Sorry guys for the long time between updates! It's been a busy ass time and my weekends have been no better for the amount of free time. You guys are super hilarious though! I had no idea that my switching between "mum" and "mom" would cause such anarchy lol! I switch between the two all the time and I have my entire life and didn't think anything of it at all until you guys said something! Hahahaha I'll try and stick to just one ;) I hope you enjoy the chapter! Please leave a review with your thoughts and or suggestions! :)
David came in the way he had left. Up through the courtyard by the small water feature with a white bricked circumference, up the stairs, through the large doors, and down the hall. He walked with large furious steps, a scowl on his mouth, and glares at the guards who didn't so much as think to perhaps stop him from entering the castle. He stilled after rounding a bend in the hall and laying eyes on the queen herself.
She was gently pulling the young boy's tense arms from around her waist so she could gracefully lower herself to her knees before him, dark eyes focused tenderly on the boy. He was crying, David now realized, and a sharp stab of guilt hit him when the boy lifted his hands and gingerly touched the woman's neck as she wiped his tears away with her thumbs. He hadn't meant to frighten the him. She was so gentle with the boy. It was such an odd thing to witness.
The queen on her knees.
A tender and tentative expression worrying her dark eyes and soft lips as she ducked her head beneath to boy's to catch his eye.
Gentle slender fingers combing through the boy's hair above his ear before curling softly around the back of his neck while her thumbs brushed his cheeks dry.
Did the child not know what those hands were capable of?
Did he himself know what they were capable of? He was beginning to doubt it. Just a small fracture in his image of the merciless queen now present in his mind. It caused his scowl to grow a little more prominent and his forehead to crease with lines of confusion and displeasure. And then her voice came, echoing softly down the hall to his ears. So kind and tender. The polar opposite of the arrogant and powerful tone she used with king George when she had retrieved him in the first place.
"I am sorry it frightened you, my boy," she frowned a little in her apology as his thumbs moved softly over her throat, "I will do my best to assure you see nothing of the sort again," she promised kindly and after a moment of searching her dark eyes, Henry nodded and she smiled just a little, "alright?"
"Okay," he nodded with his whisper and sniffed quietly, listening to her soft hum before he wrapped his arms around her head and pulled her to his chest. He bowed his head a little so he could curl over her and rest the side of his head on the very top of hers. His eyes were closed and she was tense for a handful of seconds before she let out a long sigh, her breath warm and comforting against his chest as she relaxed and gently nuzzled her face in to his chest.
Once again she was out of her element and once again the boy eased her in to it and taught her it was okay to relax and be her truly gentle self. Without consequence. It felt so good. Every moment she spent with this boy she could feel weight lifting from her shoulders. And this time, along with many others previous, had tears of relief pricking behind her closed eyes. Relief that she could still find it in her to be kind, that someone could still care for her, and that she wasn't a lost cause. There was one person willing to fight tooth and nail for her and it was starting to rub off on herself. Little by little she was starting to find the will to be strong for herself.
"Don't cry," he scolded quietly with a light and quiet laugh under his shaky voice as her hands moved from his sides so her arms could wrap tightly around his middle, "you're gonna make me cry more," he laughed and sniffed quietly while she gave a soft laugh of her own against his chest.
"I'm sorry," she laughed shakily against his chest as a tear rolled down her cheek. No one had ever been so concerned for her life when she was in danger of losing it. She lifted her head with a pained and grateful smile when his hands moved to the side of her head and he smiled right back at her.
Henry wiped away her single tear with the pad of his thumb and the corners of her lips twitched a little higher in her smile and she tilted her head in to his moving hand. After a little while of watching him she closed her eyes softly and gently dropped her head forward again so she could rest her forehead and the bridge of her nose against his chest. Henry hummed a soft short endearing laugh and hugged her head again as he lowered his head atop hers once more.
