Mod Gift for Alinaandalion - 2014 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange
Title: Unfinished Memories
Author: telaryn
Mod gift for: alinaandalion
Rating: Hard R
Characters/Pairing: Nate, Sophie, Regina Mills, Emma Swan, Mother Superior, Tink, Granny; Nate/Sophie, Sophie/Regina
Word Count: 5100
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Only own the effort involved.
Summary: On their way to a resort in Maine, Nate and Sophie stop for an overnight in Storybrooke. There they learn more about Sophie's past than either of them ever expected.
Author's Note: I know you didn't mention crossovers in your signup, alinaandalion, as I understand you've soured on the show I decided to use. This idea though...it seemed to hit on everything I know you like in your fic. So here's hoping I was right, and I've given you a glimpse of how two shows might have intersected...Once Upon a Time.
“Nate, you can’t be serious,” Sophie sighed, shading her eyes against the unexpectedly bright sun.
Looking at their surroundings over the top edge of his sunglasses, Nate shrugged. “Why not? It’s…charming.”
Glaring at him, Sophie artfully raised an eyebrow. “You said that with a straight face and everything - I’m impressed.” Sensing that she was going to lose this argument, assuming she even bothered to start it, the dark-haired grifter took another more considering look around. Storybrooke, Maine seriously looked like each of the last half-dozen small New England towns they’d driven through over the last handful of days. “Nate, there has to be something more…civilized…between here and the resort.”
He was already coming towards her around the front of the car, smiling his most persuasive grin at her. Bastard. “Dial back your snobbery, my darling.” He took her hands in his, leaned forward and kissed her as if they were the only two people in the world. “By this time tomorrow you will be up to that beautiful neck in champagne, silk and every luxury your heart desires.” She shivered as he stepped in close and leaned down to run the point of his tongue across a particularly sensitive area of skin hidden behind her ear. “You can give me this for one night, can’t you?” he whispered, his breath sinfully warm in her ear.
Grinning, Sophie shifted until she could reach his mouth and capture another kiss for herself. “As long as it’s my black king who’s asking,” she murmured, idly winding one of his curls around a finger, “I think I could make a small concession.” In the privacy of her own thoughts, Sophie marveled at the effect they still had on each other. Her mum, gran, her aunties - they’d all sworn the longer you stayed with a man, the more flat and boring your life became.
“There’s a bed and breakfast across the street,” Nate whispered, nuzzling her neck. “We could get a room…”
Sophie grinned, thinking about how deeply they affected each other - even after all this time. All it took these days was a look, or that little smile he showed when he was undressing her in his mind, and it was like they were the only two people alive. Breakfast though… “Tell you what,” she countered, taking a calculated step backwards, “you see about getting us a room, and I will meet you in that quaint little diner next door.”
Nate opened his mouth, but she pressed her fingers to his lips and shook her head. “Oh no, Mr. Ford - I know that look in your eye. I follow you upstairs now and that’s the last anyone will see of us until sometime tomorrow.”
God save her, he actually pouted! “Food, my darling,” she repeated, finding the strength to pull entirely free of his grasp. “I promise I will make it worth your while.”
*****************************************
“Customers for the Inn looks like, Granny,” Tinkerbell said as the old woman set her breakfast in front of her. She nodded out the window where a man and woman she’d never seen before were wrapped around each other as if they were the only two people in Storybrooke.
Granny followed her gaze, snorting softly. “I better set the maids to airing out the honeymoon suite,” she commented, hands on hips. After a beat, she went to the front door of the diner, opened it and yelled, “Come on in you two! Breakfast first and I’ll have a room for you by the time you’re done!”
Feeling the hum of interest vibrate through the small diner as the other patrons realized what was going on, Tinkerbell dug into her own breakfast with a smile and no small amount of good will. Good, evil or otherwise, strangers in Storybrooke were exciting - a break from the normal routine. And these two look like they are just full of love and mischief, Tinkerbell thought as Granny stepped aside to welcome the newcomers in.
They were older than she’d thought at first. Older, but still newlyweds, she thought, noting how they still held hands and carried themselves as though they were each the center of the other’s world. The woman’s eyes lit on her for only the briefest of moments, but Tinkerbell felt a whisper of something shiver down her spine in response.
Fairy magic! she realized, barely managing to tamp down her excitement at the realization. Senses on alert now, she watched the couple follow Granny to a table with a bit more detachment than she’d managed before.
They’re taking the measure of all of us, she decided. Her more than him, but he knows more than a bit of magic his own self. And yet she could see that normal folk wouldn’t have noticed anything much out of the ordinary about the pair. Definitely fairy magic.
