I really am sorry for the wait you guys! OQ is so distracting ;) it's up now though and hopefully the next one won't be too far :) enjoy! Please review!

"You do realize that I will take you out no matter what you are wearing," he smirked as she stalled in the closet, "and we are not on a particular time crunch so you aren't making us late for anything with you dragging your heels," he was met with silence as he leaned back against the wall next to the door of the walk in closet. A few moments of silence later and slowly she peered around the corner of the door with a scowl and he failed miserably at stifling his laughter.

"Pants or a skirt?" She snarled, making no effort to hide her immense displeasure.

"Jeans if you have them," he answered through his laughter and she slunk back in to the closet with that same scowl and began mumbling to herself once she was out of sight. "You know if you would stop being so cranky you would actually enjoy yourself," he chuckled and listened for her reply.

With a roll of her hips she pulled on a pair of hardly worn dark wash jeans and fastened the button closed, "if you weren't dragging me out of the house to be glared at I wouldn't be cranky in the first place."

"Hermit," he retorted with a smirk and she stepped out of the closet wearing only her jeans and a navy blue bra.

"Save for my mother, I enjoy the people in my home and socialize quite happily with them!"

"Glad to hear it," he smiled and nodded and she growled at him before stalking back in to the closet, "however a ten year old boy and his grandfather is not exactly a social circle to be excited about."

"Well it is all I care to handle right now!"

"Quit digging your heels in like a stubborn mule," he laughed in amusement and listened to her pull a couple items off some hangers, "it's not like I'm making you talk to people either. We are just going out for dinner and showing people that we aren't hiding from them."

"Outside or inside?"

"Outside," he answered easily with a smile, "it's supposed to be a warm night," it was only a few moments longer before she came out fully dressed. A cobalt blue buttoned silk shirt tucked into her dark jeans, it's long sleeves unbuttoned at the wrists and pushed back over the three-quarter length sleeves of the fitted black blazer, a black belt with a polished silver buckle around her waist, and a pair of black leather boots that cut off at her ankle and had a tall wedge heel as opposed to her regular stiletto. She came out with her arms outstretched a little before she let them fall limp, her hands slapping lightly against her thighs.

"Good enough?"

Taking one more look, David's smile grew a little more and he pushed himself up off the wall in one fluid movement, "stunning," he complimented and kissed her cheek, consciously avoiding her mouth for he didn't trust her to push the gentle kiss in to a heated one and ruin her dark lipstick which would result in her having to stall and go fix it in the mirror simply to waste more time. She let out an irritated breath as his lips pressed against her cheek before he slipped her hand in to his and led her from the room.

"Finally!" Henry exclaimed with an exaggerated sigh that ended with laughter when he saw his mother finally come down the stairs with David, "I've beaten like twelve levels of Angry Birds waiting for you guys," he only chuckled quietly at the unimpressed look his mother shot him when she stepped on the the flat floor of the foyer, "let's go!"

"He's chipper," Regina grumbled quietly as Henry bolted to the front door.

"Well he gets to go out with his mother for dinner. He's excited," he smiled and bumped in to her mid step, "as you should be too."

...

He was not oblivious to the fact that she was only growing more irritated with every glare shot their way as they walked down the street. Henry seemed all together oblivious to the community around him as he chatted on and on and on about anything and everything as he walked ahead of them leading the way. He pulled Regina further in to his side, the gesture causing her to cross her left leg over her right in mid step to keep her balance.

He kissed the top of her head as he held her close to him with one arm around her back and she sighed unhappily as she leaned in to him with one arm around his lower back and the other in front of him so her palm laid flat on his strong chest. She could hear his heart beating steadily beneath her ear when she rested her head against him and that offered her something to focus on rather than who was next in line to give her a dirty look.

"I love you," David whispered in to her hair and she nuzzled her head in a little further in to the side of his chest. Still she was more than unhappy. He could feel it flowing from her and with one quick glance toward Henry, David stopped and pivoted to look at her, "hey, look at me," he instructed gently and with a sigh and a shift of her weight she opened those big brown eyes and looked at him, "what's bothering you so much?"

"People," she answered quietly and frustratedly and when another woman looked her up and down in disgust; Regina lost her temper just a little. She snarled at her and moved to lunge at her but intentionally did not follow through, causing the woman to leap back a little in fear of her wrath, "say it to my face, wretch!" She hissed and watched the spooked woman hurry off without a word, "that's what I thought."

There was no look of disapproval or frustration or shame or anything of the sort in his expression when she looked back at David. He looked nothing but understanding and that twisted something inside her and made her want to fall in to him and cry out her frustration in the form of tears. But being in public and holding more pride than that, she swallowed and kept herself together.

"You wanna punch me?"

"Not right now I don't."

"You sure?"

"...maybe later..."

