As per a request from a loyal reader, the next chapter is up real quick! Still figuring out the next chapter but it'll be up soon too I imagine. It'll be a bit of a change in pace ;) and sorry for the tease there at the end. But you know...not all that sorry. Just being the polite Canadian that I am ;) hahahahaha! Please leave a review! Reviews and you junkies are my favourite! ;)
Regina cocked her head curiously when she founded the corner from the driveway and found Henry sitting on the front step, "Henry? What are you doing, sweetheart?"
"David and the queen wanted to try out the phones," Henry chuckled and pulled the phone from his other ear so she could see it, "they've got the house phone and I borrowed the other David's cell phone. They're hilarious."
"Well would you look at that! The boy has returned!" Tinkerbell laughed as she spread her arms forward.
"Hi Tink! What are you doing here?!" He laughed and then gave a 'no not you' in to the phone as the fairy dropped down beside him on the stair and wrapped an arm around his shoulders so she could hug him against her side.
"Oh just caught wind of there being a couple of guests at your house that I just had to see for myself," she told him with a smile and he laughed and nodded behind them.
"They're inside. Mom won't let them leave the house just yet. Oh and by the way," he started and then covered the receiver by his mouth and spoke to his mother, "she is getting really antsy. She's going to leave the house regardless of if you are ready for her to if you don't hurry up and figure the town out," he told her and she sighed which had him nodding with a good deal of empathy as he pulled his hand from the phone.
"Who are you talking to?"
"Mom's back home," he chuckled in to the phone and smiled when his mother's fingers grazed through his hair on top of his head as she passed him and went inside which had Tinkerbell saying a quick farewell as she jumped back to her feet and followed her inside to the house.
"You're back," David breathed happily when he saw Regina, "Tink," he nodded in greeting and she smiled, "they are just itching to get outside."
"Henry has made me aware," she grumbled as she dropped her keys on the little table in the hall.
"When are you planning to hold the town meeting?" He asked as he leaned his shoulder against the archway in to the dining room.
"Tomorrow afternoon or the next morning."
"I think the sooner the better. We all know how well you do when you're kept in one place. Her willingness to cooperate is starting to fade."
"I am aware of that but you can't just call the entire town for a mandatory meeting on such short notice. No one will show up and those that do will be sour that they had to drop what they were doing to be talked to and I don't want people in sour moods to be learning that the Emma is roaming Storybrooke."
"She's not so evil," David shrugged and Regina sighed and scolded quietly.
"You know what I mean."
"I do. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Why are you even still here?"
"Henry has my phone."
"That is not an acceptable answer," she denied him and then raised an eyebrow as she folded her arms.
"I was keeping an eye on them. Making sure they didn't leave the house."
"You give me one more semi true excuse and I will make sure you never step foot in this house again," Regina warned and David conceded with a nod while Tinkerbell remained silent.
"I was talking with the other David."
"David," she drew out in a whined sigh as she walked around him and toward the living room.
"What? I wanted to know why he chose to be with the queen and he wanted to know what life was like with Snow. That's all."
"That is not all!" She snapped in exasperation as she spun around and he huffed a small breath out his nose as his lips pressed together in a frown, "I am not an idiot, David!"
"Alright fine I did dig a little deeper in to his answers in search of more applicable truths but I didn't go in there with the mindset of-" he cut himself short and she shook her head in a quick movement with her eyebrows raised. So she had either forgotten Tinkerbell was right behind her or the fairy was already aware of what chaos ensued between them. Tinkerbell was just his convenient excuse though. He didn't want to cross the line Regina had put in place. He didn't want to have to backpedal.
"The mindset of what, David?" Regina pressed but he didn't answer which only had her frustration growing.
"I am not picking a fight with you, Regina. Just let it go."
"Answer the question, David!"
"Well, well, well what is going on down here?" The queen smirked as she sauntered in to the room, sparing a glance at the new woman in their company before she looked back to the feisty mayor.
He wanted to say 'nothing'. The word was on the tip of his tongue but he knew that this wasn't nothing and he feared that if he were to use the word, his Regina would take it in its most exact definition and he didn't want her to think she was nothing to him. She had become everything to him. So he stayed quiet and didn't say a thing.
