of her head he talked to the phone again, "alright kid let's try this again," he laughed quietly and placed the phone on her shoulder and listened to it chime to tell him it was charging, "yes! This is hilarious," he pulled it from her shoulder and then placed it on her arm only to have it chime again which caused him to laugh.

Regina shook her head and laughed with him as he walked around her touching the phone on different parts of her body as she continued walking forward, "my god you are easily amused."

"You are a walking and talking phone charger!" He laughed excitedly and placed it on her forearm, only laughing more when he heard the chime again, "it's awesome!"

"I am getting the impression that I could tie a long stick to your head and hang a doughnut from it and you would walk around for hours trying to get it," another chime was heard and quickly followed by more laughter that had her shaking her head.

"Doughnuts are good, I kinda miss doughnuts," he laughed and walked backwards in front of her as she walked forward with her lips pressed together to try and keep her smile from growing too wide. "Oh here's a question for you," he grinned and watched her eyebrows lift ever so slightly in an agreement to answer for the video, "have you always been able to cook? Because that lasagna I had at your house that night was fantastic."

Regina shook her head and laughed, "no, no I was not a good cook. I had a little boy tell me my lasagna was quite gross actually."

David laughed so his shoulders shook, "no! When!?"

"Twenty eight years ago when we first landed over there. Bought myself a few cookbooks after he left," she admitted with a smile and ran her tongue over her teeth as she shook her head, "I rarely use them anymore though-David!" She shouted and reached forward and grabbed his forearm in her hands effectively stopping him in his tracks.

He glanced over his shoulder and found himself to be roughly four feet from the edge of a cliff. He shot his head back to Regina to find her expression more than worried with a lot more than a hint of fear.

"I know you don't exactly like me but you don't need to jump off a cliff to get away from me," she let go of his arm and took a deep breath to shake her vibrating nerves and mere moments later she was looking up at him with a playful glint in her eye, "first it's rather insulting."

David laughed at her response as he shook off his own nerves, "well I didn't mean to offend you. Second?"

"Second...you scared me."

He smiled at her as she looked him in the eye and they held each other's gaze for a few moments before David grinned wildly and turned the phone so the camera was on himself, "I scared your mom."

"Oh give me that!" She lunged at him with a laugh and he played keep away, tossing it from hand to hand as they laughed. "Give it!" She jumped to try and reach it when he lifted it over his head with a arrogant grin, "David!"

"What?" He drew out the word with an innocent laugh as though he didn't know what he was doing to bother her.

"Oh so that's how you want to play?" She laughed and with impressive speed she removed her bow from around her torso and shot an arrow at his feet, kicking his legs out from underneath him when he lost his sturdy balance dodging the arrow that wouldn't have hit him in the first place. He landed with a hard thud and a pained laugh and she picked the phone up from the dirt with a low victorious chuckle and turned it so the camera was on herself, "as you can see we are getting along just fine," she smiled and her mouth opened a little when David pushed himself up in to a sitting position with a groan and gave her a thumbs up, "he's fine," she turned the phone around with a laugh and David shook his head with a laugh and pulled the arrow from the ground.

"Let me show you where we are going," she turned the phone around so it pointed to the beanstalk in the distance, easily seen from their viewpoint on top of the cliff, "we have to climb to the very top of that beanstalk and reason with a giant to have him give us a compass that will lead us back home," she turned the phone back around and tucked her chin in and smirked at the camera, "your brave Prince Charming is scared of heights and I assure you I will get that on video for you."

"Oh come on Regina! That's not fair!"

Regina laughed through her grin and blew a kiss at the camera, "love you Henry. We will see you soon enough."

Back on his feet again David moved inconspicuously to Regina's side and when she ended the video he took the phone from her hands, "picture?" He offered and she smiled a small smile and shrugged.

"Sure," a yelp mixed with laughter left her mouth when David pulled her in to him by her hip and her hands pushed against his chest in an attempt to get away from the stubble on his jaw that tickled her neck as he nuzzled his face in before kissing her cheek, "David!"

Her scent was wonderfully intoxicating and her laughter was contagious and he was rather disappointed when she managed to squirm free, "I had to make you smile," he laughed his excuse. It wasn't all a lie. Seeing her smile warmed his heart and hearing her laugh filled him with the strong desire to never let that sound fade. Never did he imagine he would react in such a way toward Regina.