Now the only remaining question was, which one of the two women who would be most interested in this development should she tell first?
***********************************
Both very aware of the attention they were drawing, Nate and Sophie ordered coffee from the old woman who had greeted them and each picked up their menu in turn. “I think it’s safe to say they don’t get a lot of tourists through here,” Nate murmured, attention ostensibly on deciding what he was going to eat.
Sophie couldn’t suppress a quiet sniff of derision. “I believe that.” She paused, noting at the edge of her vision the woman in green sitting nearest the entrance to the diner was watching them again. Watching me, her subconscious corrected, and she felt a small flutter of nerves fan out through her body. “Blond in green near the front door,” she said softly, not meeting Nate’s eyes.
He made a small noise of assent. “I saw. Friend or foe?”
Rolling the question over in her mind, Sophie was disturbed to realize that she genuinely didn’t know the answer. She was on the verge of admitting as much, when Granny returned with their coffee. “You two look like you’re on your honeymoon,” she said brightly.
It was a fairly transparent attempt at fishing for information, but Sophie didn’t argue when Nate took her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “We’re on our way to the Bayview,” he said, looking too deeply and much too intimately into her eyes. Sophie felt an answering warmth creeping up into her cheeks. “Our reservation isn’t for a couple of days, and we liked the look of this place.”
His difficulty in looking away from her to focus on Granny was only partially feigned, and Sophie felt the warmth in her skin gravitating to other places in her body as she imagined how it was going to be once they were alone in a room together. “Well, we don’t have anything on the level of the Bayview,” the old woman quipped, “but I think we can come up with a room that will suit you both. In the meantime, how about I get you two of the day’s special?”
“Thank you,” Nate said, his attention immediately returning to Sophie. Raising her hand to his lips again, he began doing things to her knuckles with his tongue that sent shivers whispering across her skin.
“She’s sweet,” Sophie said, “and very friendly, but something tells me neither one of us is going to care much about the quality of the room.”
“So long as the bed is big enough,” Nate began, “and the tub is nice enough, all I need is you.” Turning her hand over, he pressed a kiss to the center of her palm. “Very, very naked.”
“Nathan Ford, what has gotten into you?” Sophie laughed softly, pulling her hand free at last, but there was a heat still smoldering in his deep blue eyes that pulled very pleasantly on all the right places, and his answering grin was unrepentantly wicked.
“I’m going to assume that question was rhetorical,” he said. “Otherwise I might be prompted to answer it, and we do have an audience.”
Sophie settled her napkin, once again aware of the number of eyes on them. One of the disadvantages of a small town, she thought, the back of her neck tingling. Everybody knew everybody, and she and Nate were the most interesting things in town. She glanced across the table again. Guess you decided to play into that, huh? Well, for whatever reason he was in such an amorous mood, she decided that there was no harm in indulging their mutual desires for a day or so.
************************
“What’s the emergency?”
Regina sighed inwardly. She hadn’t wanted to include the Sheriff in whatever was coming, but the Mother Superior had been insistent. “Something has severely rattled the Mother Superior. She and Tinkerbell are on their way over right now and they insisted on speaking with both of us.”
Emma wrapped her hands around the back of one of the nearby chairs. “No clue what it’s about?”
“Not a hint. Is everything still on for this weekend?”
“Sure. Henry sounded really excited when I talked to him.” The Sheriff looked as though she were about to say more, but a knock on the door interrupted her.
“Come in!” Regina called. The door opened, admitting two women who despite their outwardly human appearance still glowed in Regina’s magical sight. “Mother Superior, Tinkerbell,” she greeted them. “What has you both so upset?”
She looks more nervous than usual, Regina thought as the Mother Superior stepped forward. The Blue Fairy was high strung by nature, but Regina could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen the woman openly upset. “Madam Mayor,” she began, twisting her gloves in her hands, “somebody has arrived in town. Somebody we both know.” She drew a deep breath. “Queen Mab has returned.”
Heat flared, low and thick in Regina’s body, momentarily paralyzing her in her seat. Oh God, she thought, bowing her head as the orgasm swelled inside her, rising rapidly to a peak and breaking over her. She drew in a deep breath, her fingers flexing against the surface of the desk as the sense-memory of practiced hands roaming across her skin and into the most intimate parts of her body sent her spiraling into a second, even more intense climax.
“Regina? Regina!” Gradually she became aware of somebody yelling her name. Shivering in after-reaction, Regina drew on every last shred of control she possessed and just barely managed to hold off the beginnings of a third orgasm.
Emma had come up beside her while she was drowning in the memory of Mab’s touch. Fortunately for all of them, Tinkerbell had been fast enough to grab the sheriff before Emma could touch the stricken queen. “What the hell was that?” Emma asked, once she realized Regina could see her.