The queen raised her brow in approval at his silence for she had a good idea of what his thought process had been. And then she looked to the mayor and she was simply stabbing daggers in to the poor man with her eyes as she waited for him to say the wrong thing. Regina hummed as she stepped between them and broke the fight off, "hostility will get you nowhere," and with that she looked to the tight mayor and pushed the phone forward, "how does this work?"
Regina just rolled her eyes with a tired sigh and turned on her heels and walked away.
"You know, I'd actually like to know as well," Tinkerbell nodded with a smile at the retreating mayor before she looked to the queen with a smirk. This was absolutely ridiculous and unbelievable but this was most certainly the Evil Queen in modern day attire. She loved it. And the knowledge that she was married to David made Tinkerbell like her even more.
"Google it," Regina retorted and heard David laugh.
"...what is 'google'?" The queen asked curiously as she began to follow the mayor to the kitchen with the phone still in her hand.
Tinkerbell laughed quietly with David and the pair of them fell in step behind the curious queen. What caught Tinkerbell by surprise was the lack of hostility toward herself from the queen. Regina had told her that their backgrounds were practically identical. So why was the queen not acting like the mayor had when their paths crossed again in Neverland?
"It's a search engine," Regina replied, kicking herself for not catching this downward spiral of questions she was in no mood to answer.
"I would very much like to see this searching machine...is it large?"
"Yes. Well no. It is a site on the computer. It can answer almost anything."
"So you sit in front of your computer and ask it questions. Like a magic mirror."
"No. Not like a magic mirror. You have to type the questions in to the computer. You can't speak to it."
"Oh," she nodded as though she understood and leaned back against the counter. And then she started shaking her head, "what do you mean 'type'?"
Tinkerbell chuckled lightly and Regina turned and gave a silent and desperate plea to her David and he nodded with a gentle laugh and walked away to fulfill her silent request. "Hi, I don't believe we have met," Tinkerbell smiled at the queen and the queen smiled back and shook her offered hand, "Tinkerbell."
"Odd name," Regina quirked her head and furrowed her brow with her smile and the blonde shrugged, "Regina. As I am sure you have been told. Had you not figured it out by the striking resemblance," she teased and Tinkerbell laughed.
"I must say the resemblance is uncanny."
"...You don't know Tinkerbell?" Regina questioned curiously with a frown and a furrow of her brow as she paused her dinner preparation and looked at the queen who shook her head.
"Should I?"
"Well...yes. She's a fairy. And a terrible one at that," she grumbled and Tinkerbell scoffed a short laugh in mock offence.
"Hey!"
"Given that information, what makes you think that I would be more inclined to have met her. I very much dislike fairies."
"I came to Regina when she first came in to the throne. It just didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. Our timing wasn't exactly the best."
"I had no fairy visit me," the queen shook her head as she looked the blonde over once again.
"Good," Regina replied shortly and looked back to the thawed roast she had placed on the cutting board. Both Tinkerbell and the queen looked back at her and both with different expressions but the topic was fortunately changed when David came back with her laptop in hand.
"Alright. This is a laptop. It is a portable computer," he explained as he put it on the counter and the queen was quick to join him and stand right beside him. It threw him off how easily she came and how close she stood. Her side was pressed right against his as if it was the most normal thing in the world and he supposed for her it was. His eyes snapped up to his Regina though at the unnecessarily sharp thump of a knife against the cutting board and the scowl on her mouth could only be linked to a jealous warning before she looked back at her task of cutting carrots. He cleared his throat a little and smiled a small smile at the fact she didn't appreciate the queen's closeness before he continued teaching the woman how to use the computer.
"You drag your finger on this square to move the cursor, you tap the square or click the left button when you want to select something, and you use the keyboard here to type. 'Type' meaning form words and sentences and such," he nodded and she nodded slowly as she looked over the device. "So to get to Google you move the mouse down here to click on the Internet-"
"The Internet?"
"That's what it's called. Like a chair is a chair or a horse is a horse, the Internet is the Internet. There is a reason behind the name but no one pays any mind to it," he explained and she hummed in understanding, "so you click on it and Regina has Google set as her homepage so that is convenient. Then you click in this little bar there and type in what you want to know," he finished and stepped off to the side just a little so she could try it out.
"Awe man! You're showing her the computer!? I wanted to do that!" Henry protested as he came in to the kitchen with the other David in tow. "Oh David this is Tinkerbell, mom's fairy that she only likes about fifty percent of the time-"
"Hey!" Tinkerbell chuckled.
