I'm back! the wait was longer than I anticipated but I am getting back in the groove. If you need a quick recap, here it is! Snow kissed David, David told Snow about him and Regina, the queen is pregnant, the queen and the mayor had a troubling talk about the mayor's past but they are still friends. There you go! Enjoy the update! And thank you to those who left reviews telling me to update lol it kicked my ass in to gear ;) please leave a review!

"You are awfully quiet this morning, my love," David noted and his queen blinked and shook her head clear as she looked up at him. It had his brow furrowing ever so slightly in concern, "are you alright?"

"Yes. Just have...a lot to process," she dismissed with a practiced smile that she should really know better than to use on him by this point. He saw right through it every time.

"You want to talk about it?"

"No...no I think it's best this stays between the mayor and me," she told him softly with a shaky smile.

"Alright," he nodded and she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Come here," he whispered as he turned her and she easily let herself fall in to him when he pulled her in to a hug. "I love you," he told her and kissed the side of her head as she wrapped her arms around his middle.

"Thank you," she breathed and nuzzled her face in to his neck and took a deep breath. He always seemed to know what she needed before she even knew herself. It seemed a hug was exactly what she needed and he held her there for as long as she pleased. She let herself enjoy it. It had been a long time since she had let someone just hold her up like that. She let her mind run quiet and focused solely on his chest rising and falling with each of his steady breaths. They went on for long minutes in peaceful silence before she faced the worry stirring in her heart. Worry that he would be upset regardless of the mayor's assurances that he would be thrilled.

Always the pessimist.

"I'm pregnant."

David stayed quiet for a little while as he tried to process the words to no avail, "what?" He questioned quietly as he rocked his head back so he could look her in the eye when she lifted hers from his chest. He hoped he had heard her correctly. But he wasn't certain.

"I'm pregnant," she repeated just as quietly and hardly a moment later there was the most ridiculous grin spread over his entire face. It made her smile too.

"Really?" He asked quietly and her smile grew easier.

"Mhm," she nodded and he started laughing which had her smile breaking to show her teeth. And then he took her face in his hands and kissed her with a smile still plastered on his face. She didn't really realize how worried she was for his reaction until her relief lifted the weight off her shoulders and she started to laugh with his kiss.

It wasn't as though they were trying. But with all the times he found himself with her in bed, he would be lying if he said he wasn't beginning to wonder if she was capable of bearing a child. Or even himself for that matter. Not that it mattered. It wasn't as though he was going to love her any less if hey couldn't have a child. But the news of a baby had his heart absolutely bursting with joy and broke his kiss so he could laugh with her properly. He couldn't stop grinning even if he had wanted to.

"I'm so glad you are happy," she laughed and his grip on her head tightened just a little with his excitement.

"I am absolutely thrilled! A baby!" He exclaimed and they laughed and then he kissed her again because he just couldn't stand himself.

"You're pregnant?!" Henry chimed as he walked in to the kitchen and then laughed a little at the utter joy and excitement on their faces. It was contagious.

"Yes," the queen nodded and her husband continued to laugh as his gaze fell to her stomach.

"That's amazing!" Henry practically shouted as he bounced in place while his mother came in to the kitchen behind him.

Regina was about to ask what it was that Henry found so amazing but she got her answer with one glance at the glowing queen and the ecstatic king. It made her smile. Just a pleasant little thing that curled her lips and softened her eyes but it couldn't grow any bigger for the envy and pain tugging at her heart. The queen understood and softened her smile as well the moment she looked her way. Nothing insulting, nothing to push any buttons, just a respectful rein back of her pure excitement so as to refrain from running the news in her face.

She truly valued the woman's intuition and intelligence. Regina wasn't sure if that was narcissistic or not but she did regardless. She appreciated the king's as well for that matter.

"Mom! Do you think you will have a baby too some day?" Henry grinned up at his mother beside him.

Regina didn't say a word. Simply hummed through her smile and ran a hand through his hair and left it at that, "what do you three want for breakfast?" She changed the subject and she knew Henry was already pondering why she had so blatantly avoided the question. David was quick to catch the reason and while his smile never left, it certainly faded and became tainted with sorrow. Not pity. He never looked at her with pity and she would always hold him in high esteem for that. But it was the tenderness in his gaze that touched the sorest of places in her heart and dared her to cry. Like he knew exactly what pain resided there and he wanted nothing more than to take a warm damp rag and carefully dab the wound clean.