This time, however, he did not close his eyes and in doing so his eyes fell upon David. He stood just up the hall with his arms folded over his chest and a hard and contemplative expression on his face. In response, Henry's arms wound a little tighter around his mother and his features creased with an expression of protectiveness and the smallest hint of anger. Regina was no fool, she felt the change and felt its protectiveness rather than simply a tighter hug. Henry was not surprised.
She lifted her face from his chest and quickly followed his gaze to David and when Henry glanced her way, letting his arms slacken only enough for her to look up, she was simply curious. And that was all. No smile or frown, just dark chocolate eyes curiously analyzing David. And then gracefully and without a word, she stood tall once again. Her arms relaxed at her sides and her hips swaying gently with every step she took. He tried to stay close to her but he stayed put at the gentle hand gesturing him to stand in his place.
Regina looked him up and down and stopped just within arms reach of him. He was strong and broad and admittedly handsome when angry. With a short quiet hum she opened her palm and as she turned her wrist up her fingers curled around the hilt and with the swinging motion his sword materialized between them, hilt in her right hand, tip at her left shoulder, a smug smirk on her lips as she gave a small rock of her head.
"You forgot your sword."
David gave a sharp displeased breath out his nose, his lips thin and his brow furrowed at those dark eyes sparkling with amusement and those plump red lips pressed together in a smirk. With an ease and gracefulness that surprised him, she flipped the sword blade over hilt and caught it again with her fingers holding the sharp metal of the blade just above the hilt and then offered the hilt for him to take. A gentler and more welcoming smile gracing those lips now.
After a moment of pause he reached forward and took his sword from her soft slender fingers and looked it over for any blemishes before sliding it in to its sheath at his hip.
"What are you doing here?" She asked plainly, neither and invitation or threat in her tone.
"I need answers."
"Answers to what?"
"You."
"Me?"
"Yes," he finished sharply and silence hung in the air, the tension between them growing. Her smile that had once been soft and welcoming was now back to its more familiar curve. Bitter and harsh, paired with dark sharp eyes lit up with the challenge to put him back in his place.
"Ask away," she whispered coldly and pushed her head forward with her open and vicious smile.
David took half a step closer to her and her deadly smile curved a fraction higher while her dark eyes flicked back and forth between his, "what are you doing?"
"I am waiting for you to ask a proper question," she replied smoothly with a tilt of her head and his expression grew all the more angry.
"Why am I here?" He bit out and was infuriated further when she opened her pretty little mouth.
"As far as I know it is because you forgot your sword on the way out," she tilted her head further and leaned in a little closer to him.
A sharp huffed breath blew out his nostrils and his jaw clenched further while he smiled an irritated smile, "why are you being so difficult?"
"I am answering your questions, David," she smiled with a sharp quirk of her head, entirely unimpressed by his tone of voice and aggressive demeanour he started this conversation with when she had tried-however temporarily-to play nice, "perhaps it is you who is simply not asking the right ones."
David breathed out a furious chuckle under his seething breath as he shook his head in tight movements, "I am here because you asked me to stay."
"Oh and here I thought it was because you forgot your sword."
"You are infuriating," he growled with something close to a snarl curling back his top lip. With a now rather wicked smile still turning those red lips, she took a breath to speak, her white teeth parting to allow her voice to pass only to have it immediately silenced before it was heard.
"Mom," Henry called in a tired and tender plea for her to stop her relentless badgering.
David's eyes went wide at the title and he shot his gaze to the boy who kept his eyes on Regina's back. His wide eyes snapped back to Regina and she had closed and relaxed her mouth as she dropped her gaze down and to the side as though she was looking behind her to the boy's voice. But she wasn't doing it with a scowl or any displeasure or anger. No it was quick acceptance and she had immediately backed off.
"Mother?" He stressed and her dark eyes lifted to meet his wide blue eyes, "you have a son?!" She remained quiet and expressionless and his mind went wild as he looked incredulously back to the boy to try and figure out how old he was. Much too old to have been born after she had chased Snow from this castle, "does Snow know about him?!"