"That's quite accurate actually," Regina stated plainly as she cut in to an onion.
"And you wonder why I don't come visit," Tinkerbell smirked and earned herself a more placated Regina when the woman smoothly retorted.
"I thought it was because I shrink you and trap you under glasses. My mistake."
Henry laughed with a roll of his eyes, not even wanting to get in to that, "and Tinkerbell this is the other David."
"Nice to meet you," she smiled and he offered her the same.
"I get to show her YouTube though!" Henry called at David who laughed and nodded as he encouraged the queen that she was doing the right thing.
...
"You do realize that you are being like three hundred percent irrational right now," David told her.
"Shut up."
"Regina seriously-"
"Shut up."
"...okay but, Regina-"
"David I swear to god if you fight this one more time I am going to throw you out of this house and send you back to your wife."
"Mmmm those are fighting words," the queen chuckled and the sheriff looked at her anxiously and then back to his Regina's choice.
"Mom if you are using magic you're gonna be disqualified," Henry teased and she scoffed but didn't pull her eyes away from the task at hand.
"I don't need to use magic."
"Using magic would damage her pride and ego," Tinkerbell teased as she nudged her shoulder in to Henry's.
"Shut up. You are all distracting me."
"I can't watch," David breathed and covered his face with his hands only to drag them down to uncover his eyes again. Slowly, so slowly she continued to push and pull from opposite ends and the tower wobbled and leaned and he held his breath while she focused and the rest of them grinned and waited for imminent failure. "I am on your team you know. If you fail, it's on me too."
"Relax, Charming," she scolded and then pulled the last of her chosen block from the bottom of the tower so the whole thing balanced on the one block in the centre. They all stared at the tower and she remained crouched forward with the freed block still between her fingers while they waited to see if it would collapse. It didn't. They groaned and cheered and clapped as she sat up with a wide smirk and placed the block on the top of the tower and David breathed a sigh of relief, "Jenga is my game," she chuckled through her teeth and he laughed with a shake of his head.
"Jenga with you is going to be the death of me."
"Don't worry, someone will knock it over now before it's your turn," she teased and he groaned a laugh in to his hands.
"Oh I hope so."
"I don't want to touch it now!" Tink whined as she looked at the precariously balancing tower of wooden bricks, "I was really hoping she was going to knock it down!"
"You have to! It's your turn!" Henry laughed, "I pulled the brick out last time for us."
"That roast smells divine," the queen sighed as she leaned backward in to her husband and he hummed in agreement.
"You two are not helping!" Tink pointed but kept her eyes on the tower as she gently tapped the blocks in search of any remaining loose ones. No such luck, "damn it, Regina."
"You are going to knock it over, fairy, you may as well come to terms with it now," the queen smirked and then laughed, "I like this game."
"Your majesty only likes this game because she is not about to lose and her doppelgänger counterpart is incredibly good at this game," Tinkerbell retorted and the queen laughed a little more while the mayor chuckled lightly beside her. "Okay, I'm gonna go with this one."
"Don't go with that one," Regina shook her head but Tinkerbell ignored her and started gently wiggling at the block anyway, "fine. I was only trying to help," she smirked and watched as Henry worried at his bottom lip and wrung his hands together. To give the fairy some credit she did manage to get the block halfway out before the whole tower collapsed on her and she yelped in surprise as the blocks clattered to the floor.
"No!" Henry groaned out with a laugh while both Davids and both Reginas filled the room with laughter, "she told you not to pick that one!"
"Your mother and I have trust issues! How was I supposed to know she wasn't actually setting me up for failure?!"
"Because she loves to make the game even harder! We lost because of you!" He flopped on to her with a laugh and she nodded with a scoffed laugh before she turned on him and started tickling him, "no! No! Tink! No! Mom! H-help!"
"You brought that on yourself," Regina laughed with a shake of her head.
David frowned at his phone and the handful of texts from Emma. All of them asking if everything was okay and when he was coming home. Not directly of course but he could read between the lines. Snow was having a meltdown. So with a sigh he started to move his legs beneath him so he could stand up, "I've got to go."
"You're not staying for dinner?" Regina questioned as she paused her gathering of the blocks and looked at home beside her. She hated that her stomach dropped in disappointment at the news and he huffed at his phone with a frown and typed a message.
