Fic: The End Is the Beginning Is the End
Title: "The End Is the Beginning Is the End"
Author: ouronlylight
Rating: R
Characters: Regina, King Leopold, Cora, Daniel, the Huntsman, Henry the son
Pairings: Regina/Leopold, Regina/Daniel, Regina/Huntsman
Warnings: character death, child abuse, incest, non-graphic violence, rape
Spoilers: 1x18 "Stable Boy"
Author's Note: This story was inspired by casting spoilers for episode 18. A lot of it has been Jossed by the spoilers released on Monday, but I have this whole thing mapped out in my head (there just may be companion pieces in the near future, since I hint at a lot in here that I couldn't fully explore), so here it is anyway. This story is also incredibly dark; one of the major subjects of this fic is parent/child sexual abuse. I hope that I've done the topic justice. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time is owned by ABC and Horowitz/Kitsis. I make no profit, monetary or otherwise, from the publication of this story.
Summary: It's at this moment that Regina realizes that she was right all along - she's damaged, broken, and anyone who tries to help her put the pieces back together will surely bleed to death.
There is a part of herself that Regina tries to bury, tries to hide from her mother's cruel, questing hands and the village boys' leering stares. She conceals it deep within herself, beneath dull, shapeless frocks and cold, impassive faces, and tries to pretend that it does not exist, that she is in complete control.
Control, though, is something that has never been afforded to her; Daddy ceded it to Mama long ago, before Regina was ever born, and Mama's clung to it with an iron fist ever since. During the day, Regina tries to escape to the outdoors, to the illusion of autonomy, at every chance that she has. She flees to the garden and her apple tree first, taking refuge in the safety of the shadows beneath its strong branches. The tree depends on her for survival, for her ability to prune its limbs and protect it from pests, and Regina takes great pride in the sweet fruit that it yields.
If she's finished tending to the garden before Mama notes her absence, then Regina mounts her beloved steed, Avalon, and rides far away, past the mill and the village and deep into the forest. There, they rest together by a small stream just off the road, hidden from the rest of the world. Regina gives Avalon some oats before lovingly grooming her horse, brushing all of her tears and darkest secrets into the animal's coat. More than anything, Regina wants to run away, to disappear, but once the sun begins to grow heavy in the sky, she climbs back atop her faithful mare and begins the journey back home, to the only life she knows.
At night, after the lashing that she takes for wandering off, and after Daddy drinks himself to sleep, Mama comes to tuck her into bed. Even though Regina is more woman than girl now, Cora still helps her change into her nightclothes and combs her long, shiny hair. Then, once Regina has crawled into bed, Cora thrusts all of her frustration and rage into her daughter's limp body while Regina pretends that she is… elsewhere. If there's one thing that she has learned to master after growing up in this house, it's the art of dissociation.
Hours later, in the dead of night, Regina still lies awake, staring out her open window at the stars that litter the night sky, and dreams of how she imagines that power must taste. Crisp and luscious, she thinks, like a perfectly ripe apple. Some mysterious part within her stirs at this thought, and a sickening pang of dread surges through her stomach.
Regina screws her eyes shut, banishing all fantasies of control from her mind. There is no use in dreaming; she will never possess it, and even if she did, she's not sure if she would trust herself to wield it.
*
Everyone tells her that the wedding is lovely with that same underlying tone of disbelief, as if surprised that the daughter of a simple miller could have ever cleaned up so nicely, or that her peasant guests could have comported themselves so well. She supposes that the white roses that adorn nearly every inch of the hall are beautiful, as is the snowy white satin and lace gown that clings to her slender frame, but Regina's chest is too tight, too constricted by fear, to really notice. The party is fine for now, with the dancing and laughing and her parents' beaming faces, but after the wedding reception comes the wedding night, and all that she wants to do is find Avalon in the stables and ride her far away from her new husband's prison of a palace.
Regina is only two and a half weeks past her eighteenth birthday and a virgin by the court's standards. For so long, she's kept everything bottled up in some unknowable part of herself, hidden even from her own consciousness, and she knows that she's supposed to open up now and be a loving wife, but she's just so scared. If there's anything that she's learned from her parents, it's that love makes people greedy, so opening up to anyone is a particularly terrifying prospect.
She's again wrapped in layers of the most immaculate white lace and satin when Leopold comes to her late that night. "Your majesty," she breathes as she falls into a curtsy, her heart hammering against her ribs. She may be able to trick the servants and nobles into believing that she is strong and confident, but here, alone with her new husband, it's as if all of her defenses have come crumbling down.
"That won't be necessary." The king looks her over once, a small frown evident on his face. "You can go ahead and take that off now."
Regina feels her cheeks pale. She swallows hard before slowly untying the sash of her robe with trembling fingers and allowing the garment to slither from her shoulders. The negligee comes next, followed by her undergarments, and then she's shivering and exposed before him. After a few moments of awkward silence, she finally gathers the courage to look at him, but if the king is pleased, he does not show it.