"Sure," he smiled a little and smiled just a little more when he caught the smallest upturn of her lips.

"You've ruined me," she whispered with a shake of her head.

"Oh?" David raised an eyebrow curiously.

"I can't even walk down the street anymore because of you. Smiling at me all the time. Before I didn't know any different, I was used to it, but now? Now that I am accustomed to smiling and laughing? I don't recall the outside world being this harsh."

"Well it wasn't really...we kind of threw everything out of balance is all and no one is happy about it. We made the world a little bit more unpredictable. I mean if Prince Charming can fall in love with the Evil Queen and she with him then what else could happen?" He shrugged a little and she analyzed every word in her ever working brain. "We could wake up tomorrow and pigs could be flying," he shrugged with his matter-of-fact tone and her shoulders came up with her quiet laughter at his unexpected statement, "you just never know what could happen now that I sleep in your bed," he shook his head a little and then broke in to quiet laughter himself.

"Point is; no one can wrap their head around it and they don't like it. They focus their frustration on you because they only know you to be evil and me to be good which means that there is no possible way that I could have pushed you in to this and there is no possible way that I so much as flirted with you let alone screwed you against a tree like a savage animal and marked you nearly to the point of drawing blood. No way that happened on my accord. It has to be your fault because that is the only thing that remotely makes any sense."

She watched him intently, soaking in every word and smiled in amusement when needed, so he continued, "people don't like it when things don't make sense and you and I? We don't make sense to anyone but us. Everyone will get used to it, darling," he soothed as he reached across the short distance between them and trailed his fingers around the frame of her face and softly off her chin. "I want you to be able to hold your head high again out here without worrying about the target they've painted on you. I want you to enjoy waltzing down the streets of this town again. You shouldn't be locking yourself away."

He shook his head and moved his fingers up her temple and tucked some hair behind her ear, "put them all back in their place," he smiled and then tapped a finger on her nose, "you are the fucking queen, you can do what you please."

She raised her eyebrows with an amused laugh and he smiled back at her before dropping his head to give her a kiss. She smiled a little more against his mouth and took hold of his open jacket as she stepped in to him and felt herself relax.

"Are you guys coming or not?!" Henry called back down the sidewalk with a laugh and the two adults broke their kiss with a smile. After a second or two of a silent conversation, David took Regina's hand and started walking again and she fell in step beside him. A smile on her face rather than a scowl.

...

With a laugh, Henry took off at a run across the little bridge over the pond and swept back the natural curtain the weeping willow tree provided so he could get inside. Regina watched him curiously as she leaned in to David's side, their fingers still intertwined and her free hand now resting up on his bicep. Their footsteps were heard as they passed over the little wooden bridge and when they stepped back on to the grass and approached the tree, it lit up.

Regina smiled and let out a soft laugh in surprise as she took in the sight of soft white lights hanging with the branches of the willow. David hummed a laughed through his smile and kissed her cheek, the gesture causing her to turn her head and look at him with a special sort of adoration. With his free hand he swept aside some of the branches and then pulled her past him and in to the little hideaway before following her in, never letting go of her hand as he did.

"It's perfect," she laughed in relief and felt the stress quickly fade away and release the tension in her shoulders. There was a simple red blanket on the grass with a picnic basket in the middle, a bottle of wine, a few pillows, all in the middle of a section of the canopy of branches that had been tied back and out of the way to form a tent of sorts.

"I do do that sometimes," he smirked and she laughed a little more as she looked around and the small white lights and the colours of the sunset reflected in her dark eyes, "I couldn't have done it without help though," he nodded past her shoulder and she twisted to look behind her.

Regina laughed joyously when she saw Henry sitting on Anton's shoulders with the biggest grin,

"you got roped in to this as well?"

"Oh no I was quite happy to help," Anton chuckled with a shake of his head.

"He thinks the power generator is fascinating," Henry laughed and David laughed quietly as well while his mother smiled even wider.

"Well it is!" Anton defended with a laugh.

...

With the sun down now and Henry teaching Anton the magic of glow sticks, Regina sat between David's legs with her back against his chest and his against the trunk of the tree. She sipped at her wine with a smile as she watched Henry and Anton run around laughing and waving their different glowing colours around in the dark. She rested her head back against the front of David's shoulder and let her wine glass hang from her fingertips around the bowl of the glass as she stretched her arm straight and rested her wrist atop her raised knee.

His arms were warm around her and her smile curled a little higher as she let out a happy hum and closed her eyes when David began kissing her neck. Slowly she tilted her head away from him a little to give him more skin to cover and he happily obliged. He started just beneath her jaw and inched his way down her neck with soft slow kisses to her skin that caused her to tingle with warmth and happiness.

