Holy shit bro! I thought I had already posted this one! My bad! Hahahahahaha! I hope you all enjoy it and leave a review :)
"Time to get up, dearie!"
Henry woke up with a start at the shrill voice penetrating his sleeping mind. He pushed himself up in a sitting position with a sharp inhale and blinked his eyes open and free of sleep. When a rather psychotic giggle sounded through the room, Henry snapped his eyes to the source and found Rumplestiltskin sitting in a chair with one leg crossed over the other, his elbows on either armrest, and all ten fingers spread and touching their corresponding fingertips.
Henry rubbed his hands over his face as he looked around the space he was in and found that he was indeed not in his room in his mother's castle. With a long exhale out and another look around the room he asked, "where am I?"
"Why you are in my humble abode!" Rumple laughed as he spread his arms out and the boy merely nodded.
"Cool."
"...Cool?" Rumple questioned with his brow furrowed, "whatever do you mean, boy? The words you use are quite odd indeed."
Henry laughed a little and shrugged his shoulders, "I've always wondered what your castle looked like on the inside. It's pretty neat. You've got lots of weird things everywhere..." He drifted off as he looked around the room. And then before Rumple could say anything more, Henry spoke again, "so did you figure me out yet or are you just kidnapping me just to mess with my mom?"
Rumple smiled an irritated and false smile and thrummed his fingers together before he uncrossed his legs and stood up in one fluent motion, "you are quite perplexing, boy," he gritted out as he walked up to the table he now sat cross legged upon, "I want answers."
"I told you that I'm not giving you any."
"You would be so bold as to challenge me!?"
"I'm not scared of you!" Henry laughed and Rumple cocked his head with a deadly smile as he stopped in front of him with his thighs almost against the table, "I know who you are! You are no different than my mom!"
"Oh?" Rumple chuckled and grinned, "I can think of a few differences. Can't you?"
Henry rolled his eyes and continued on, "you think power can solve all your problems but it only creates more! You keep trading your love for power and yet you still go around making sure that everyone knows that true love is the most powerful thing! What kind of logic is that?"
"I do not need love."
"Well then why are you trying so hard to get back to Baelfire?" Henry pushed his head forward as he shook it, his eyebrows raised with his question.
"I broke a promise, I broke a deal, he is my son."
"So you're trying to travel to a world without magic so you can give up your power and find Baelfire not because you love him but because you broke a deal."
"Who said anything about me giving up my power, dearie?" He laughed a shrill laugh and moved his hands around in the air.
"I'm from the future world, I already know what your plan is and how it plays out and seriously there are like eight thousand flaws with it. You haven't thought of even two percent of what could happen and does happen to screw it all up. You're a terrible planner." Henry closed his eyes and nodded slowly with the last sentence and then looked up at Rumple indifferently and waited for what he had to say.
"Is that so?"
"Uh yeah."
"Well then if you're so clever, how do you suggest I find my boy?"
"Well...he could even still be in Neverland right now. I don't know how old he was when he got out of there but I think that family reunion would include one too many family members for your taste," he nodded and Rumple furrowed his brow in disbelief.
"Now how do you know that?" He asked slowly as he leaned in closer and braced his weight it's his hands on the table.
"Pan had me kidnapped and tried to take my heart to make himself immortal. My mom went full out Evil Queen mode and killed him though. Quickly put a stop to his plans to curse us all in to his new Neverland too, that's for sure."
"Regina killed him? In this world you claim to come from, she killed Peter Pan?"
"Tore his heart out. Like his actual heart. There was blood everywhere," he cocked his head and furrowed his brow in thought and then shrugged his shoulders, "it was for the best though. I still can't get over how bad Walt Disney screwed up that story."
"Who?"
"Nothing you'd understand. Hey, so, how long do you think you're going to be able to keep me here before my mom comes storming through the door as mad as a poked hornet's nest?"