"Go ahead," he says, voice clipped, as he jerks his head towards her bed. Regina wastes no time in crawling beneath the sheets, welcoming the protection that they provide her. Leopold's footsteps echo against the cold marble floor as he comes to her side, shedding his clothing along the way, and she averts her eyes in embarrassment.
She feels the mattress dip beside her, followed by Leopold's weight bearing down uncomfortably on her torso. When she at last looks up into his eyes, she is surprised to see sadness reflected there, and she suddenly worries that her shyness has offended him. Remembering the love stories that Daddy used to read to her before bed each night, Regina places her hands on either side of Leopold's face and raises her head to kiss him.
"Don't." The king's eyes flash with anger as he rips her hands from his cheeks and pins her wrists into the mattress. Regina steels herself for the inevitable blow, but it doesn't come; after a few seconds, Leopold's expression softens. "Just lie still," he says wearily, "and it will all be over before you know it."
He pushes her thighs apart then, spreading them so far that it hurts, and shoves his length inside of her. The pain is almost unbearable; it feels as if he's torn her vagina in two, and she has to press her mouth into her shoulder to keep from crying out. She stares down her outstretched arm at the glittering diamond perched on her left ring finger and tries to disappear, tries to pretend that she's back home and lying beneath her apple tree, but it hasn't hurt this much in years, and the way that her body keeps jerking with Leopold's thrusts is making her nauseous. Please let it be over soon, she thinks desperately as her eyelids lower against the welling tears. Let me die, just let it end.
Several agonizing minutes later, he finally comes with a harsh grunt in her ear. As he pulls away from her, the bedsheet gathers behind him, leaving her naked and freezing once more. "Here," he says awkwardly, his eyes refusing to meet her face. He grabs a thick pillow from the other side of her bed and, lifting her hips off the mattress, slides it beneath her bottom. "Stay like this for twenty minutes, and then you can go... clean up. Good night."
Leopold quickly throws his dressing gown back on and disappears out the door without another word. There are no clocks in the room, so Regina begins to count to sixty, repeating the task until it has been completed twenty times. She cannot reach her blankets, and moving makes her core ache terribly, so she lies shuddering in the dim, dying candlelight while carefully counting to sixty over and over again.
Once she reaches sixty for the twentieth time, she bolts out of bed, wincing in pain as she hobbles to the bathroom. She fills the large ivory bath with scalding water and immediately begins to scrub frantically at her skin, trying to wash away the sweat, blood, and semen that cling to her flesh. She scrubs so hard that her skin grows pink and raw, but she's still so filthy; it's inside of her, oozing out of her pores, and she'll never be clean again. Regina scrubs and scrubs until the tears blind her, then helplessly sinks lower into the tub with a heartrending sob.
*
For the next three years, she passes through life like a ghost, often convinced that she truly is dead. All around her, she sees others living joyfully: Leopold delights in his young daughter, and Snow White adores her father in return, while Henry and Cora happily move into the palace to brandish their new titles. Regina is now queen, with a benevolent husband and a welcoming stepdaughter, but inside she feels only emptiness. She wonders, as she tends to the apple tree that her husband so graciously had transported from her parents' humble cottage, what it was that she did to be denied a happy ending. Picking at the dirt lodged beneath her fingernails, she wonders if she was just born so filthy, so evil, that her own mother had been driven to hurt her. She wonders if that's why her husband cannot not bare to touch her except on her most fertile days, and why her womb has remained empty for all this time. She wonders, as her sight swims with tears, if that's why she's been denied love.
Each night at sunset, Regina stands on her balcony and fantasizes about throwing herself over the ledge. She imagines the smooth caress of the air rushing around her as she plummets into darkness, into peace.
Then, two days before her third wedding anniversary, Regina meets the new stable boy.
She remembers Leopold telling her that he'd hired a new hand to tend to the horses, but she's still surprised when she walks into the stable and finds a strange man brushing Avalon's mane. He's handsome, to be sure, but what draws her to him the most is the way that he talks to her horse like an old friend; the other stable hands only scoff at Avalon's poor breeding.
Daniel, as it turns out, is a romantic through and through, and he assures his queen that the fact that her horse is not purebred does not make her any less lovable. Regina can't help but roll her eyes at this blatant display of naïveté, but she nonetheless finds herself in the stables every afternoon chatting with Daniel and listening to his opinions about love.
"Forgive me, your majesty," he says one day after a particularly long monologue about true love, "but I get the impression that you do not believe me."
"Oh, I do," Regina sighs, rubbing gentle circles against Avalon's flank. "I've read all about the power of true love's kiss."
He frowns. "You've read about it? Have you not experienced its power yourself with the king?"
She bristles slightly at this, her muscles going rigid, but then she opens her mouth, wondering briefly why she's so quick to let down her guard and divulge all of her secrets to this man. "You yourself said that true love comes only once in a lifetime. The king has no desire for me when he still has the memory of his first wife to keep him company."