Regina let out a quiet and bitter laugh, "why on earth would I keep that idiot girl updated on such personal matters?!"
"A male heir to the throne is something she has the right to know about!"
"She has no right to anything I-!"
"Mom stop!" Henry shouted as he came up to them and could practically feel that seething breath blown through her teeth despite her back being turned to him, "both of you! This isn't helping anyone!" He yelled and the adults kept their furious eyes locked on each other's, "just take a break and come back to it later," he suggested and looked up between the pair of them, a hand on each of their stomachs to keep them from getting any closer than they already were. Which was less than a foot and a half.
Neither queen nor shepherd prince made any gesture to move from the other and their hot glares remained unmoving as well. With a sharp breath of frustration out his nose, Henry looked between them again and then gave a harder push against his mother's stomach. It wasn't hard enough for her to step backward but it was hard enough to catch her attention and her dark furious eyes snapped down to his, a sharp reprimand on her tongue and an arm swinging to swat his arm from its brace against her stomach.
He held her vicious eyes with a stern glare of his own, something he had gotten better at over his weeks here with her. He held it unflinching and gently caught her swatting hand in both of his and held it still. She was furious and her breaths were sharp and her teeth were bared but as he softened his stern stare and began moving his thumbs in small soft circles over her tense hand, she began to come back down to him and relax to him. When her mouth and her dark eyes were more gentle than bloodthirsty, he spoke gently and squeezed her hand in reassuring affection, "just go take a break. We can try again later," he nodded and rested her hand against his chest.
Her fingers curled lightly in to his skin over his heart as though she were going to pluck it from his chest but the movement didn't faze him in the slightest. She did it often and he had learned that it was more affection and self reassurance than anything. In her mind if she could raise him, a boy with a golden heart, then there must be something salvageable in her own dark heart. Without a word or another glance anywhere but his chest, she turned and slipped her hand from his tender grasp so she could walk away. Her head held high and her steps strong and even.
He waited in silence with David for her to disappear from sight and once she had he whirled around with an expression of anger and protectiveness as he hit both hands against David's abdomen causing the man to take a couple steps backwards.
"Hey! What-!"
"What are you doing?!" He yelled and David gave a confused huff of air as he looked back at him with his brow furrowed and his mouth open a little, "you are supposed to help her! Not throw your own temper in her face!"
"She's the one-!"
"No! You don't know anything about her! Stop assuming you do! You have absolutely no idea!"
"Alright look, kid, I get that she's your mother and you feel connected and protective but are you seriously telling me that you have excused every life she has taken?! Every life she has hurt or destroyed?!"
"Yes I have! She hasn't killed anyone in years! She wants to be better!"
"Okay first of all I don't think it has been more than a couple weeks since someone has died at her hand and second; there is no good in that woman!"
"There is so much good in her!" He screamed and threw his tight fists at his sides, understanding now more than ever why it was so impossible for his mother in Storybrooke to so much as try to show her good side. "I have shown you how she really is! You saw it outside in the water, you saw it when you came back here, and you saw it just now when I calmed her down! She is good! You just have to stop throwing her evil title in her face and give her a chance to show you what she is really like!"
He huffed for breath and held David's stare without faltering. The man's jaw was clenched and and his stance was hard and almost aggressive but not quite and Henry's was no different. "My mom is good. She is good. She has done horrible horrible things but she is so good."
With a long tired breath from his nose, David dropped down to one knee before the boy so he could look him straight in the eye. His voice was gentler now but it was still strong and firm, "kid I don't want to break this vision you have of her-"
"It's not a vision. It is who she is."
"-but I have seen her. She is not good. She has no good in her."
"You think I haven't seen her at her worst? She nearly killed me with her bare hands not all that long ago. I have seen her meddle, I have seen her harm people, I have seen her scream at people, I have seen her whisper in to her hearts, I have seen her turn men in to bugs and crush them beneath her foot, I have seen her in full on evil queen mode. But I also see something that no one else sees but me."