"I'm keeping here as long as I wish, dearie," he singsonged irritably and the boy gave him a doubtful smile.
"Alright. Sure. So are you even remotely close to figuring out who I am to you?"
...
"Regina," David greeted with a smile but it quickly faded when he saw the worry on her face as she hurried toward him, "Regina? What's wrong?"
"Have you seen Henry?" She asked and tried to catch her breath as she stopped in front of David as he turned to face her.
"No I don't usually see him in the mornings until breakfast...is everything alright?" He asked with his brow furrowed in concern as he reached forward to hold her in place with comforting hands on either arm below her shoulders.
"No everything is not alright! I can't find him anywhere!"
"You checked the stables?"
"Yes of course I did! And his room and the kitchen and the armoury and the courtyard where he practices and-"
"Well he couldn't have gotten far, right?"
Regina shook her head a little with an irritated and panicked laugh but didn't step away from his hold for it was the only thing keeping her from falling in to hysteria or a murderous rage, "I am not worried about that, David! Henry wouldn't have gone anywhere, he is too insistent on staying to change me!"
"So you think he's been taken?"
"What else would make sense to you?!"
"Calm down, Regina," he tried to soothe but her dark eyes remained wide with panic and her voice continued to sound frantic.
"Don't tell me to calm down, David!" She shouted as she swatted his arms away and immediately regretted the action. She wanted his hands on her again. But she didn't know how to ask. "I don't know where he is! I don't know who has taken him! I don't know how long he has been gone!"
"We'll find him, Regina," he assured and stepped forward so he could gently take her head in his hands. He was astonished to see how much she calmed back down at his touch, closing her eyes and allowing herself to take a deep breath as she hesitantly lifted her hands to hang off his wrists. It softened his heart for her a little more and he moved his thumbs slowly and softly over her cheeks which hand her relaxing in to his touch a little more, "he's a clever boy, Regina. Very quick, very smart, and very smooth tongued. He'll be able to hold out until we can get to him."
"I don't know where he is."
"Did you put any tracking spells on him? Or bonded him to you in any way?"
"No never thought I'd need to, it never crossed my mind, I-"
"Shhh," he hushed softly and moved his thumb over her cheek.
"It may not have crossed your mind," Ruth offered and both David and the queen looked over to her, David curious as to where she was going and Regina entirely startled of her presence and then began to withdraw from David, "but it may have crossed his mother's."
"That's right, it could have," David agreed and smiled a little at his mother before looking back to Regina.
"You think she may have placed a tether to him?"
"Well with all the tales of chaos he's got from his world, I find it hard to believe she wouldn't."
"And for all intensive purposes, you are the boy's mother," Ruth added and David nodded, "but the tether is useless to her for he has gone and jumped worlds. She can't get to him but if you truly are one in the same as Henry believes you are then there is nothing saying you can't access that spell."
"But I'm not her, he's not my son!"
"He calls you his mother," Ruth insisted.
"And if I start calling you 'mother' will you take it to heart?!" She snapped, overwhelmed by what was being implied.
"You mean to tell me that after all the time you've spent with that boy, after all the things he has done for you, that you don't hold any love for him at all?!"
"Regina just try," David instructed in a soothing and reassuring voice and her seemingly misplaced unease and anger toward Ruth began to settle down when she made herself look back at him. "Let yourself love," he nodded and took her hands in his, her eyes dropping to her limp hands as his thumbs moved over her knuckles, "just like you do when you're alone with him, with no spying eyes watching your every move," he smiled encouragingly but was thrown off a little when her eyes and mouth fell in to such despair and conflict at his touch.
"You can do it, Regina," he encouraged again and lifted a hand so he could place a finger under her chin and lift her head so she could look him in the eye but the very moment he touched her chin she practically leapt backward from him with a small tortured vocal and turned and hurried off, "Regina!"