"How could he not want you?" Daniel wonders, his mouth gaping slightly. "You're intelligent, kind, beautiful-"
Regina whirls around, her heart pounding and stomach churning. "What are you doing?" she demands, adopting the chilly tone that she uses with everyone else in the palace. He's digging, getting close to all of her secrets, and panic is coiling around her organs.
"I'm sorry, your majesty," he stammers. "I thought-"
"I don't care," she snaps, storming out of the stables with moisture forming in the corners of her eyes. She runs as fast as she can, breezing past stunned servants and gossiping nobles in her haste, and bolts the door to her bedroom behind her once she reaches her destination. Her body shakes violently as she slowly sinks to the floor, and her head pounds mercilessly. She should have known that Daniel was merely playing games with her, trying to burrow beneath her skin and find her weaknesses; she was stupid to have placed so much trust in him. Still, as she ponders that last, shocked look on his face, she can't help but think (hope) that perhaps his intentions really were pure.
So, against her better judgment, Regina returns to the stable the following morning. "Your majesty!" Daniel exclaims at the sight of her. He bows deeply. "Please except my most sincere apologies for what transpired-"
"Tell me a story," she interrupts, sweeping gracefully into an empty chair.
"I beg your pardon?"
She flashes him an easy smile. "Tell me a story. It can even be a romance, just... talk to me."
So Daniel tells her every story that he knows: romance and horror, adventure and tragedy. He tells her the tale of the sleeping beauty, who awoke with true love's kiss and defeated the malicious fairy who cursed her; of the fearsome blind witch, who lives in a gingerbread house in the darkest corner of the Enchanted Forest and feasts on the unsuspecting children who stumble across her home; and of the cowardly weaver who vanquished the duke's forces and saved the children of his land from their certain deaths on the frontlines of the battlefield. Every day for month after month, Daniel patiently tells the queen a new tale as he tends to his duties. Regina is satisfied at first, but as more time passes, doubt and fear begin to creep into the pit of her stomach once more.
"Why have you not yet kissed me?" she finally asks one night, struggling to make her words sound cool and disinterested. It's a silly question, really, for she knows what the answer will be: because you are the king's wife, and what king possesses, no other man may touch.
But then he surprises her by staring deep into her eyes, through her affected indifference. "Because I did not think that you wished for me to do so," he answers, and he must be lying, because no one has ever given her a choice before. Then she meets the honesty of his gaze and feels herself begin to crumble.
"But surely you want me?" she inquires, fruitlessly fighting the tears that fill her eyes, threatening to cascade down her face. "Surely you want... something from me?"
He takes a step closer, and after a moment's hesitation, he lifts his hand to wipe at the wetness on her cheeks. "What I desire is your happiness, and if my friendship makes you happy, then I shall be content to be your friend."
She's really crying now; it feels as if she's being torn in half, and all of the ugliness inside of her is being laid bare for him to see. "But why? I am nothing." She pauses, choking on this last word, spitting it out between sobs: "Damaged."
"No," he gasps, cupping her face with his hands. She looks up at him with wide eyes as he finishes speaking. "You are perfect."
His lips are soft and gentle when she kisses him, and she doesn't believe a word that he's saying; she was damned long ago, but she believes that he believes it, and she clings to that for all that she's worth. It's horribly dangerous, she knows, because to the king she is merely a possession, and her mother will die before she gives up her impressive new titles, but Daniel is the only beautiful thing in her world, and she won't - can't - give him up.
They move slowly, taking time to grow accustomed to one another, and the more time that passes, the harder that it becomes for Regina to keep everything buried inside. She's terrified, but at the same time, she wants this man to know her inside and out, mind and body. More than anything, she wants to believe that all of his romantic tales can come true.
When she finally gives herself to him, cradling his hips with her own and letting go of everything, it's the most exhilarating feeling she's ever known. Oh, she thinks as Daniel pushes inside, her body stretching so satisfyingly around him, this is what the ladies were talking about when they spoke of the joys of sex. Their bodies move together as if this were their thousandth coupling, and when she reaches her climax, a hushed "I love you" escapes her parted lips. She's never said the words before, neither to her parents nor to her husband, but she finds that saying them to Daniel is the easiest thing in the world. "I love you," he moans back, planting wet kisses on every bare inch of her skin that he can reach, and for the first time in her life, Regina truly has hope that she will get a happy ending, too.
*
That hope lasts all of three weeks.
Those short, precious days are glorious for Regina, who begins to map out her future with Daniel as the two carefully, clandestinely arrange for their disappearance and escape from Leopold's lands. Aside from Snow White overhearing enough of one of their conversations to figure out the truth - and Regina trusts that the young princess will heed her desperate plea to keep her silence, lest Leopold or Cora take violent action against them - each step of their plan is executed perfectly. They're both so close to freedom, to happily ever after...
And then Regina finds her mother waiting for her in the stable, alone, and she knows at once that there will be no happily ever after for her, not ever. Before she can even react, she feels the sharp sting of her mother's magic slap her across the face, splitting her upper lip in two and drawing forth a fountain of warm, sticky blood. "You selfish little bitch," Cora spits out, her icy features twisted in fury. "I made you queen, and this is how you repay me? By throwing our livelihood away for some nothing peasant?"