The evening had been filled with talk and laughter, games and stories, good food and good company, and she had honestly been surprised by how much she had enjoyed herself. Needless to say the evening had turned out much better than she had thought it would. Her shoes and blazer had been removed earlier and placed neatly to the side out of the way so she was left in her jeans and blue silk top.

She rolled her head around slowly without a word or a sound so when she opened her eyes she was looking at him as his warm fingers moved over her in a gentle caress and pulled softly on the collar of her shirt so his kisses could continue along the top of her shoulder. When he could go no further he rested his chin on her shoulder and nuzzled in a little as he turned his head and opened his eyes to meet hers. She was so quickly lost in those blue eyes.

She let her head loll back against his shoulder and tried for the umpteenth time to try and figure out how she had gotten there. How did she get to be in the arms of Snow's husband and how did she win his heart? How did she come to be under such a steady and tender loving gaze? How did it come to be that Prince Charming had freely chosen to love the Evil Queen over Snow White?

No she did not find herself worthy of such a man. But she was not willing to let him go. Her heart ached at the very thought of losing this moment to another woman. The best kind of silence growing between them, the perfect sensation of bodies warming one another, the way they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, the gentle movement of strong fingers moving over her with only a thin lay her of soft silk between, her soft fingertips now caressing his close shaved jaw, icy blue eyes studying her as her chocolate brown studied him, kind and loving. No she would not give him up easily.

As her fingertips slipped off his jaw he watched a soft white glow come to them and a smile graced his lips as he lifted his hand and gently touched the white light, curious as to what she felt the desire to show him.

"Regina!"

She steeled herself against her mother's vicious tone and stood up without flinching or cringing as she held on to her courage and looked her in the eye, "yes mother?"

"What in god's name were you thinking?!"

"That I am not a plaything for a drunken prince, mother."

"You handle a situation like that with poise and grace! You slip away! You do not break a vase over the man's head!"

"What else was I supposed to do?! I couldn't get away! And here I thought you would be happy I was unharmed or at least happy that I got out with my virtue untouched!"

"Don't you back talk me, child!"

"I looked for you! I tried to-"

"Bringing you to this event was supposed to attract viable suitors! Heighten your status! You embarrassed-!"

"Embarrassed?! I am sorry if me defending myself has embarrassed you, mother! But I would change nothing if put in the same situation again!"

"It is not the encounter, it is the way you handled it! Appearance is everything, Regina! You need you get a hold on that tongue, girl! Men are animals and you must learn how to handle them not become one yourself! You will be the head of your own household soon enough and I will not have you acting like some uncivilized and deranged wretch!"

"Well perhaps you will get lucky and he will find respect for a woman willing to put him in his place and come crawling back to you and ask for my hand!"

"Respect?!"

"I will fight you tooth and nail! I want love! I want to be looked at like I am worth something more than a pretty face and a warm body to bed! I want to love the man I marry!" She gasped at the sharp sting of the back of her mother's hand making contact with her face and was then quickly yanked forward by her mother's tight grip around her upper arms. Her eyes darted back and forth between the dark brown eyes that matched her own and a moment later she felt the sting concentrate around the right side of her top lip and soon the taste of her blood was on her tongue, the ring on her mother's hand having cut her lip.

"Erase these foolish notions from your head, Regina!" She hissed and gave her shoulders a quick jolt, "love is weakness! Love dies! Power and control will be at your side until the end! Let that serve as a reminder that you will not allow yourself to be so foolish as to fall for love's siren!" She glanced at the bloody cut on her lip and when Regina didn't answer, Cora snarled and leaned forward a fraction, "answer me."

"I will let it serve as a reminder," Regina parroted with an edge to her voice and kept the last half of her sentence to herself. A reminder that she will fight for love.

"You stop fighting me," Cora warned and Regina narrowed her eyes ever so slightly but she chose to ignore that and whisper, "or I will break you," she held her daughter's defiant gaze for a few seconds longer before she pushed her roughly away with a quarter turn, sending her off toward the door.

Conflicted was probably the best word to attach to that particular memory but he decided that he should focus on the fire burning in her young heart and the desire to be worth something and to be loved rather than focus on Cora's bitter words. With a small smile that he was sure still showed his conflict, he moved his head closer to hers and closed his eyes as he nuzzled his nose against her cheek. He could feel her smiling and that had him smiling a little more and hugging her closer around her middle to draw her even further in to him.

She turned her head in to his a little further and rested it heavier against his shoulder. He had always wondered how she had gotten that scar. He loved that scar and he was happy to learn she treasured it as well and he loved that she found meaning in seeing it in the mirror everyday and touching it with a soft movement of her fingers over her lips.

He also was happy to know that he was the one making her feel loved and worth more than anything in the world. He didn't want to leave the tree; he wanted to live in this moment happily for the rest of his life. With an evil queen sitting serenely in his arms.