...

David hummed quietly and happily as he laid on his back flipping through his phone but his eyes immediately found Regina when she returned from her scope.

"There is a waterfall a couple minutes that way," she pointed over her shoulder and she continued tiredly, "the water is clean. I filled the skin for us," she dropped the leather water canteen down on the ground next to their daggers and then followed by placing the bow and quiver in the same pile.

"Excellent."

"What are you doing?" She spoke quietly and lowered herself down to sit next to him.

"Nothing really. I like this picture," he smiled and offered her the phone and watched her tired expression soften in to quiet and happy admiration as she took it from him. He couldn't help but wonder what it would be like for her to see herself in such a happily amused state when all she saw in the mirror for most of her life was anger and misery.

He had managed to take a picture during their playful spat while she was laughing and trying to get away from him, her head bowed just slightly with her eyes shut and her nose a little scrunched as he kissed her cheek. A smile was clear on his face as well despite her hands pushing on his chest, her fingertips just making it into the frame of the picture. It brought a smile to her face and she kept her focus on the phone as she agreed in a quiet whisper, "I do too."

"And to think I almost had you killed," he smiled through his quiet words, seeing no reason to disturb the warm and quiet atmosphere they had created around them.

Regina smiled and hummed a single laugh as she kept her gaze on herself and David in the photo, "you were quite justified. But I'm glad it got interrupted."

David laughed quietly with his eyes enthralled in the soft appearance she had acquired. "You know what," he smiled and she turned her head to look at him, "me too."

"Thank you, David, for giving me another chance. It's a lot easier when there is only one person I have to focus on rather than...well everyone at once," she offered him a small smile as she handed him back his phone, "it means a lot more to me than you would think."

David hummed softly and looked at the picture once again, "well considering I thought I was merely expecting you to calm down a little I'd say it was another chance well given," he glanced up at her with a smile and then back down at his phone, "didn't think I'd actually get to see you. To be honest I didn't think you had this inside you. I believed Snow was chasing a shadow."

"So did I."

"We'll I'm glad we proved everybody wrong. Including ourselves," he smiled at her and she breathed out a quiet laugh.

"Me too."

"I mean look at that smile," he grinned at the phone and then turned it so she could see it again.

"I haven't seen that smile in too long," she whispered softly with a small smile at the photo, "thank you for bringing it back."

"You're welcome," He smiled back at her and put the phone in his pocket before turning his head asking, "why did you never kill me?"

"I never really had anything against you. You were a tool to hurt Snow."

"Really?" He replied doubtfully with his eyes squinted but she only shrugged, "you had nothing against me? The poor shepherd who was given the royal life?"

She shook her head slowly as she picked at the grass in front of her crossed legs, "the fact that you were a poor shepherd only had me loathing Snow all the more."

David watched her curiously with his brow furrowed slightly, "why?"

Regina hummed through a small smile that hinted at her displeasure but was more so drowning in intense sorrow and her slow and quiet voice reflected the same, "because she got to love her poor shepherd and she got her happy ending without so much as a second thought on social class while my stable boy was killed and I was thrown in to a life filled with misery and pain because all that mattered was power and status."

David sat up slowly, caught off guard by her incredibly emotional answer and as he sat up he found her hands to be shaking and her eyes filled will tears that had yet to fall. She was fighting herself and he cocked his head knowing that there was more and he watched her carefully when she broke and continued speaking in a small voice.

"She got everything that I lost, everything that I lost because of her and I had to raise her and stand by and watch as she got absolutely everything," she whispered the last word slowly with a shake of her head and closed eyes, "and I hate her for it."

Not once had he ever looked at her story like that, not once did he even think that there was more than Snow being blamed for Daniel's death that ruined Regina, not even over the past few days when she had let him see a different side of her did he come up with such a point of view. But now that he had it he felt heavy. He had seen and he had felt what kind of a person Regina was in the beginning and he had seen who she had become and he was seeing now who she was currently and with such insight he was able to put the pieces together with that important puzzle piece but it only caused his heart to throb and his throat to tighten.

"Maybe if I had had nothing then I would have been okay but I had less than nothing, I had Rumplestiltskin and a girl who drove me mad..." she clenched her jaw and shook her head in short quick movements as she tried her hardest to hold back a harsh sob, "and Leopold..."