"Stop," Ruth caught his arm and pulled him back but his eyes remained on the retreating queen, "you are not helping her right now, dear. Let me go instead," she nodded and David tried to find an excuse or a reason for the queen's sudden behaviour, "let me go talk to her."
...
"Regina?" Ruth called gently as she walked in to the room Henry had been staying in. Sure enough the queen was pacing back and forth in a flustered panic. Well a flustered panic in comparison to her ordinarily stoic and controlled demeanour. The woman had either not heard the call of her name or was simply ignoring it so Ruth tried once again as she walked up to the bed, "Regina."
"Go away."
"And if I don't?"
"I'll throw you out of here myself," Regina snarled but Ruth simply stood at the corner of the bed and didn't so much as bat an eye which had her all the more furious with her, "you spend a few nights in luxury and you have already forgotten your place?!" She hissed through her bared teeth as she leaned forward in to Ruth's face.
Ruth swallowed softly and shook her head in one quick movement and willed her voice to stay steady and strong, "I may be a quiet and timid woman, your majesty, but I am not unaware, I am not a fool."
"And what is it exactly that you are just so aware of?" She questioned with a smooth venom as she leaned in even closer.
"That you have fallen in love with my son," she answered surely and stood her ground, her expression giving away nothing while the queen's rage boiled over along with her fear and insecurity.
"I have not," she growled. Low in her throat while her breaths ran short with anger and her heart started to pound in her ears.
"Deny it all you want but you cannot hide it from me!"
"I have nothing to hide!" She defended and Ruth gave a frustrated laugh.
"Do you think me blind?! Or stupid?! I may not be as intelligent as you, my darling queen, but I am not simple minded!" She shouted back and Regina bared her teeth and spun around so she could start pacing again. Working the tension from her jaw, Ruth softened her voice once more to its normal volume and tone and the furious queen watched her from the corner of her eye as she paced, "he is my son, your majesty. I love him very much."
"He is not mine to have," Regina hissed and Ruth gave a very small, doubtful, and slightly amused smile in return just for a split second while her eyes stared at her clasped fingers hanging in front of her. That smile only further angered her and she could feel her blood flaming through her veins, "so I promise you I shan't defile your precious shepherd boy."
Ruth gave a single exhausted laugh and looked up at the snarling queen with a shake of her head. Her expression was hard and lined with anger and her eyes were burning with her rage and while Ruth did not know everything about this woman, she knew enough to know that her anger was her most used defence mechanism, "that is not what I meant."
"No? Well please! Enlighten me on what exactly you mean to portray when you look at me with such distress and prejudice when I so much as enter the same room as David!"
"How do you expect me to react?! Take my place! How would you react to the knowledge that a woman known for her evil ways and her cold heart, a woman known to kill just because it's Tuesday, has fallen in love with your only child?!"
"I am not heartless! I am not evil!"
"I know!" Ruth shouted and then took a shaky breath to calm her nerves when the room fell silent and Regina watched her in confusion, "I know," she nodded with her quieted voice and Regina still didn't say a word but her rage had been replaced with confusion as to what point she was trying to get across.
"You are hurt and you are scared and I cannot imagine what life you have lived to turn you in to such a cruel and bitter woman," she shook her head and wrung her hands together a little, "it is difficult to accept that the woman everyone has feared, that the woman I have feared, is not who we thought her to be. That she is in fact kind and gentle and has a great capacity to indeed love...I am struggling to accept that what I have known for so long is actually wrong. When I see you look at my son I find I must always remind myself that in your heart you are not truly who we know you to be. I only want what is best for my son, my dear. And I am having a very troubling time...acknowledging that it could very well be you."
Silence hung in the air around them and Regina held Ruth's eyes but her anger had dissolved and only pain and fear remained. Her heart ached in her chest and she simply refused to let her tears even dare to prick her eyes, "I am the best thing for no one," she rejected her softly, her voice weaker and quieter than she had hoped for and the desire to cry came even stronger than before.