Dimly hoping she was wrong, Regina looked over at the Mother Superior. To her horror, the fairy was nodding. “When Mab leaves her mark on a lover, it is no small thing.”
“That was because you heard the name of an old lover?” Emma exclaimed. Now that the immediate danger felt like it was past, Regina signaled for Tinkerbell to let the sheriff go. “It was magic?”
Still somewhat breathless, Regina still managed to nod. “The most powerful of all fairy magic,” she said. “Mab, the queen of the fairies, took an interest in me when I was a young woman. She took me to her world, and I was her lover for the better part of a century.” She shivered again as her body reacted to the sound of Mab’s name, but this time she swallowed hard and managed to hold most of the reaction at bay.
“Time runs differently in our lands,” Tinkerbell explained for Emma’s benefit.
Regina nodded again. “When I finally asked to go home, no time at all had passed.” Mind racing now as she tried to get ahead of what was happening, she shifted her attention back to the Mother Superior. “What does she want?” The idea that someone as powerful as Queen Mab might have come to Storybrooke looking for her was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.
“It’s strange, your majesty,” Tinkerbell began. No one corrected her - in light of the subject and circumstances, it felt right. “She sensed something about me when she walked by, but I do not think she realized what I was. I don’t think she is here for you, or any of us.”
“She has a consort,” the Mother Superior supplied. “Her eyes are all for him.”
************************************
“I must say sir,” Sophie laughed, “the country air seems to have done wonders for your stamina.”
Nate huffed out a quiet laugh, and his arm tightened around her shoulders - pulling her even closer against his side. “I don’t think it’s the air,” he murmured, continuing to stroke loose tendrils of hair back off her forehead.
“We’re supposed to be getting bored with each other by now, you know,” she said, burrowing even closer into him. “You’re not following the script.”
He kissed her hair. “If you want me to get bored with you, you’re going to have to stop springing moves on me like that thing you did with your little finger just now.”
Sophie laughed, but her skin grew warm remembering how his eyes had gone wide and desperate just before the master of control had lost control entirely. “Oh my love, when it gets me a reaction like that, I can promise you we will do it again. Soon.”
Sunlight was spilling in through the sheer fabric covering the window, and Sophie felt herself slipping into a light doze. She had no idea how long they laid there, limbs intertwined, when a sharp knock on the door brought her painfully back to reality.
Nate was already pulling free of her. “What the hell?” he asked, sliding out from under the covers and reaching for his robe.
Before he could get it on, there was another sharp knock. “Mr. and Mrs. Baker? It’s the Sheriff. I need to talk to you both for a second.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sophie asked, pushing herself to a sitting position. The bedcovers pooled in her lap. “I didn’t do anything!”
Nate raised an eyebrow at her. “What are the odds?”
Well, he had her there, Sophie was forced to concede. While Nate settled his robe and went to answer the door, she reached for her own silk and satin covering - keeping her back to the room’s door until she was ‘decent’. “Darling,” Nate said, as she was tying her sash, “Sheriff Swan says that she needs our help with something.”
“Our help?” Sophie asked brightly, turning to face the duo. Sheriff Swan was about Parker’s age, with similarly wild blond hair and intelligent eyes. Instead of a uniform, she wore practical working clothes - boots, jeans and a comfortable work shirt. She doesn’t go through her day expecting trouble, but she is ready for action if it comes to her. “With what?”
“Mrs. Baker, I know this may sound a little strange, but our Mayor has unfinished business with you. I will need you and your…husband…to come with me to her offices.”
Sophie could feel her brow furrow, mirroring her confusion. “Can I ask the woman’s name?”
“Regina,’ said the girl. “Regina Mills, and I’m afraid it has to be now, ma’am.”
“We can get dressed first, I hope?” Nate asked, moving in on the girl’s space and starting to urge her towards the door.
“Of course,” she said, “but I’ll be waiting right outside.”
Regina… Sophie was searching her memories for a connection while Nate escorted Sheriff Swan to the door. “Please tell me we don’t have to go out the window,” he hissed, once the door was closed and they were alone again.
There was…something. Something just out of reach that Sophie could sense was important. “Nate,” she said slowly, “I think we need to go with her. We need to see this woman.”
His demeanor shifted immediately. “You know who she’s talking about?”
Sophie took his hands in hers, drawing strength and stability from his presence. “I should know her,” she said. “Does that make any sense?”
“Do you think we’re looking into something better left alone?”
She was reassured that he was willing to stay and back her play. It made it easier to say, “I think we’re opening up something very bad if we don’t check into this and do everything we can to help.”
