Oh! You did it to me once, you'll do it to me twice! I'm not in the mood to go and roll the dice! Dealt a shitty hand, you'll never understand - I cancelled all the plans, now you want another chance today? Oh, no. No, no not today!

"I can't believe your mom lets you listen to music like this," Aria giggled, playfully elbowing Lynn in the side, the two girls sitting cross legged atop their sleeping bags. "My mother would never on my own!"

Lynn grinned, starting to sing along. "I don't got time motherfucker, don't ruin my life! Oh! Oh! Oh! And not this time motherfucker, so I guess it's goodbye!"

Aria laughed, high fiving Lynn. The two girls, after begging their mothers (read: Aria tantruming to her mother) for years to let them have a sleepover, were laid out in the Watson's in home theatre. The second her aunt Chloe had pulled up at the top of the mansion's expansive, curving driveway, thirteen year old Lynnetta Mary Anne Mills had felt small, much smaller than her 5'0." The mansion was much smaller than the palace had been, but it was at least five times larger than her home in Storybrooke. Chloe, who was one of the few people who still used something called an iPod, turned down the music she had plugged in, her eyes wide behind her glasses. Lynn paused in thought. What was the song - I Call Bullshit, by The Bombpops. That's what had been playing in the car. That's what had been playing before her not-literally aunt - who was only three inches taller than the young princess, now - had stepped out of the car and come around to get Lynn and her things out too. She wasn't sure what her aunt had said, but it was something along the lines of how did these people have so much money?

Leah and Stephen had not been too happy about the pale and bony woman with unnatural, bright pink hair dropping off the teenager instead of the girl's own mother. Lynn couldn't quite wrap her head around it. What did it matter so long as she was dropped off and picked up safe and sound? They didn't like her mother anyways. Regina's words had kept coming back to her the entire time she and Aria had not been allowed to leave Leah and Stephen's sight while they spoke to Lynn's aunt. I'm not going to take the chance of Leah getting even a hint of who we really are just by looking at me. It was a haunting thought, to be sure. She tried to put the thought out of her mind now. There was nothing to worry about. Her mother was paranoid, and reasonably so, but she meant well. She was just trying to keep her safe. That was a good thing. That was something she had always done, and would continue to do. Leah and Stephen just misunderstood her. That was it. Like so many people had, both in their life before and life now, they misunderstood her, nothing more and nothing less. The curse was stable. They didn't know.

They would never -

"You know, I bet we can get my dad to have someone set up the TV so we can watch whatever we want tonight!" Aria pulled Lynn up, both girls giggling. "You know, since we don't have to think about going to school tomorrow or any of that junk!"

Lynn nodded. "Sure!"

"You mean, hell yeah!" Aria grabbed Lynn's right arm and then, seemingly out of nowhere, kissed her friend full on the lips before dragging her out of the room with her. "I think they're upstairs, just…"

Lynn didn't hear what else she said. Her head was spinning, confused. What was that? Why did she kiss me? Does she…like me like that? Lynn's brow furrowed in thought but she quickly forced herself to relax herself. Weird. It was weird. That was so strange. The thought of liking anyone that way had never even crossed her mind. It was weird. At least, that's what Lynn found herself thinking about it. Aria pulled her quickly along, almost running. The two of them went quickly up the stairs from the basement. They whipped around the corner and up to the main staircase. Everywhere was so maddening to see. Lynn found it to all be a blur. She could barely believe it every time she saw servants around, all of them quickly stepping out of the way of Aria and, by extension, her. She felt sick to her stomach, and not just because of how weird the situation was or how fast they were moving. Nothing felt right, not in the slightest, at least right now. Then, suddenly, they skidded to a halt, and Aria pressed a finger to her lips, silencing herself and Lynn, hearing the voices of Aria's parents.

"...Aria is not stupid, Leah. I don't like Lynnetta much, but it seems like she's perfectly well behaved these days. Though I understand your concern that she may have it in her to be…a loose cannon, so to speak, like her mother."

"...Oh, I wouldn't describe Regina as a loose cannon. She's a psychopath. It's as simple as that."

"...That's quite the overstatement, Leah."

"...You can see it in her eyes. I know you do, Stephen. It's almost like we've known her before."

"...If Lynnetta had not hit our daughter a few years ago, we likely never would have met her. Again, Leah, I get where you're coming from, but I think you're projecting your feelings of protection towards our daughter onto Regina because of her daughter's bad behaviours."

"...It's much more than that. I'm sure of it."

"...Where would we have possibly met her before? She's several years younger than us. She's only in her mid thirties, and we're nearing fifty!"

"...I don't know. But I know we have been around her before, and that she hurt us. Badly."

"...The only person who did that is the person who kidnapped Aria years ago. And that was not Regina. That was one of the people from the hospital when she was born. We know that, it's an empirical fact. That person is also safely in prison for it, and will never get out."

"...At the very least, then, isn't it odd that our background checks into Regina have gone nowhere?"

"...It is. I'll give you that. We've had them looking into her since what happened with Lynnetta breaking Aria's nose, and somehow every PI we have put on our payroll has made zero progress. It's madness."

"...She must be paying people off."

"...I'd believe it…CIA, maybe?"

"Are you guys in Witness Protection?" Aria whispered, cupping her hands around Lynn's ear. "You can tell me. I won't tell."

It's an easy out. An easy, believable lie.

"Yes."

"Come on, Henry. It's time to go to school."