The way she said his name twisted something inside him and he cringed as she left her mouth open as though she was at a loss for words as to what had happened between herself and Snow's father. He wasn't sure he wanted to know but his voice slipped out quietly before his mind registered it, "Leopold?"

Regina took a deep breath and shook her head, keeping her eyes open because she feared what she would see if she were to close them. She avoided David's gaze, she hadn't meant to fall this far, they had been talking about a picture of themselves and now she was drowning in a past she wished to forget. She didn't want to go this deep but she found despite how much she wanted to stop while she was more than ahead, her mouth wouldn't let her.

She had calmed herself down enough to speak but it was quiet, shaky, thick, and to her hands that laid limp in her lap, "to Rumple's credit he was very kind to me when it came to Leopold...very kind...there were many nights I would allow him to wipe away my tears and offer me soft kind words...he was the only one I had. I couldn't tell my father. I couldn't tell anyone but Rumple just...knew..."

David frowned and watched her hands lay unmoving, still not quite understanding what she had meant exactly, "I would like to see that," he asked gently, "if you would allow me to," he finished quietly and watched the tears pool in her eyes again as she left her stare on her hands. After a short while she pushed a soft white glow into her fingertips as she had done before and with a sad sniff she reluctantly let it leave her possession and he caught it gently in both hands.

She walked back to her bedchambers with her head held high. There was no way she would allow herself to be seen otherwise but it was growing more difficult with every night the king asked for her. She focused on holding her head high and walking in a straight line with powerful strides, powerful strides that threatened to falter the closer she got to the door. As soon as those doors closed behind her however, her tears were falling.

She leaned her back against the large wooden doors for a moment and let them fall silently. Taking a deep breath through her nose she tried to stand tall again but her knees gave out and she started crying instead. She was caught though before she hit the ground but that only made her cry harder and her hands fell over the ones that held her over her stomach as she closed her eyes and sobbed harshly but quietly.

"Come on dearie," he whispered and helped her to her bed, "it will be alright."

She allowed him to help her to the bed with slow and painful steps, taking his offered hand to help steady herself as she continued to cry. He sat her down on the edge of the bed and crouched on the floor in front of her with a soft and gentle expression.

"Where does it hurt?" He whispered kindly, his voice filled with concern.

Regina shook her head slowly and whispered slowly in defeat, "does it matter?"

Rumplestiltskin frowned and lifted his hands so they hovered roughly an inch over her body, starting at her neck and feeling relief when he found no formation of bruising there as he had in the past. Magic flowed from his fingertips and healed any blemishes to the girl's body but there was nothing he could do about the emotional trauma, "you matter Regina."

"I only matter to you and even in your eyes I am nothing but a game piece," she replied with a painfully empty voice, "a more valuable piece in your game than in anyone else's but a game piece nonetheless."

He nodded slowly and let his hands linger over her abdomen to assure everything would heal before he moved to heal the new bruises on her hips, wrists, and thighs, "no one deserves this. You are still a person and you do not deserve this."

Regina laughed humorlessly under her sorrowful breath as her tears continued to fall, "treat a person as an object long enough and they'll start to believe it."

With a frown he finished with his magic and looked her in the eye to find the dark brown empty but not in the way he wanted, "that may be true," he spoke quietly and lifted his hands to carefully wipe the tears from her cheeks, "but I know you don't believe you are an object just yet. And you had better not forget what you are."

She nodded and closed her eyes, feeling his thumbs move over her cheeks gently to wipe away more fallen tears. She was exhausted and she was hurting.

He shook his head in dismay when she started crying again, her figure shaking in time with the quiet whimpers and choked breath, "would you like me to help you sleep Regina?"

His soft kind voice pushed a harsh cry through her teeth as she tried to bury it back down. His thumbs moved once again to wipe away her tears and she pleaded helplessly with her eyes tightly closed, "please," she could not handle the nightmares, she had already tried.

"Of course."

With one last shaky cry she felt her body become heavy and the vague feeling of him laying her limp body down before she fell completely into a dreamless sleep.

Regina nodded sadly and cocked her head ever so slightly when David came back from his momentary haze with tears in his eyes. She reached forward and wiped one away just as it fell and she knew he was hurting as he studied her with focused blue eyes and she whispered, "we are all merely human in the end."