Smiling, Nate leaned in and kissed her. “Everything you can do to help. The Sheriff was very clear on that part.”
Once dressed, they were at least spared the indignity of being driven somewhere in a squad car. Another benefit of small town life, Sophie thought as they walked along the tooth-achingly picturesque streets. Nate had the Sheriff engaged in a lively conversation about the town and its history, but the woman was disturbingly adept at avoiding his more pointed attempts at getting information from her.
Sophie kept to herself, trying to puzzle out the mystery of who this woman was and why she was so important. She’s not a mark. That was about the only point she was certain about. Every time she tried to reach for the memory it felt somehow disconnected from who she was here and now. The idea that Regina Mills had never met Sophie Devereaux wasn’t an impossible concept at all, but that left her wrestling with the rather large questions of “who” and “what” and “how”.
She was no closer to an answer as they mounted the steps into City Hall, but when the Sheriff took them to an office where the woman who had been so interested in her at the diner was standing, Sophie glanced at Nate and saw that his lack of surprise matched her own.
“You aren’t Regina Mills.” The words escaped her before Sophie was even sure of what she was saying. The tiny woman dropped a quick curtsey, her eyes very carefully downcast.
“No, your Majesty,” she said. Sophie elbowed Nate in the side, allowing him to turn his snort of laughter into a quiet cough. “Since you don’t seem to recognize us, the Blue Fairy decided it would be best for me to prepare you before we take you to the queen.”
“This is a joke, right?” Nate took her arm, but certainty that they were not being lied to had already settled like a weight in Sophie’s heart.
She turned just enough to catch his eye. “Nate.” He went still immediately, almost in the exact same way she’d seen him do with Eliot countless times. “I know this sounds insane, but what she’s saying - it feels right.”
One of the myriad reasons she loved him so much was that once he saw she was serious he didn’t mock her feelings or dismiss them. “What do you want to do?”
She took his hand again. “Back my play. Be my black king.”
After a second, he leaned in and kissed her. “Always, my queen.”
Feeling calmer, she turned back to the waiting women. “What is your name?” she asked the woman from the diner.
She dropped another curtsey. “I am the Green Fairy, your Majesty.”
Sophie drew a deep breath. “And why am I here, Green Fairy?”
“They believe you are Mab, Queen of the Fairies,” Sheriff Swan said. Sophie didn’t mean to react when the girl started talking, but she held up a hand - cutting her off.
“I need to hear this from her,” she said. “Not you.”
There was a quick, nervous intake of breath, and the Green Fairy bobbed another curtsey. “Your Majesty,” she said breathlessly, “Our Mayor - the Queen of the Enchanted Forest once upon a time - was a former lover of yours. Your being here has reawakened the bond you laid on her and we need…” She paused and Sophie saw her attention flick briefly to Nate, then back, “We need to know what your intentions are.”
Memories, hazy as anything she’d ever struggled with, ghosted across Sophie’s mind. Winged creatures, jeweled lands, food, drink, everyone catering to her slightest whim… It was the sort of life she’d been chasing for herself up until the point Nate had come into her life and given her a family, a home, love and new purpose. It was real? she wondered, trying to relax and allow the images to come into better focus.
“I have a consort,” she said carefully, and while the words were strange on her lips, she knew on a soul deep level they were what she needed to say. “I have no interest in former lovers anymore.”
Another curtsey. “Yes, your majesty. Blue Fairy thought that might be the case.”
“We need you to release her,” Sheriff Swan interjected. “This bond between you is…problematic.”
***************************
“Your Majesty,” Mother Superior said, taking Regina by the shoulders and steering her away from the mirror. “You need to stop. She will be here any moment.”
Trying desperately to hold back tears of frustration, Regina nevertheless allowed herself to be guided into a nearby armchair. “Can’t you do anything to make it easier?” she asked, turning pleading eyes on the other woman. “Something to help me survive it?”
The tiny woman crouched down in front of her, taking both Regina’s hands in her own. “I cannot do any magic in defiance of my queen’s will,” she said, her expression sympathetic. “But you will survive this, Regina. It has been decades since you and Mab were together. Surely you…”
Regina shook her head. “As long as I had a tiny piece of her to cling to I knew I would be okay, that it wasn’t really over. You’re bringing her here to set me free.” She squeezed the Blue Fairy’s hands. “No mortal can fall from that height and live.”
“You assume I would let you fall.”
Heart skipping several beats, Regina sprang to her feet and spun to face the speaker. Mab, Queen of the Fairies, looking every bit as inhumanly beautiful as she always shone in Regina’s memory. A man stood behind her and one deliberate pace to the left. She has a consort, Regina recalled, tears finally slipping free at the incontrovertible evidence she had been replaced.