The six year old nodded, grabbing his backpack off the bottom post of the staircase bannister. He all but latched onto his mother, startling her for a moment. Regina paused, embracing him tightly, a feeling of dread rising in her again. She told herself it was pointless. Lynn had been just fine that morning, her usual, bubbly self, and she had happily gotten into the car for school. The sleepover with Aria had been all she wanted to talk about for days, and her mother couldn't even quite remember how long ago that had been. She told herself it wasn't a problem, and that things were just fine. It didn't help. After a moment, she let her son go, and stepped over to the bookcase to unplug her mobile and drop it into her purse. The same thing she did nearly every day. Everything was fine, it was a normal day. Her eyes caught herself in the mirror. Henry, behind her, waved at her and himself in the mirror, laughing a little. She managed to smile a bit, but things still felt wrong somehow. She quickly shook herself out, took her son's hand, and the two stepped out of the house. She locked up quickly, and glanced towards her car before letting out a tired sigh and taking her son's hand again. It was warm enough out. They could walk to school today.

"What are you doing at school today?" Regina shifted her work bag and purse on one of her shoulders. "I assume you aren't left completely in the dark about what you do every day."

Henry giggled. "You're right, momma. We're doing shapes and numbers and stories today!"

Regina raised an eyebrow. "What kind of stories?"

"Stories," Henry said simply. "Like fairy tales."

Regina flinched a bit. Don't be ridiculous. Even Lynn heard about fairy tales in school. She tried not to dwell too much on that. Her thoughts persisted. That's what caused Lynn and Aria to - She pushed that thought as far out of her mind as she could.

"Momma?" Henry eyed her strangely. "Are you okay?"

"What?" Regina startled again, though, to her relief, her son did not notice. "I'm fine. You know I have a lot to think about with work."

"Okay," Henry shrugged it off. "How's Netta?"

"She's also fine," Regina paused, taking a minute to watch the clock. It did not move. She let out a sigh of relief. The clock was not moving. The curse was stable, like always. "Just staying a bit late at school today for a swim meet."

Henry grinned. "Aunt Sherry is going to get lots of pictures, right?"

"She always does," Regina went quiet, squeezing her son's hand almost as if she were afraid he would disappear if she didn't. "We'll be going to the one next week to support your sister, so you'll be missing school that day, alright?"

"Yep!" Henry said, squeezing his mother's hand back. "Netta is really, really, really fast! A super fast swimmer! It's cool!"

"She is," Regina agreed. She pushed aside the memory of why her daughter had been so insistent on learning to swim the second she had started school. "I think we're going to start going to them every other week, especially since they're getting more frequent since she started year seven."

Henry looked at her, eyes wide in excitement.

"We don't usually leave town much."

"Well, sometimes it's good to," Regina said shortly. "It's easy enough, too, now that you're getting older. For instance, I don't have to worry about you seeing any shiny object and running at it."

"I don't like leaving you or Netta, momma," Henry stared at her, confused. "Only school."

"I know, dear," She knelt down to her son's height, the two of them just outside Storybrooke Elementary School. "I just want to protect you," She went on, briefly pressing a hand to his cheek. "You two are my babies. I don't want anything bad to happen to you two. I'll do everything to protect you, you know that, don't you?"

Henry, still looking a bit confused, and wrapped his arms around his mother's neck, all but clinging onto her again. He didn't realise it, but Regina briefly closed her eyes while she held onto him, willing herself not to cry.

"Oh, Henry! It's good to see you here early!"

Regina's eyes snapped open, and she tensed, any semblance of peace leaving her. Letting her son go, she stood up, her eyes narrow when she met those of the enthusiastic woman who had spoken.

"Mary Margaret," She said coldly, glancing towards her son. "Go on, Henry, I'll see this afternoon."

Henry hugged her one more time before running to catch up with some of the other kids.

"How's everything?" Mary Margaret said almost the second Henry started off. "I heard about the Council and Gold -"

"Gold is nothing anyone needs to worry about," Regina said, forcing voice to stay as steady as possible. "He is the same as always: complaining the Council doesn't give him enough money when they give him more than his due already."

"That actually wasn't what I was thinking about," Mary Margaret hesitated when Regina raised an eyebrow. "It's…well, he apparently said something the other day about having 'an old friend' he could rely on if you supposedly went too far though I don't think that means anything I mean you…"

Regina barely heard anything else the woman rambled about. No. She told herself, though her hands tightened around her work bag and purse. He spreads rumours about himself all the time just to get under my skin, and has since the day we came here. Longer, even. She forced herself not to remember that he had followed through on some of those comments before. He can't, not here. He probably doesn't have full memory , if any at all. And there's no way in hell that she's here. Regina tried not to think about that either. There were days - and they were days she focused everything on her kids and work - when she got curious. She had come very close to it when she had gone to him about getting another kid. But he hadn't known what she was talking about when a tiny bit had slipped out despite her best efforts to hide it. Since then, she had been careful. More than careful. But there had been days - far more than she would ever care to admit to anyone including herself - where she had wondered. Days where she had considered seeing if she could force him to say his real name, and it was not Abraxas Gold.

Days when he would be forced to call her what she had only dryly told a few people to call her in anger, and those were people who would never get anywhere near her town, or the truth.

Two simple words that held so much in them.

Your majesty.

Replies To Reviews:

jasouatfan: Gold (and Cora) are two people that together are somehow even worse than they are separate. as for Mary Margaret, like in her past life, she definitely has a tendency to be far too curious for her own good, something Regina well knows and resents her for.

Sammii16: yep…though she won't show herself until [redacted] because she and Gold both like to play the long game, especially when it gives them an advantage and destabilises [redacted] and their thinking. like always, thanks so much for all the love, you guys are the best.

barrattajennifer: finding peace in themselves and together is one of those tricky things for the Mills family…