Regina's crying now, not because of the blood streaming down her chin, filling her mouth, but because she cannot see or hear Daniel, and she knows what her mother has done to him, even as her brain screams in denial. "Please, Mama," she sobs, stumbling forward, "where is he? Tell me that you haven't hurt him, please!"
Cora's upper lip curls into a smirk as she takes a fistful of her billowing robe into her hands. Without a word, she throws it dramatically behind her, revealing a crumpled form lying in a heap by her side. Regina sees only a pair of strangely dull blue eyes and a shock of scarlet before her body ceases to function. Her muscles fail as she comes crashing to her knees; she opens her mouth to scream, but she's forgotten how to use her vocal chords. The world is reduced to blue and red, swirling together in a dizzying blur; she reaches out her hands to touch him, but they won't lower, helplessly hovering a few inches above his skin.
Then it hits her all at once: this is Daniel's corpse, and he's dead, lost to her forever. The most terrible wail escapes her throat, so powerful that it feels as if it's splitting her body in half, and she gathers him into her arms, not caring that his blood is all over her and that hers is now on him. She lifts his face to her own and kisses him desperately, focuses her every thought on the intensity of her love for him, because true love's kiss will break any curse, and the boy and the girl always get their happily ever after in the end, right? This is all just a terrible curse cast by the wicked witch, and if she just tries a little bit harder...
Her body suddenly goes flying, crashing against one of the stable walls so hard that her vision swims. Cora angrily stalks over to her side, rage radiating from her person in almost tangible waves, and grabs Regina's chin roughly, cruelly jerking her head so that she can no longer see her slain love .
"Why?" Regina sobs before her mother can utter a word. "He was a good man; love was his only crime. Why not kill me instead?"
Cora flashes her a cold smile before slamming her daughter's head back against the hard stone of the stable wall, and for a moment, Regina's world turns mercifully black. She's quickly and ruthlessly dragged back to consciousness, though, and finds herself staring again into her mother's furious face. "You are my daughter," the older woman spits out between clenched teeth. With one hand still gripping the queen's chin, she uses the other to roughly, painfully squeeze Regina's breast. "And you will not die until I give you permission to do so."
It's at this moment that Regina realizes that she was right all along - she's damaged, broken, and anyone who tries to help her put the pieces back together will surely bleed to death. So when Rumpelstiltskin approaches her nine months later, after even more devastation and heartache, and demands her heart in exchange for the power to protect herself from ever again being hurt, she cuts the useless thing out of her chest herself, so that she will never forget again.
*
He stares into her eyes defiantly, despite the chains and his nakedness. "I may be your captive," the huntsman says, his teeth gritted tight, "but I will never be yours."
With a laugh, she runs a fingernail up his hard shaft, making the strained muscle in his jaw twitch. "We shall see, my pet," she hisses. Winding her arms around his neck like a serpent, she lowers herself onto his swollen prick, reveling in the sound of the groan that sticks in his throat as she swallows him whole. She laughs again as she kisses him, nipping at his bottom lip as she pulls away.
He tries to fight her, glaring hatefully into her face in a futile attempt at resistance, but Regina knows all the tricks; she has become a master at getting beneath her victims' skin and finding that which they have hidden, that which is not hers to take. She knows that if she just squeezes her innermost muscles, like that, and traces her sharp fingernails down deceptively flawless skin, just above where his heart once beat, until she reaches his nipple and gives it a sharp twist, like so, he will be hers. He's so close now, panting in an effort to keep up with her unforgiving rhythm, all the while fighting release. Leaning forward, she sinks her teeth into the hollow between his neck and shoulder, like the wolf she once thought him to be, and he comes with a howl.
Afterwards, he refuses to meet her gaze; Regina takes this as a victory.
*
Henry is crying; she can hear his great, gasping sobs through the heavy, solid wood of his door, but she leaves her hand resting motionless on the doorknob. He hasn't stopped crying since they got home from his first appointment with Dr. Hopper a half an hour ago, and she should try to comfort him, tell him that everything will be all right, but...
Regina allows her head to sink against the door as she lets out a choked sigh. She doesn't want for things to be this way; she'd always thought that the curse would also prevent Henry from noticing that time was frozen, even as he himself grew older. Now her six-year-old has locked himself in his bedroom and won't stop sobbing because everyone is telling him that he's crazy.
More than anything, she wants to tell him the truth, to take him into her arms and beg for his forgiveness, but she knows that she will never receive it. How could she? Henry is still a little boy, capable of viewing the world only in black and white, and she has stolen far too many lives, ruined far too many happy endings, for him to ever see her as anything but the villain. If she were to open up to him, let him see the scars that she's so meticulously hidden, he would only reject her, and that betrayal, above all others, would destroy her.
So she doesn't open the door. Regina retreats back to her bedroom, its sturdy walls not enough to drown out the sound of her child's despair, and when she finally brings herself to look into the ornate mirror hanging beside her dresser, she swears for a moment that she sees her mother's face staring back at her.