“Your majesty,” she breathed, stepping free of the chair and starting to sink to the floor in the deepest curtsey she was capable of.
“No.” Mab shook her head. “You do not bow to me. I won’t have it.”
Knees trembling, Regina manage to comply with the order. “Thank you,” she said softly, hearing a familiarly reverent tone in the words. Once upon a time Mab had been her whole world. The lure of returning to such a simple existence was almost too powerful to resist.
The Fairy Queen motioned her forward. Feeling as though she would shatter under the pressure, Regina forced herself to close the distance that separated them. “You are Regina Mills,” she said. It wasn’t a question, more like she was confirming facts in her own mind, but Regina answered anyway.
“Yes, your majesty.”
Fingertips lightly brushed her skin, tracing the curve of her cheeks and skimming lightly down either side of Regina’s neck to meet in the hollow at the base of her throat. “You were very precious to me once.”
Regina whimpered, feeling the same stirrings as before deep inside her body - every bit of pleasure she was capable of experiencing rising up to meet her lover’s touch. Mab hesitated, one eyebrow raised as she sensed the energy shift. “Very precious,” she said wonderingly. “I see now why everyone counts this such an emergency.”
Soothing sunlight energy played across Regina’s skin, easing her back off the cliff and gentling her back into the moment. “I am so sorry I left you with this.”
“Do you remember her?” Emma asked.
“It’s not memory,” Mab said, her voice pitched so that became part of the soothing, calming spell she’d been weaving around the two of them. “Not as you mean it.”
Her hands dropped to the first button on Regina’s silk blouse. “Nate, would you make sure the door is secured. This won’t take long, but it isn’t for the prying eyes of outsiders.”
Mab’s consort turned smartly on his heel and went to do as she had bid him. Regina was relieved to see that he stayed at the door. They might have shared experience as Mab’s lovers, but the Fairy Queen had continued undoing her buttons and this was going to be difficult enough without a stranger’s immediate presence distracting her.
“I need to get at your flesh for this,” Mab said, drawing her attention again. “It isn’t a difficult spell, but it is rather definite in its requirements.” She undid the last button, leaving the red silk blouse hanging open. “Not to mention it has been centuries since I’ve done it.” Reaching under the clothing, she pressed one hand over Regina’s heart, the other over her solar plexus.
***********************************
Sophie only dimly understood what she was doing and saying or why, but she didn’t fight her instincts. Whatever this was, it was real, and if the young queen’s body language was any indication, going to be very painful.
“When fairies love,” she said, “it can create a bond that transcends everything. More often than not, the results are disastrous for mortals.” She could feel the Regina trembling now. “I know you think this is going to be the end of everything, but it is a necessary transition for both of us.”
“I know,” the girl said, but there was grief in her voice and tears in her eyes. “You have a consort.”
“And you have a soul mate to find,” Sophie agreed. Not wishing to draw things out any longer, she bowed her head, drew a slow, deep breath, and pulled on the energy that she recognized as her own.
It was hard going at first. Intellectual understanding was one thing - it was quickly obvious that the girl’s heart was bound more tightly than either of them had first suspected. “Nate I need you,” Sophie called as she felt Regina start to pull away, physically as well as magically.
Bless him, he was at her side in a moment, and he understood enough not to touch her. “What should I do?”
“Hold her,” Sophie said, redoubling her efforts to pull her own energy free of the girl. “She won’t be able to do anything magically, but I need you to keep her physically where she is.” She felt a ripple of tension shiver around the room as Nate took his place, but as long as the other women didn’t interfere, she didn’t let them distract her for more than a moment.
Having Nate opposite her balanced and grounded Sophie, allowing her to access a well of strength she hadn’t remembered was hers to use. “There we go,” she crooned as threads of energy began to unwind from each other. “Much better.”
“No,” Regina protested, and the sound was more sob than words. “Don’t leave me.”
Sophie wavered for a moment, her fingers flexing possessively against skin that was becoming more familiar with every passing second. “This is not your destiny,” she said firmly. “I am not your destiny. You knew the truth when you first asked leave to go home.”
Memory of the day suddenly sprang into full and vivid life. Sophie suddenly understood that she had always known her relationship with Regina was going to be as transitory as all the others. When the girl had first declared her desire to go home Sophie had simply thought it must be time and let her go without a second thought. Do you understand how strong you must have been to leave me with my bond still on your heart? she thought, willing the girl to see the same things she was.