"I've always been a fan of your pancakes," the sheriff chirped as he came in to the conversation with a smile. The king and queen smiled at him in excitement, surprised by his arrival and Henry spun around with a thrilled laugh and a wide grin but his lovely mayor didn't greet him with such pleasant enthusiasm. Quite the opposite in fact. She scowled at him with hard cold eyes that had him tilting his head curiously. And then she turned and left without a word and everyone watched her do so.

"What the hell did you do?" The queen blurted out with a confused furrow of her brow and then looked back at the sheriff who looked equally as confused by the mayor's chilly response.

"...I don't know," David shook his head with a frown, never taking his eyes away from where Regina had retreated to. After another moment or two of trying with no success to guess at what he had done, he followed her path from the kitchen with his hand smoothing along the back of Henry's shoulders.

The trio in the kitchen remained silent and in place.

"Regina?" He called tenderly in concern when he made it to the foyer. She had already made it up one flight of stairs and was continuing across the small landing to the second flight with hardly a glance in his direction. With a frown he hurried to catch her, taking the stairs two or three at a time so that when he caught her wrist she had only gotten to the second stair of the last staircase. His grip was gentle and his expression was that of concern and worry while she scowled at him and turned to face him, lowering one foot from the second stair to join the other on the first.

"Regina, what is wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. Everything is the way it should be."

Oh how her tone just dared him to say the wrong thing. Quickly he filed through all of the things he couldn't say lest he wish to spark a fight between them. She was waiting for an answer, dark eyes catching every detail of his thought process before he decided on, "what have I done to hurt you, my darling?"

His soft and apologetic voice cracked her armour of anger but it didn't break it so the full extent of her pain remained hidden from him. She hadn't expected to see him this early in the day. She hadn't had time to bury it down and away from him yet, "you didn't push her away," she told him quietly and her eyes fell to watch his thumb circling around the bone in her wrist.

He didn't understand at first. But after a few more seconds of the heavy silence hanging between them, he put the pieces together. Snow. "From the very beginning of our relationship you told me not to if I couldn't help it," he argued softly but there wasn't so much as a hint of frustration in his voice.

"Yeah, well sometimes it would be nice if you didn't listen to what I tell you to do," she argued back and hated the tightness at the back of her throat that made her voice sound thick and unsteady.

She couldn't look him in the eye and that made his shoulders slump and his frown fall deeper. He felt helpless. There was nothing he could say or do to make it better, nothing he could say or do that could take that kiss away. The only thing he could do was keep his thumb moving over her soft skin while he frantically searched for his voice.

"It was malicious."

"It was," he agreed in a whisper as his eyes searched for hers but they remained hidden from him.

"And you went home with her," she breathed and shifted her weight to one foot as her brow furrowed in an attempt to keep her tears at bay.

"Regina..."

"You said you were mine," she breathed with a pained smile and a shake of her head as she finally looked him in the eye once more, "and I believed you."

"I am yours, Regina."

"Doesn't exactly feel like it when I watched you accept a kiss from another woman not twelve hours ago."

Her thick voice was breaking his heart and causing him to crumble. He wanted nothing more than for it to go away but he didn't know how to do that. "Tolerate is probably a better word," he offered but she didn't take it. She simply stared at him with the same hurt expression. He saw right through her anger. She was rarely ever truly angry. Anger was just what she portrayed when she was hurt. He wanted to tell her that he told Snow. He wanted to tell her everything but he was worried that if he told her now it would send this whole conversation spinning down in flames.

So he put it aside for later. "I love you, Regina," he told her firmly but quietly and she reacted the way she always did when he told her that. She looked down. His only saving grace in this situation was that she was relaxed. Her body was hurt but it was not tightly coiled in preparation to lash out at the person closest to her. So it was easy for him to slide his hand from her wrist to intertwine their fingers and he was encouraged when her grip was tight.

"I love you so much it hurts, Regina. I hate that I have hurt you like this. I didn't intend to. I was just...trying to pick the lesser of two evils...doing as I thought you wanted in keeping up the facade or doing as I wanted and turning her away. I am sorry, Regina. I thought it would be easy avoiding her at the party, I didn't even think to worry that she would do something like that."

"Neither did I..." She whispered and watched her thumb move over the back of his. "You told her about us. Didn't you," she inquired almost too quiet to hear and he hesitated to answer. She didn't look him in the eye as she waited. She just hoped he picked the right answer. Not that she even knew what the right answer was.