"That she's good?" David shook his head with an incredulous laugh under his breath. But the boy shook his head.
"No I see what happens after she does all those things. I see her at night when the sun is gone and no one else is around her. I see her cry. I hear her through the walls, I see her shaking and clawing at her hair, I see her throw things, I hear them shatter against the wall, I hear her screaming and wailing because she is tortured by all of this! But she does it all again the next day because she doesn't know how to stop! She's not strong enough to do it on her own. She needs someone to believe in her, to help her up when she hits the bottom again.
"You don't know her story, you don't know what has happened to her, you don't know how much she has lost. You have assumed, like everyone else, that she was just born evil. You haven't even thought to ask yourself why she is this way, have you? You haven't asked yourself what could have happened to her to make her this way. You haven't put any faith in Snow's claims that she is good and that she is not this evil witch. As a matter of fact you are only just starting to give her a little credit and that's after everything she's done for you!"
"That woman has done nothing good for me!"
"Well no not yet! But she does later!"
"What are you going on about? You keep speaking as though you are in the wrong timeline!"
"Well that would be because I am in the wrong timeline!"
"What?"
"That doesn't change the fact that my mom needs help! She is not the evil queen! She is broken and you are Prince Charming and-!"
"What do you mean you are in the wrong timeline?!"
...
"Go away, Rumple."
"I told you to get rid of the boy," he singsonged as he stepped along the top of the narrow railing she stood behind overlooking the forest, "and yet he's downstairs. Yelling at the Charming prince of sheep."
"Getting him home has revealed to be a more trying task than I previously believed," she deadpanned and relaxed a little in comfort as a cool breeze blew gently across her face.
"There are other ways to rid yourself of vermin than placing them back in their home."
"I will not kill him."
"Oh," he pouted and dropped down to sit on the railing so he was facing her, his back to the forest and his legs dangling over the floor of the balcony as he gave a sickening grin with his eerily playful voice, "why not?"
"He is a child."
"Hasn't stopped you before!"
"I have never killed a child! They have before died because of me but never directly beneath my fingertips and I do not plan to change that any time soon," she spat at him and then looked back out at the forest, her hands gripping tighter on to the railing.
"That boy is trouble, Regina," he warned, threatened really with a song to his words.
"Perhaps for you and your apparent plans," she retorted and turned her head to look at him with a bitter smile, "but for my purposes he is working out just fine."
"I will not hesitate to kill him if your games go to far, dearie!" He chimed with a mad laugh.
"I'm pretty sure you will hesitate after you find out who I am," Henry chimed in as he walked in to the space at the end of the hall. Rumple's eyes were on him immediately and the queen twisted prettily at the waist so she could look behind her and meet his eye.
"Oh and who are you?"
"That's for me to know and you to find out."
"Is that so?"
"Mhm," he nodded and stopped at his mother's side.
Rumple studied the boy for a little while while he stood comfortably in his presence with a rather smug smile on his young mouth, "well it would seem as though I have a new project on my hands."
"Well then go busy yourself with it," Regina deadpanned and pushed him backward off the balcony and he let her with a shrill laugh, tipping backward and falling several feet before disappearing in a thick cloud of deep red smoke.
Henry looked over the balcony curiously and then looked back up to his mom to find her already watching him with big brown eyes. He smiled up at her and she didn't smile back but she wasn't scowling at him either. It was just a simple expression of nothing really in particular. "I talked to David," he started and she said nothing but turned her head away from him and looked back out at the forest, "I convinced him to give you a chance."
"And what did you tell him to convince him of that exactly?"
"The truth. Nothing personal though. You can tell him what you want to tell him. Or you can tell him nothing at all. But he's going to be more patient and not so...quick to judge," he stated and she raised her eyebrows up in doubt, "you have to try too you know."
"I did."
"Well you've got to try a little harder. And you've got to actually answer his questions, not beat around the bush like you used to do with me. We've talked about this."
"I do not wish to describe my torments in full detail to that man just because he asked."