“You will survive this,” she said out loud as the last of energy binding them came unraveled and Regina collapsed crying in Nate’s arms. Shaking now, Sophie opened her eyes and nodded across at Nate. He scooped the sobbing girl up in his arms and carried her to the couch.
The fairies were looking at her with open concern. “Your majesty?” the Blue Fairy asked.
Smiling, Sophie impulsively opened her arms and drew them into an embrace. “You did right,” she said, kissing each of them on the head.
They stayed in her arms for a beat longer than normal humans would before pulling free. “You remember it all?” the Green Fairy asked.
Sophie glanced back at Nate, who was talking in low tones to the Sheriff. “I remember enough.” She cupped each of the women’s cheeks, feeling an absurdly maternal surge towards both of them. “This is my life now, though, and Nate is my chosen consort. Neither of you may tell anyone you have seen me.”
Their twinned expressions of disappointment were almost comical. “You won’t return?” the Blue Fairy asked.
Smiling, Sophie shook her head. “I think this proves I will be back when I am needed, but it is not time for me to reclaim my throne. Not yet.”
She stayed with the fairies for a few more minutes, settling things as best she could, before going to see Regina. The queen was awake and calm, but she was still lying where Nate had placed her and showed no interest in getting up any time soon. “How are you feeling?” Sophie asked, perching lightly on the coffee table. Instinct pushed her to take Regina’s hand, but she didn’t want to risk undoing what they had just accomplished.
“Hollowed out,” the queen said. “Lost.”
“It will pass,” Sophie said firmly, “so long as you focus on everything you have instead of wallowing in what you have lost.”
“Easy for you to say,” Regina said bitterly. “You already have a life without me.”
Sophie shook her head. “Easy for me to say because I have experienced what you are feeling more times than I suspect you ever will. And it was when I started looking at what I had that the universe brought me Nate.” Grinning slightly, she risked a glance at her erstwhile soulmate. “And then spent several long human years forcing us to learn how to be worthy of each other.”
She sighed. “And you have a life without me, Regina. People who love you who never even knew I had a claim on your heart. Take your comfort in that and the rest will fall into place.”
Author: telaryn
Mod gift for: alinaandalion
Rating: Hard R
Characters/Pairing: Nate, Sophie, Regina Mills, Emma Swan, Mother Superior, Tink, Granny; Nate/Sophie, Sophie/Regina
Word Count: 5100
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Only own the effort involved.
Summary: On their way to a resort in Maine, Nate and Sophie stop for an overnight in Storybrooke. There they learn more about Sophie's past than either of them ever expected.
Author's Note: I know you didn't mention crossovers in your signup, alinaandalion, as I understand you've soured on the show I decided to use. This idea though...it seemed to hit on everything I know you like in your fic. So here's hoping I was right, and I've given you a glimpse of how two shows might have intersected...Once Upon a Time.
“Nate, you can’t be serious,” Sophie sighed, shading her eyes against the unexpectedly bright sun.
Looking at their surroundings over the top edge of his sunglasses, Nate shrugged. “Why not? It’s…charming.”
Glaring at him, Sophie artfully raised an eyebrow. “You said that with a straight face and everything - I’m impressed.” Sensing that she was going to lose this argument, assuming she even bothered to start it, the dark-haired grifter took another more considering look around. Storybrooke, Maine seriously looked like each of the last half-dozen small New England towns they’d driven through over the last handful of days. “Nate, there has to be something more…civilized…between here and the resort.”
He was already coming towards her around the front of the car, smiling his most persuasive grin at her. Bastard. “Dial back your snobbery, my darling.” He took her hands in his, leaned forward and kissed her as if they were the only two people in the world. “By this time tomorrow you will be up to that beautiful neck in champagne, silk and every luxury your heart desires.” She shivered as he stepped in close and leaned down to run the point of his tongue across a particularly sensitive area of skin hidden behind her ear. “You can give me this for one night, can’t you?” he whispered, his breath sinfully warm in her ear.
Grinning, Sophie shifted until she could reach his mouth and capture another kiss for herself. “As long as it’s my black king who’s asking,” she murmured, idly winding one of his curls around a finger, “I think I could make a small concession.” In the privacy of her own thoughts, Sophie marveled at the effect they still had on each other. Her mum, gran, her aunties - they’d all sworn the longer you stayed with a man, the more flat and boring your life became.
“There’s a bed and breakfast across the street,” Nate whispered, nuzzling her neck. “We could get a room…”
Sophie grinned, thinking about how deeply they affected each other - even after all this time. All it took these days was a look, or that little smile he showed when he was undressing her in his mind, and it was like they were the only two people alive. Breakfast though… “Tell you what,” she countered, taking a calculated step backwards, “you see about getting us a room, and I will meet you in that quaint little diner next door.”