Author: ouronlylight
Rating: R
Characters: Regina, King Leopold, Cora, Daniel, the Huntsman, Henry the son
Pairings: Regina/Leopold, Regina/Daniel, Regina/Huntsman
Warnings: character death, child abuse, incest, non-graphic violence, rape
Spoilers: 1x18 "Stable Boy"
Author's Note: This story was inspired by casting spoilers for episode 18. A lot of it has been Jossed by the spoilers released on Monday, but I have this whole thing mapped out in my head (there just may be companion pieces in the near future, since I hint at a lot in here that I couldn't fully explore), so here it is anyway. This story is also incredibly dark; one of the major subjects of this fic is parent/child sexual abuse. I hope that I've done the topic justice. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time is owned by ABC and Horowitz/Kitsis. I make no profit, monetary or otherwise, from the publication of this story.
Summary: It's at this moment that Regina realizes that she was right all along - she's damaged, broken, and anyone who tries to help her put the pieces back together will surely bleed to death.
There is a part of herself that Regina tries to bury, tries to hide from her mother's cruel, questing hands and the village boys' leering stares. She conceals it deep within herself, beneath dull, shapeless frocks and cold, impassive faces, and tries to pretend that it does not exist, that she is in complete control.
Control, though, is something that has never been afforded to her; Daddy ceded it to Mama long ago, before Regina was ever born, and Mama's clung to it with an iron fist ever since. During the day, Regina tries to escape to the outdoors, to the illusion of autonomy, at every chance that she has. She flees to the garden and her apple tree first, taking refuge in the safety of the shadows beneath its strong branches. The tree depends on her for survival, for her ability to prune its limbs and protect it from pests, and Regina takes great pride in the sweet fruit that it yields.
If she's finished tending to the garden before Mama notes her absence, then Regina mounts her beloved steed, Avalon, and rides far away, past the mill and the village and deep into the forest. There, they rest together by a small stream just off the road, hidden from the rest of the world. Regina gives Avalon some oats before lovingly grooming her horse, brushing all of her tears and darkest secrets into the animal's coat. More than anything, Regina wants to run away, to disappear, but once the sun begins to grow heavy in the sky, she climbs back atop her faithful mare and begins the journey back home, to the only life she knows.
At night, after the lashing that she takes for wandering off, and after Daddy drinks himself to sleep, Mama comes to tuck her into bed. Even though Regina is more woman than girl now, Cora still helps her change into her nightclothes and combs her long, shiny hair. Then, once Regina has crawled into bed, Cora thrusts all of her frustration and rage into her daughter's limp body while Regina pretends that she is… elsewhere. If there's one thing that she has learned to master after growing up in this house, it's the art of dissociation.
Hours later, in the dead of night, Regina still lies awake, staring out her open window at the stars that litter the night sky, and dreams of how she imagines that power must taste. Crisp and luscious, she thinks, like a perfectly ripe apple. Some mysterious part within her stirs at this thought, and a sickening pang of dread surges through her stomach.
Regina screws her eyes shut, banishing all fantasies of control from her mind. There is no use in dreaming; she will never possess it, and even if she did, she's not sure if she would trust herself to wield it.
*
Everyone tells her that the wedding is lovely with that same underlying tone of disbelief, as if surprised that the daughter of a simple miller could have ever cleaned up so nicely, or that her peasant guests could have comported themselves so well. She supposes that the white roses that adorn nearly every inch of the hall are beautiful, as is the snowy white satin and lace gown that clings to her slender frame, but Regina's chest is too tight, too constricted by fear, to really notice. The party is fine for now, with the dancing and laughing and her parents' beaming faces, but after the wedding reception comes the wedding night, and all that she wants to do is find Avalon in the stables and ride her far away from her new husband's prison of a palace.
Regina is only two and a half weeks past her eighteenth birthday and a virgin by the court's standards. For so long, she's kept everything bottled up in some unknowable part of herself, hidden even from her own consciousness, and she knows that she's supposed to open up now and be a loving wife, but she's just so scared. If there's anything that she's learned from her parents, it's that love makes people greedy, so opening up to anyone is a particularly terrifying prospect.
She's again wrapped in layers of the most immaculate white lace and satin when Leopold comes to her late that night. "Your majesty," she breathes as she falls into a curtsy, her heart hammering against her ribs. She may be able to trick the servants and nobles into believing that she is strong and confident, but here, alone with her new husband, it's as if all of her defenses have come crumbling down.
"That won't be necessary." The king looks her over once, a small frown evident on his face. "You can go ahead and take that off now."
Regina feels her cheeks pale. She swallows hard before slowly untying the sash of her robe with trembling fingers and allowing the garment to slither from her shoulders. The negligee comes next, followed by her undergarments, and then she's shivering and exposed before him. After a few moments of awkward silence, she finally gathers the courage to look at him, but if the king is pleased, he does not show it.