"...Yes...I did," he told her softly because really there was no benefit in lying to her face. Omitting the complete truth was one thing, lying was something else entirely. He didn't quite know what to make of her reaction and it seemed she didn't quite know how to react at the moment as she teetered between laughing and losing her temper. She had very specifically told him on several occasions not to do such a thing. But he also knew that despite what she said, she desperately wanted to stop hiding. It was incredibly stressful after all. "I give you full permission to lash out if you wish," he smiled a little and she gave a stressed laugh and pushed her free hand through her hair.

"I think I need to eat something so I can regain a little emotional stability," she huffed out and then sucked in a deep breath through her nose.

"Rough night?"

"You could say that, yeah," she snapped a little louder than she had meant to with her tired and stressed voice as her hand fell back to her side from her hair. He simply hummed softly with a gentle smile.

"I will make you breakfast," he told her softly and lifted and turned their intertwined hands so he could press a kiss to the back of hers.

...

She sat on the counter beside him as he cooked. She hadn't wanted to be close to him. She was upset with him for more reasons than one. But she found that despite that, she felt better when she was close to him. She felt calmer and her head felt clearer. So she had perched herself on the counter beside the stove and watched him make her breakfast.

He seemed to know that and as the minutes passed, the smile on his mouth slowly grew to a smirk as he worked, "shut up," she snapped plainly but it only made his smirk break to show his teeth as he breathed a light laugh, "you're such an idiot."

"I am your idiot though," he grinned and she rolled her eyes and looked away from him again. He finally made her smile though when he leaned over just a little and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. It came slowly and fought through every attempt to keep it from shining through and that had him grinning all the more as he started plating her food.

It smelled delicious and she was starving. What he had done was taken two pieces of bread and pulled a part of their centre out about the diameter of a golf ball, buttered both sides and put them in a pan. When the one side was toasted nearly golden he cracked an egg in each slice's missing centre and flipped them once the eggs were cooked on the one side. It was simple and effective and she was very curious. She usually cooked her eggs and toast separately and then put her egg on her toast. Never had she had her egg in her toast.

So she watched and her stomach threatened to growl. She couldn't help but purse her lips in a reluctant smirk when he took an avocado from her wire basket on her counter and opened it and sliced it before scooping it out on to her plate next to her eggs and toast. Little salt, little pepper, and she was being offered his hand to help her slide off the counter while his other held her plate. He knew her too well.

"Shut up and give me that," she grumbled but her smirk was breaking her look of annoyance and she couldn't help it when he kept grinning and laughing.

He surrendered her plate and utensils with no argument and she took it with her to the dining room without so much as a thank you. It only kept him smiling as he lingered back in the kitchen to clean up what little mess he had made. "She certainly won't bore you, David," he breathed to himself with a light chuckle as he wiped the crumbs from the cutting board and then filled her a glass of cool water and proceeded to take it to her.

With a stolen kiss on her temple, he placed her glass next to her plate and she refrained from jerking her head away but the look of murder in her eyes when he sat down next to her told him she wasn't ready for such affection. But she continued eating without a word and he watched happily in silence with her while they listened to Henry and the queen outside in the backyard. Target practice with his new bow while they waited for their breakfast.

"What are you staring at?" She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and then went back to putting a forkful of food in her mouth. She sat at her place at the head of the table and he sat to her left, the only contact she allowed being the toe of his shoe gently pushed in to the side of hers. She was just waiting for Snow to come barging in her front door screaming accusations left, right, and centre. Wouldn't that just be the cherry on top of this whole morning.

"Just marvelling at how far we've come," he smiled and immediately she shot back.

"You are still an idiot and I still want to strangle you. Really I don't see much ground covered from our relationship in the Enchanted Forest."

"Well that may be true. But I did just make you breakfast and you are not looking for poison-"

"Only because I watched you make it."

"-and I get to kiss that snarky little mouth of yours whenever I please and not fear death under your hand," he smirked and she rolled her eyes as a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth despite her best efforts, "except for maybe this morning," he reasoned with a smirk and a rock of his head as she finished the last of her avocado with her ever growing smirk.

She felt so much better with a stomach full of warm food. She could feel her mind and body settle and it had her begrudgingly accepting what he had told her. She hated that he didn't push Snow away and it was going to take more time for that to blow over but she wholeheartedly believed he had stayed there with his best intentions in mind and that he truly didn't mean to hurt her like he did. She also didn't appreciate the fact that Snow knew now. But...there was a small part of her that was quickly growing and was absolutely thrilled and relieved. She wanted to stay upset with him so that he would feel the burn longer. But it was hard when he was so good to her and accepted without hesitation or argument that he was in the wrong.