Nate opened his mouth, but she pressed her fingers to his lips and shook her head. “Oh no, Mr. Ford - I know that look in your eye. I follow you upstairs now and that’s the last anyone will see of us until sometime tomorrow.”
God save her, he actually pouted! “Food, my darling,” she repeated, finding the strength to pull entirely free of his grasp. “I promise I will make it worth your while.”
*****************************************
“Customers for the Inn looks like, Granny,” Tinkerbell said as the old woman set her breakfast in front of her. She nodded out the window where a man and woman she’d never seen before were wrapped around each other as if they were the only two people in Storybrooke.
Granny followed her gaze, snorting softly. “I better set the maids to airing out the honeymoon suite,” she commented, hands on hips. After a beat, she went to the front door of the diner, opened it and yelled, “Come on in you two! Breakfast first and I’ll have a room for you by the time you’re done!”
Feeling the hum of interest vibrate through the small diner as the other patrons realized what was going on, Tinkerbell dug into her own breakfast with a smile and no small amount of good will. Good, evil or otherwise, strangers in Storybrooke were exciting - a break from the normal routine. And these two look like they are just full of love and mischief, Tinkerbell thought as Granny stepped aside to welcome the newcomers in.
They were older than she’d thought at first. Older, but still newlyweds, she thought, noting how they still held hands and carried themselves as though they were each the center of the other’s world. The woman’s eyes lit on her for only the briefest of moments, but Tinkerbell felt a whisper of something shiver down her spine in response.
Fairy magic! she realized, barely managing to tamp down her excitement at the realization. Senses on alert now, she watched the couple follow Granny to a table with a bit more detachment than she’d managed before.
They’re taking the measure of all of us, she decided. Her more than him, but he knows more than a bit of magic his own self. And yet she could see that normal folk wouldn’t have noticed anything much out of the ordinary about the pair. Definitely fairy magic.
Now the only remaining question was, which one of the two women who would be most interested in this development should she tell first?
***********************************
Both very aware of the attention they were drawing, Nate and Sophie ordered coffee from the old woman who had greeted them and each picked up their menu in turn. “I think it’s safe to say they don’t get a lot of tourists through here,” Nate murmured, attention ostensibly on deciding what he was going to eat.
Sophie couldn’t suppress a quiet sniff of derision. “I believe that.” She paused, noting at the edge of her vision the woman in green sitting nearest the entrance to the diner was watching them again. Watching me, her subconscious corrected, and she felt a small flutter of nerves fan out through her body. “Blond in green near the front door,” she said softly, not meeting Nate’s eyes.
He made a small noise of assent. “I saw. Friend or foe?”
Rolling the question over in her mind, Sophie was disturbed to realize that she genuinely didn’t know the answer. She was on the verge of admitting as much, when Granny returned with their coffee. “You two look like you’re on your honeymoon,” she said brightly.
It was a fairly transparent attempt at fishing for information, but Sophie didn’t argue when Nate took her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss. “We’re on our way to the Bayview,” he said, looking too deeply and much too intimately into her eyes. Sophie felt an answering warmth creeping up into her cheeks. “Our reservation isn’t for a couple of days, and we liked the look of this place.”
His difficulty in looking away from her to focus on Granny was only partially feigned, and Sophie felt the warmth in her skin gravitating to other places in her body as she imagined how it was going to be once they were alone in a room together. “Well, we don’t have anything on the level of the Bayview,” the old woman quipped, “but I think we can come up with a room that will suit you both. In the meantime, how about I get you two of the day’s special?”
“Thank you,” Nate said, his attention immediately returning to Sophie. Raising her hand to his lips again, he began doing things to her knuckles with his tongue that sent shivers whispering across her skin.
“She’s sweet,” Sophie said, “and very friendly, but something tells me neither one of us is going to care much about the quality of the room.”
“So long as the bed is big enough,” Nate began, “and the tub is nice enough, all I need is you.” Turning her hand over, he pressed a kiss to the center of her palm. “Very, very naked.”
“Nathan Ford, what has gotten into you?” Sophie laughed softly, pulling her hand free at last, but there was a heat still smoldering in his deep blue eyes that pulled very pleasantly on all the right places, and his answering grin was unrepentantly wicked.
“I’m going to assume that question was rhetorical,” he said. “Otherwise I might be prompted to answer it, and we do have an audience.”
Sophie settled her napkin, once again aware of the number of eyes on them. One of the disadvantages of a small town, she thought, the back of her neck tingling. Everybody knew everybody, and she and Nate were the most interesting things in town. She glanced across the table again. Guess you decided to play into that, huh? Well, for whatever reason he was in such an amorous mood, she decided that there was no harm in indulging their mutual desires for a day or so.