"You can be saved, dear queen. There is great potential in that black heart of yours. You haven't run out of time yet," Ruth assured gently with a shake of her head and half a smile, "keep trying. You will succeed."
Regina swallowed thickly as her dark eyes fell to her fingers that were now gently twisting in one another's grasp as she inspected the clear polish of her nails. She didn't have any words left to say and even if she did she would fear that her voice would give her soft sobs rather than words. So she stayed quiet and looked at her fingers while Ruth's voice echoed in her mind and her own demons fought to suffocate it.
She was only snapped back from her dark train of thought when Ruth's old and worked hands softly covered her own. Her eyes flicked up to the older woman's dark kind eyes and then fell to the small but encouraging smile that fit her mouth so perfectly while Regina's expression remained thoughtful but otherwise blank as she tried to make sense of this woman.
"Let's find a way to reach your little boy, hmm?" She offered gently and after a moment's pause, Regina gave a single subtle nod and Ruth smiled a little more and gently squeezed the queen's hands before she let go and stepped back from her a little.
...
"Why would he take him?" David questioned as he trudged through the forest behind her trying to bring a conversation out of her.
"Because he doesn't like things that are unpredictable and Henry is just that," she snapped but her anger was not so much directed at David and the shepherd seemed to know that.
"Alright but there has to be more than that. Right?"
"Henry intrigues him."
"And?"
"And the boy has pushed him in to a new project to figure him out."
"And?"
"And I'm straying from Rumple's plans of mass destruction and murder!" She yelled as she spun around to look at David who had stopped in his tracks, "his puppet's strings are being cut by a boy from an alternate universe and he doesn't appreciate it! Is that what you want to hear?!" She yelled and pushed her arms out at her sides and when he didn't say anything more she let her arms fall and she turned and started walking again, livid that Rumple had put a spell around his property to restrict her use of magic for transport.
David watched her storm off and after a few steps he picked up a jog to catch up to her, "so he wants Henry gone so that he has you back and you can carry out his plans to do...whatever he has planned."
"It won't work. Now that I am aware of what his true intentions are."
"Well what about a forgetting spell or something?"
"It wouldn't work."
"Why not?"
Regina turned and faced him again, looking him up and down and felt her heart ache in want for him. She had wanted to go alone but he had had none of that. "You can erase a mind very easily but you cannot erase the heart's memories."
"Your love for Henry would be imprinted on your heart. Your mind wouldn't know why but your heart would feel lighter and you would feel changed. Your heart would remember Henry."
"...among other things," she replied softly and looked him up and down one more time before she turned and continued on her path toward Rumple's castle.
David cocked his head as he fell in step behind her and then he hurried a few more steps so he could walk beside her. She avoided his gaze but it only made him smile and shake his head with a light laugh out his nose before he focused on where he was walking, "I still can't get over the fact that I am following the infamous Evil Queen through the forest to make sure she is safe."
Regina rolled her eyes but his words did touch her heart, "you are a burden, I assure you."
"You are glad for the company," he grinned and breathed out a laugh when she shook her head with an irritable sigh.
"Pest."
"Hey what's this?"
Regina looked over her shoulder with an unimpressed huff when David stopped to look at something that had caught his eye. Then she recognized the shimmery ripple in the air and her eyes widened in fear when David lifted his hand to touch it, "no don't-!" She jumped at him and knocked him to the side but the shimmering energy touched her and sent her flying, spinning through the air until her body violently collided with the thick trunk of a tree.
"Regina!" He shouted in a panic after he saw her hit the tree and fall to the ground and didn't move. "Regina!" He yelled again as he ran to her unmoving figure. He skidded to a halt, dropping to his knees as he carefully touched her in search of any visible injury before he turned her over on to her back and pushed her hair from her face. "Regina," he called a little quieter through his panicked breaths and continued smoothing her hair from her face.