"Go ahead," he says, voice clipped, as he jerks his head towards her bed. Regina wastes no time in crawling beneath the sheets, welcoming the protection that they provide her. Leopold's footsteps echo against the cold marble floor as he comes to her side, shedding his clothing along the way, and she averts her eyes in embarrassment.
She feels the mattress dip beside her, followed by Leopold's weight bearing down uncomfortably on her torso. When she at last looks up into his eyes, she is surprised to see sadness reflected there, and she suddenly worries that her shyness has offended him. Remembering the love stories that Daddy used to read to her before bed each night, Regina places her hands on either side of Leopold's face and raises her head to kiss him.
"Don't." The king's eyes flash with anger as he rips her hands from his cheeks and pins her wrists into the mattress. Regina steels herself for the inevitable blow, but it doesn't come; after a few seconds, Leopold's expression softens. "Just lie still," he says wearily, "and it will all be over before you know it."
He pushes her thighs apart then, spreading them so far that it hurts, and shoves his length inside of her. The pain is almost unbearable; it feels as if he's torn her vagina in two, and she has to press her mouth into her shoulder to keep from crying out. She stares down her outstretched arm at the glittering diamond perched on her left ring finger and tries to disappear, tries to pretend that she's back home and lying beneath her apple tree, but it hasn't hurt this much in years, and the way that her body keeps jerking with Leopold's thrusts is making her nauseous. Please let it be over soon, she thinks desperately as her eyelids lower against the welling tears. Let me die, just let it end.
Several agonizing minutes later, he finally comes with a harsh grunt in her ear. As he pulls away from her, the bedsheet gathers behind him, leaving her naked and freezing once more. "Here," he says awkwardly, his eyes refusing to meet her face. He grabs a thick pillow from the other side of her bed and, lifting her hips off the mattress, slides it beneath her bottom. "Stay like this for twenty minutes, and then you can go... clean up. Good night."
Leopold quickly throws his dressing gown back on and disappears out the door without another word. There are no clocks in the room, so Regina begins to count to sixty, repeating the task until it has been completed twenty times. She cannot reach her blankets, and moving makes her core ache terribly, so she lies shuddering in the dim, dying candlelight while carefully counting to sixty over and over again.
Once she reaches sixty for the twentieth time, she bolts out of bed, wincing in pain as she hobbles to the bathroom. She fills the large ivory bath with scalding water and immediately begins to scrub frantically at her skin, trying to wash away the sweat, blood, and semen that cling to her flesh. She scrubs so hard that her skin grows pink and raw, but she's still so filthy; it's inside of her, oozing out of her pores, and she'll never be clean again. Regina scrubs and scrubs until the tears blind her, then helplessly sinks lower into the tub with a heartrending sob.
*
For the next three years, she passes through life like a ghost, often convinced that she truly is dead. All around her, she sees others living joyfully: Leopold delights in his young daughter, and Snow White adores her father in return, while Henry and Cora happily move into the palace to brandish their new titles. Regina is now queen, with a benevolent husband and a welcoming stepdaughter, but inside she feels only emptiness. She wonders, as she tends to the apple tree that her husband so graciously had transported from her parents' humble cottage, what it was that she did to be denied a happy ending. Picking at the dirt lodged beneath her fingernails, she wonders if she was just born so filthy, so evil, that her own mother had been driven to hurt her. She wonders if that's why her husband cannot not bare to touch her except on her most fertile days, and why her womb has remained empty for all this time. She wonders, as her sight swims with tears, if that's why she's been denied love.
Each night at sunset, Regina stands on her balcony and fantasizes about throwing herself over the ledge. She imagines the smooth caress of the air rushing around her as she plummets into darkness, into peace.
Then, two days before her third wedding anniversary, Regina meets the new stable boy.
She remembers Leopold telling her that he'd hired a new hand to tend to the horses, but she's still surprised when she walks into the stable and finds a strange man brushing Avalon's mane. He's handsome, to be sure, but what draws her to him the most is the way that he talks to her horse like an old friend; the other stable hands only scoff at Avalon's poor breeding.
Daniel, as it turns out, is a romantic through and through, and he assures his queen that the fact that her horse is not purebred does not make her any less lovable. Regina can't help but roll her eyes at this blatant display of naïveté, but she nonetheless finds herself in the stables every afternoon chatting with Daniel and listening to his opinions about love.
"Forgive me, your majesty," he says one day after a particularly long monologue about true love, "but I get the impression that you do not believe me."
"Oh, I do," Regina sighs, rubbing gentle circles against Avalon's flank. "I've read all about the power of true love's kiss."
He frowns. "You've read about it? Have you not experienced its power yourself with the king?"
She bristles slightly at this, her muscles going rigid, but then she opens her mouth, wondering briefly why she's so quick to let down her guard and divulge all of her secrets to this man. "You yourself said that true love comes only once in a lifetime. The king has no desire for me when he still has the memory of his first wife to keep him company."
"How could he not want you?" Daniel wonders, his mouth gaping slightly. "You're intelligent, kind, beautiful-"
Regina whirls around, her heart pounding and stomach churning. "What are you doing?" she demands, adopting the chilly tone that she uses with everyone else in the palace. He's digging, getting close to all of her secrets, and panic is coiling around her organs.