"You don't have to. Just answer his question truthfully without any loopholed answer or just tell him you don't want to answer that question. That's all," he shrugged and she crossed her jaw as she stared out at the trees and that had him sighing and looking out there as well, resting his chin on his folded arms on the railing.
After long comfortable minutes spent in silence with Henry nuzzled right up against her side, he spoke up again, "can we still go riding?"
Regina hummed a soft laugh and nodded, "yes, Henry, we can still ride."
...
Regina stood outside the man's door wringing her hands together. It was absolutely ridiculous that she was so nervous to be in his company. She couldn't even identify what it was that had her so unnerved. He was a man like any other with an image of her like any other man would. Perhaps it was because she was trying to break that image of her he had and give him a new one.
But that was a silly reason to be so nervous.
Well...maybe it wasn't.
With a deep breath she knocked on the door and at his voice permitting her entrance, she opened the door and stepped inside. Her initial reaction had her scorning herself and making a note to find a way to distract Henry long enough for her to spend a little time with one of her playthings. Perhaps the huntsman. She really did favour him over the others. Henry had been stuck to her side day and night since he had arrived and she didn't think much on the consequences of that until now.
Now that there was a heat burning deep in her belly at the sight of him walking alongside his bed with only his pants and boots on. His brilliantly muscled chest, abdomen, arms, and back revealed to her eyes. Quickly though before he noticed, she pushed away her thoughts of physical entertainment and satisfaction. He was there to try and help her find her strength to keep from falling to the dark. He was not a toy, she had to behave.
"Oh. Regina. Sorry," he tried a smile but it was a hard thing to do in her presence. But he promised the boy he'd humour him, "I didn't think it would be you."
"Already making yourself at home and inviting company?"
Biting back a sharp remark and taking a small breath to clear his mind, he shook his head and changed his tone from the harsh one that was going to come on reflex, "no, no, just didn't imagine the queen would be knocking on my door after our last conversation."
Regina hummed in response and looked around the room as she walked a little closer to him and he watched her for a moment before turning his attention to the white linen shirt in his hands so he could pull it over his head, "why is it exactly that you are only half clothed?"
"What? You not enjoying the show, your majesty?" He grinned as he pulled his shirt down straight and was surprised to find a returned sense of humour sparkling those dark brown eyes and lifting those red lips in to a smile. He breathed out a light chuckle, pleased to find at least one method to get past that stoney and often vicious expression. "Two weeks in a dungeon does nothing good for one's hygiene and that bathtub was just calling my name. And you know a blade would be nice to get this scruff off my face," he nodded and brought a hand up to his jaw, "I was given a blade every now and then down there but it's due time for another one."
"Making demands of a queen now are we?"
"Just making her aware," he smiled and she breathed out a light laugh with a shake of her head. Alright so perhaps the boy was right when he said she would be different if he confronted her with a different attitude.
"Yes, well, I am here on other business."
"Oh? And what other business is that?"
"The boy is learning to ride and has requested you accompany us."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
David hummed shortly in acceptance and nodded as he looked up and off to the side. Then he thought he would give asking her a question a try. To see if this different approach to speaking with her would open up that ability a little more. The way she worked was starting to intrigue him. Which was something he did not expect, "what is going on with this kid anyway?"
"What do you mean?"
"Is he really from this parallel future world like he says he is?"
"I have been convinced. As has Rumplestiltskin. I'm sure you will be too at some point."
"And this while mother and son thing?" He asked with a little more gentleness but then almost wished he had asked it a little gentler when her visible character became a little more defensive.
"That is incredibly complicated."
"Yes it is," he agreed quietly, allowing her to end the conversation there before he got them both riled up again.
Regina gave a sharp exhaled through her nose and crossed her jaw a little, before giving a kurt nod and clasping her hands in front of her below her waist, "will you be accompanying us or not?"
"I..." He hesitated and then after a pause he nodded, "sure," he supposed he may as well. If anything just to get some fresh air.