"No," he sighed with a short shake of his head and Regina went back to picking the blocks up with less enthusiasm than before. "Which is a shame because her majesty is correct. That roast smells absolutely amazing and I was really looking forward to it. But I should go relieve Emma and Finnegan from Snow..."
"Who's Finnegan?" Henry chimed in curiously as he dropped a handful of blocks in to the box.
"Emma's dog," David replied and Henry's eyes bugged out of his head.
"Emma got a dog?!"
"Yes. A fat English bulldog," Regina smiled a little and Henry laughed. She was fond of that wrinkly and roll covered little beast.
"That's awesome! Can she bring him over tomorrow?!"
"Oh I'm sure she would love to," David smiled and Henry grinned excitedly, "I'll see you tomorrow," he told Regina quietly with a smile, his hand thoughtlessly touching her thigh in farewell as she nodded and he gave quiet goodbyes to the rest of their company as he stood.
Regina sat quietly as she slowly spun a block in her fingers. His touch had burned her skin through the fabric of her black trousers. She knew he hadn't meant anything by it and it wasn't like he hadn't touched her before while saying goodbye. But this time, for whatever reason, it had her heart jumping in to her throat and hammering in her ears. She didn't want him to go. She wanted him to stay. Just like the other David was staying with the queen and whispering something in her ear that had her smiling as they packed up the game.
Without a word and a little quicker than she had intended, she pushed herself to her feet and followed after David, ignoring the curious looks in her direction from the four in the room. "David," she called and when she rounded the corner she found David paused at the front door with a hand on the handle and bright eyes on her.
"Yes?" He replied curiously as she cautiously made her way down the stairs to him and pushed a hand through her hair. It seemed the endearing woman hadn't exactly thought of anything past his name.
"I uh...wanted to say thank you," she improvised because if she had remained silent for a second longer she would have found herself jumping at him and kissing him. She was shaky and on edge and completely and entirely alone with him and she was coming to realize that she was much more unstable around him than she had previously thought.
"For what?"
Regina breathed a single laugh and nodded as she tried to gather her voice while David waited patiently with a smile. She really had not thought this through at all. She just hadn't wanted him to leave. But the longer she stood there answerless, the more foolish and ridiculous she felt. She wanted to give up on words and just kiss him. She remained teetering on that edge even when her voice did come to her. She just didn't want to set off that bomb. And it would be a bomb. The very second either one of them faltered, their whole lives would blow up in their faces.
"For keeping a level head. It helps. It makes it easier for me to accept this whole situation. If you are okay then surely I can work to be just as level headed..."
David breathed a soft chuckle with a short shake of his head and a step closer to her as his eyes flicked over her shoulder and her eyes fell down and she swallowed. "My queen, you are many things," he told her quietly and she wavered where she stood, her weight leaning forward as a shaky breath blue out her nose, "but level headed is not one of them," he smirked a little with his mouth hovering over her ear. He was in control and fine until she tilted her head back and he had no choice but to focus on her dark eyes. Only then did he start to slip.
"A girl can dream," she smirked a little and he smiled as he lifted a hand and his gentle fingertips ghosted over his cheek and tucked her hair behind her ear.
"Indeed she can," he whispered and then they fell silent.
Her heart begged her. It begged her to fall, it begged her to forget, it begged her to stop, its pleas caused her body to ache and the joyous laughter of David and the queen in the other room haunted her soul. Her heart tug her forward half an inch and when David's hand carefully slid around her waist to the small of her back, her breath grew impossible and when he slowly started dropping his head, her lips parted ever so slightly but before he could catch her, her mind crushed her heart once again.
It stung when she bowed her head and took half a step back. It was a sharp jolt to his heart that had his breath catching in his chest and his eyes snapping open. Now while his heart stung as though a strip of duct tape was just ripped from his arm, her heart may as well have been stabbed with a sword. She was curled in on herself and her head was bowed but even with most of her face shielded from him, he could still see the heartache that made her look like the young broken woman who just couldn't win. "Regina..."
"We can't..." She breathed in her smallest voice and swallowed down her tears, hugging herself tighter and closing her eyes when he stepped up to her again. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and she couldn't help but lean in to him. She wasn't that person anymore. She wasn't the woman who ruined lives for her own selfish whims. Despite how much easier it would be to be selfish just one more time, she promised herself she wouldn't. Not to him.
And then he left without another word.