"I'm sorry, your majesty," he stammers. "I thought-"
"I don't care," she snaps, storming out of the stables with moisture forming in the corners of her eyes. She runs as fast as she can, breezing past stunned servants and gossiping nobles in her haste, and bolts the door to her bedroom behind her once she reaches her destination. Her body shakes violently as she slowly sinks to the floor, and her head pounds mercilessly. She should have known that Daniel was merely playing games with her, trying to burrow beneath her skin and find her weaknesses; she was stupid to have placed so much trust in him. Still, as she ponders that last, shocked look on his face, she can't help but think (hope) that perhaps his intentions really were pure.
So, against her better judgment, Regina returns to the stable the following morning. "Your majesty!" Daniel exclaims at the sight of her. He bows deeply. "Please except my most sincere apologies for what transpired-"
"Tell me a story," she interrupts, sweeping gracefully into an empty chair.
"I beg your pardon?"
She flashes him an easy smile. "Tell me a story. It can even be a romance, just... talk to me."
So Daniel tells her every story that he knows: romance and horror, adventure and tragedy. He tells her the tale of the sleeping beauty, who awoke with true love's kiss and defeated the malicious fairy who cursed her; of the fearsome blind witch, who lives in a gingerbread house in the darkest corner of the Enchanted Forest and feasts on the unsuspecting children who stumble across her home; and of the cowardly weaver who vanquished the duke's forces and saved the children of his land from their certain deaths on the frontlines of the battlefield. Every day for month after month, Daniel patiently tells the queen a new tale as he tends to his duties. Regina is satisfied at first, but as more time passes, doubt and fear begin to creep into the pit of her stomach once more.
"Why have you not yet kissed me?" she finally asks one night, struggling to make her words sound cool and disinterested. It's a silly question, really, for she knows what the answer will be: because you are the king's wife, and what king possesses, no other man may touch.
But then he surprises her by staring deep into her eyes, through her affected indifference. "Because I did not think that you wished for me to do so," he answers, and he must be lying, because no one has ever given her a choice before. Then she meets the honesty of his gaze and feels herself begin to crumble.
"But surely you want me?" she inquires, fruitlessly fighting the tears that fill her eyes, threatening to cascade down her face. "Surely you want... something from me?"
He takes a step closer, and after a moment's hesitation, he lifts his hand to wipe at the wetness on her cheeks. "What I desire is your happiness, and if my friendship makes you happy, then I shall be content to be your friend."
She's really crying now; it feels as if she's being torn in half, and all of the ugliness inside of her is being laid bare for him to see. "But why? I am nothing." She pauses, choking on this last word, spitting it out between sobs: "Damaged."
"No," he gasps, cupping her face with his hands. She looks up at him with wide eyes as he finishes speaking. "You are perfect."
His lips are soft and gentle when she kisses him, and she doesn't believe a word that he's saying; she was damned long ago, but she believes that he believes it, and she clings to that for all that she's worth. It's horribly dangerous, she knows, because to the king she is merely a possession, and her mother will die before she gives up her impressive new titles, but Daniel is the only beautiful thing in her world, and she won't - can't - give him up.
They move slowly, taking time to grow accustomed to one another, and the more time that passes, the harder that it becomes for Regina to keep everything buried inside. She's terrified, but at the same time, she wants this man to know her inside and out, mind and body. More than anything, she wants to believe that all of his romantic tales can come true.
When she finally gives herself to him, cradling his hips with her own and letting go of everything, it's the most exhilarating feeling she's ever known. Oh, she thinks as Daniel pushes inside, her body stretching so satisfyingly around him, this is what the ladies were talking about when they spoke of the joys of sex. Their bodies move together as if this were their thousandth coupling, and when she reaches her climax, a hushed "I love you" escapes her parted lips. She's never said the words before, neither to her parents nor to her husband, but she finds that saying them to Daniel is the easiest thing in the world. "I love you," he moans back, planting wet kisses on every bare inch of her skin that he can reach, and for the first time in her life, Regina truly has hope that she will get a happy ending, too.
*
That hope lasts all of three weeks.
Those short, precious days are glorious for Regina, who begins to map out her future with Daniel as the two carefully, clandestinely arrange for their disappearance and escape from Leopold's lands. Aside from Snow White overhearing enough of one of their conversations to figure out the truth - and Regina trusts that the young princess will heed her desperate plea to keep her silence, lest Leopold or Cora take violent action against them - each step of their plan is executed perfectly. They're both so close to freedom, to happily ever after...
And then Regina finds her mother waiting for her in the stable, alone, and she knows at once that there will be no happily ever after for her, not ever. Before she can even react, she feels the sharp sting of her mother's magic slap her across the face, splitting her upper lip in two and drawing forth a fountain of warm, sticky blood. "You selfish little bitch," Cora spits out, her icy features twisted in fury. "I made you queen, and this is how you repay me? By throwing our livelihood away for some nothing peasant?"