Her eyes were closed and her red lips were parted just ever so slightly in the middle while her long dark silky hair was splayed out around her on the forest floor. "Come on Regina," he pleaded and gently shook her head. An action he immediately regretted when he felt something wet on his fingers and pulled them back to find them to be red with her blood.
"Shit," he huffed under his breath and looked down at her with wide panicked eyes. "Regina!" He yelled again and when she remained limp he pressed two of his fingers against the side of her neck and leaned down so his ear was over her lips so he could feel even the faintest breath. He sat there in silence, willing the forest air to fill her lungs. When he felt nothing he turned his head back straight and looked down at her shaking his head in a panic as he pulled her head and shoulders up in to his lap, "no, no, come on Regina, wake up! Wake up damn it!" He bellowed but she didn't move and he felt his chest and throat tighten with sorrow and defeat.
And then she sucked in a sharp and ragged breath as she sat up a little and fell back in to his lap and curled in on herself as she started coughing and sucking in more hoarse breaths. He had never felt such relief and he shook away the tears in his eyes as he quickly caught her and kept her from falling to the ground when she rolled on to her side in her rough coughing fit.
"God damn it, David!" She yelled at him and took in another hoarse and shaky breath.
"How was I supposed to know a shimmery patch of air was going to fling you across the forest?" He laughed with a shake of his head, overjoyed to once again fall victim to her furious voice.
"If you don't know what it is then don't touch it!" She snapped harshly and then tried to fight for breath once again, "especially when we are so close to Rumplestiltskin's castle!"
"I'm sorry," he shook his head as he laughed and her breath finally started to come easier.
"Why the hell are you laughing?!"
"Because I thought you were dead and I'm so happy that you're not," he laughed and gently helped her sit up. She cringed with the movement and her hand took a tight grip of his shirt over his chest and he held her as she paused her movements until she could bear the pain, "are you alright?"
"No, David, I am not alright! I got wrapped around a tree! My ribs are broken, some of my vertebrae are fractured, so is my left scapula, I have whiplash, my-"
"Your head is bleeding too by the way," he added with a smile and she gave a furious and irritable laugh that soon stopped and turned in to a sharp cry of pain because of her broken ribs. "What do you need me to do?"
"Hold still so I can heal myself, you damn fool," she gritted out through her teeth and urged her magic to heal every bone and soothe every stretched or torn muscles, ligament, and tendon.
"Okay," he nodded and breathed out a soft laugh and then lowered his head so his forehead rested against Regina's while he continued to hold her close to him, one arm around the back of her shoulders and the other around her waist. "You scared the hell out of me," he admitted softly and she let out a long gentle hum that had his heart skipping a little.
"You deserved it," she smiled with her smooth and quieted voice while she enjoyed being held close to him as her magic chased away her physical pain.
"Whatever for?"
"I don't know," she stated plainly and then smiled when he breathed out a laugh and the air from his lungs brushed her lips, "for being a damn fool," she smirked and instantly her skin was on fire when his hand moved up the small of her back so he could hold her better.
"I suppose I don't have an argument for that," he laughed quietly and she hummed a pleasant laugh. Her hand relaxed its grip on his shirt over his chest with the passing of her pain and then it slowly started moving. It travelled slowly up his chest and his breath caught in his chest when her soft fingertips made contact with the skin on his neck and his heart rate climbed higher and higher when her slender fingers curled around the nape of his neck and her thumb moved slowly back and forth along the line of his jaw.
And right then he was startled by the most shocking revelation. That he really and truly wanted to kiss her. And he wanted to mean it.
All it would take was a small tilt of her head and she would find his lips against her own. Just a small change and she would finally know what it would feel like to kiss this man who invaded her every dream and her every thought. "You may let go of me now, shepherd," she whispered and moved her thumb along his jaw just one more time before she slowly and reluctantly withdrew her hand and he followed suit and loosened his arms from around her and got to his feet, offering her his hands to help her on to her feet after him.