There was nothing to stay upset with him for. He knew how she felt about it all and she knew he was going to spend the rest of his days trying to make it up to her. So she caved under his banter as she lifted her glass of water to her lips, "well I am no longer feeling particularly blood thirsty at this point in time."

"Well then I think it's best I take full advantage of that," he grinned and she turned her head to look at him with a pursed smirk and amused eyes. When he kissed her, it wasn't playful. It was heavy with apology and determined to tell her how much he loved her. He was slow and careful as his hands cradled her head and he swivelled his. He could feel her breath quiver and it simply assured him that this was where he belonged. Right there with her.

"I am sorry."

"I know," she whispered back and let him kiss her again before he kissed her forehead and stood up tall. She let him take her finished plate and as he walked away she reached for his free hand and at the soft contact of her fingers, he stopped and looked back at her. She didn't say a word. Only smiled a little as she stood and loosely entwined their fingers and followed him to the kitchen.

...

"Oh my G-! Stop!" Henry laughed in disbelief as he caught the queen's wrists to keep her from making an even bigger mess, "just stop," he laughed with shake of his head and she surrendered the spatula to him with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. The fact that his mother was laughing behind them while whipping the cream only had him laughing harder. "You have to wait until the air bubbles stay popped open on the top," he laughed and she crossed her jaw, "then you can flip them over and they'll stay a circle instead of this...puddle of batter," he chuckled and David couldn't keep in his guffaw of laughter any longer. At least the king managed to stay somewhat quiet, "but other than that you're doing great!" He encouraged with a grin and she snatched the spatula back from him.

"Don't over think it," Regina chuckled at the queen and the woman shot her a look over her shoulder before focusing back on the griddle.

"Do we want these cut in quarters? Or slices?" The king asked and and both Henry and the sheriff answered in unison.

"Slices."

"Slices!" Henry shouted and then laughed some more at the sound of David's voice mingling with his. His mother simply chuckled with a playful roll of her eyes while she continued with her whisk in the whipping cream.

"Sliced strawberries it is then," the king laughed and spun the small paring knife around his fingers before getting to work.

"Don't cut yourself, dear," the queen smirked.

"Don't burn yourself, darling," he countered with a grin and the listening trio laughed while his queen smirked over her shoulder.

"Don't burn the pancakes!" Henry scolded with a disbelieving laugh and with a startled 'oh!' the queen quickly started flipping the pancakes over, "you got lucky," he laughed as he inspected the darker than normal pancakes. They were a far cry from burnt but they weren't his mother's pancakes either. At least the kitchen wasn't on fire.

Regina had been smiling since the moment everyone had decided to help with breakfast. Yes it was taking much longer to make than if she had just done it herself but it was far more fun this way. Listening to her son and the queen bicker over what the proper shade of golden brown a pancake should be had her laughing softly to herself. And the two Davids concocting the sweet strawberries and sugar while laughing and making playfully mocking comments on their respective Reginas had her shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

They made her feel at home and safe from the chaos that stirred outside her doors.

With her cream whipped perfectly, she cocked her head with a prideful little smile and took a dollop on her finger and sucked it clean. Just for a taste test. She was nodding in approval as she set her bowl on the counter and then she was letting out a rich laugh as her sheriff stole a kiss from her. His hands were low on her waist and holding her hips against his as he slipped his tongue past her lips to taste whatever cream lingered on hers. She was left laughing against his mouth as he hummed in delight and caught her bottom lip, not caring in the slightest that she was grinning far too wide to kiss him back properly through her laughter.

Henry was enthralled in his mother when he looked back to see what was going on. He had never seen her so completely and utterly happy as she did right then laughing against David's kiss. He didn't know what David did to make her laugh like that but it was a laugh Henry wanted to hear more of. It had him grinning and laughing with her. Every day she was happier and happier and even though today started on a bit of an odd and worrisome note, she was even happier today than she was the day before. Still climbing, still getting better, still coming out happy when the things going on in her life tried to tear her down.

He was absolutely thrilled.

"Don't burn the pancakes!" He shouted at the queen who seemed to be caught in a similar train of thought as he. She was quick to snap out of it though and spun around to get the pancakes off the griddle as he groaned a laugh and rolled his eyes. When he looked back to his mother she was slowly winding her arms around David's neck to kiss him back and their laughter continued even still. With a glance to the king, Henry found the man laughing to himself at the couple as he snuck half a strawberry in to his mouth and went back to slicing the rest.

It was turning out to be a perfect morning.