Regina's crying now, not because of the blood streaming down her chin, filling her mouth, but because she cannot see or hear Daniel, and she knows what her mother has done to him, even as her brain screams in denial. "Please, Mama," she sobs, stumbling forward, "where is he? Tell me that you haven't hurt him, please!"
Cora's upper lip curls into a smirk as she takes a fistful of her billowing robe into her hands. Without a word, she throws it dramatically behind her, revealing a crumpled form lying in a heap by her side. Regina sees only a pair of strangely dull blue eyes and a shock of scarlet before her body ceases to function. Her muscles fail as she comes crashing to her knees; she opens her mouth to scream, but she's forgotten how to use her vocal chords. The world is reduced to blue and red, swirling together in a dizzying blur; she reaches out her hands to touch him, but they won't lower, helplessly hovering a few inches above his skin.
Then it hits her all at once: this is Daniel's corpse, and he's dead, lost to her forever. The most terrible wail escapes her throat, so powerful that it feels as if it's splitting her body in half, and she gathers him into her arms, not caring that his blood is all over her and that hers is now on him. She lifts his face to her own and kisses him desperately, focuses her every thought on the intensity of her love for him, because true love's kiss will break any curse, and the boy and the girl always get their happily ever after in the end, right? This is all just a terrible curse cast by the wicked witch, and if she just tries a little bit harder...
Her body suddenly goes flying, crashing against one of the stable walls so hard that her vision swims. Cora angrily stalks over to her side, rage radiating from her person in almost tangible waves, and grabs Regina's chin roughly, cruelly jerking her head so that she can no longer see her slain love .
"Why?" Regina sobs before her mother can utter a word. "He was a good man; love was his only crime. Why not kill me instead?"
Cora flashes her a cold smile before slamming her daughter's head back against the hard stone of the stable wall, and for a moment, Regina's world turns mercifully black. She's quickly and ruthlessly dragged back to consciousness, though, and finds herself staring again into her mother's furious face. "You are my daughter," the older woman spits out between clenched teeth. With one hand still gripping the queen's chin, she uses the other to roughly, painfully squeeze Regina's breast. "And you will not die until I give you permission to do so."
It's at this moment that Regina realizes that she was right all along - she's damaged, broken, and anyone who tries to help her put the pieces back together will surely bleed to death. So when Rumpelstiltskin approaches her nine months later, after even more devastation and heartache, and demands her heart in exchange for the power to protect herself from ever again being hurt, she cuts the useless thing out of her chest herself, so that she will never forget again.
*
He stares into her eyes defiantly, despite the chains and his nakedness. "I may be your captive," the huntsman says, his teeth gritted tight, "but I will never be yours."
With a laugh, she runs a fingernail up his hard shaft, making the strained muscle in his jaw twitch. "We shall see, my pet," she hisses. Winding her arms around his neck like a serpent, she lowers herself onto his swollen prick, reveling in the sound of the groan that sticks in his throat as she swallows him whole. She laughs again as she kisses him, nipping at his bottom lip as she pulls away.
He tries to fight her, glaring hatefully into her face in a futile attempt at resistance, but Regina knows all the tricks; she has become a master at getting beneath her victims' skin and finding that which they have hidden, that which is not hers to take. She knows that if she just squeezes her innermost muscles, like that, and traces her sharp fingernails down deceptively flawless skin, just above where his heart once beat, until she reaches his nipple and gives it a sharp twist, like so, he will be hers. He's so close now, panting in an effort to keep up with her unforgiving rhythm, all the while fighting release. Leaning forward, she sinks her teeth into the hollow between his neck and shoulder, like the wolf she once thought him to be, and he comes with a howl.
Afterwards, he refuses to meet her gaze; Regina takes this as a victory.
*
Henry is crying; she can hear his great, gasping sobs through the heavy, solid wood of his door, but she leaves her hand resting motionless on the doorknob. He hasn't stopped crying since they got home from his first appointment with Dr. Hopper a half an hour ago, and she should try to comfort him, tell him that everything will be all right, but...
Regina allows her head to sink against the door as she lets out a choked sigh. She doesn't want for things to be this way; she'd always thought that the curse would also prevent Henry from noticing that time was frozen, even as he himself grew older. Now her six-year-old has locked himself in his bedroom and won't stop sobbing because everyone is telling him that he's crazy.
More than anything, she wants to tell him the truth, to take him into her arms and beg for his forgiveness, but she knows that she will never receive it. How could she? Henry is still a little boy, capable of viewing the world only in black and white, and she has stolen far too many lives, ruined far too many happy endings, for him to ever see her as anything but the villain. If she were to open up to him, let him see the scars that she's so meticulously hidden, he would only reject her, and that betrayal, above all others, would destroy her.
So she doesn't open the door. Regina retreats back to her bedroom, its sturdy walls not enough to drown out the sound of her child's despair, and when she finally brings herself to look into the ornate mirror hanging beside her dresser, she swears for a moment that she sees her mother's face staring back at her.