************************
“What’s the emergency?”
Regina sighed inwardly. She hadn’t wanted to include the Sheriff in whatever was coming, but the Mother Superior had been insistent. “Something has severely rattled the Mother Superior. She and Tinkerbell are on their way over right now and they insisted on speaking with both of us.”
Emma wrapped her hands around the back of one of the nearby chairs. “No clue what it’s about?”
“Not a hint. Is everything still on for this weekend?”
“Sure. Henry sounded really excited when I talked to him.” The Sheriff looked as though she were about to say more, but a knock on the door interrupted her.
“Come in!” Regina called. The door opened, admitting two women who despite their outwardly human appearance still glowed in Regina’s magical sight. “Mother Superior, Tinkerbell,” she greeted them. “What has you both so upset?”
She looks more nervous than usual, Regina thought as the Mother Superior stepped forward. The Blue Fairy was high strung by nature, but Regina could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen the woman openly upset. “Madam Mayor,” she began, twisting her gloves in her hands, “somebody has arrived in town. Somebody we both know.” She drew a deep breath. “Queen Mab has returned.”
Heat flared, low and thick in Regina’s body, momentarily paralyzing her in her seat. Oh God, she thought, bowing her head as the orgasm swelled inside her, rising rapidly to a peak and breaking over her. She drew in a deep breath, her fingers flexing against the surface of the desk as the sense-memory of practiced hands roaming across her skin and into the most intimate parts of her body sent her spiraling into a second, even more intense climax.
“Regina? Regina!” Gradually she became aware of somebody yelling her name. Shivering in after-reaction, Regina drew on every last shred of control she possessed and just barely managed to hold off the beginnings of a third orgasm.
Emma had come up beside her while she was drowning in the memory of Mab’s touch. Fortunately for all of them, Tinkerbell had been fast enough to grab the sheriff before Emma could touch the stricken queen. “What the hell was that?” Emma asked, once she realized Regina could see her.
Dimly hoping she was wrong, Regina looked over at the Mother Superior. To her horror, the fairy was nodding. “When Mab leaves her mark on a lover, it is no small thing.”
“That was because you heard the name of an old lover?” Emma exclaimed. Now that the immediate danger felt like it was past, Regina signaled for Tinkerbell to let the sheriff go. “It was magic?”
Still somewhat breathless, Regina still managed to nod. “The most powerful of all fairy magic,” she said. “Mab, the queen of the fairies, took an interest in me when I was a young woman. She took me to her world, and I was her lover for the better part of a century.” She shivered again as her body reacted to the sound of Mab’s name, but this time she swallowed hard and managed to hold most of the reaction at bay.
“Time runs differently in our lands,” Tinkerbell explained for Emma’s benefit.
Regina nodded again. “When I finally asked to go home, no time at all had passed.” Mind racing now as she tried to get ahead of what was happening, she shifted her attention back to the Mother Superior. “What does she want?” The idea that someone as powerful as Queen Mab might have come to Storybrooke looking for her was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.
“It’s strange, your majesty,” Tinkerbell began. No one corrected her - in light of the subject and circumstances, it felt right. “She sensed something about me when she walked by, but I do not think she realized what I was. I don’t think she is here for you, or any of us.”
“She has a consort,” the Mother Superior supplied. “Her eyes are all for him.”
************************************
“I must say sir,” Sophie laughed, “the country air seems to have done wonders for your stamina.”
Nate huffed out a quiet laugh, and his arm tightened around her shoulders - pulling her even closer against his side. “I don’t think it’s the air,” he murmured, continuing to stroke loose tendrils of hair back off her forehead.
“We’re supposed to be getting bored with each other by now, you know,” she said, burrowing even closer into him. “You’re not following the script.”
He kissed her hair. “If you want me to get bored with you, you’re going to have to stop springing moves on me like that thing you did with your little finger just now.”
Sophie laughed, but her skin grew warm remembering how his eyes had gone wide and desperate just before the master of control had lost control entirely. “Oh my love, when it gets me a reaction like that, I can promise you we will do it again. Soon.”
Sunlight was spilling in through the sheer fabric covering the window, and Sophie felt herself slipping into a light doze. She had no idea how long they laid there, limbs intertwined, when a sharp knock on the door brought her painfully back to reality.
Nate was already pulling free of her. “What the hell?” he asked, sliding out from under the covers and reaching for his robe.
Before he could get it on, there was another sharp knock. “Mr. and Mrs. Baker? It’s the Sheriff. I need to talk to you both for a second.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sophie asked, pushing herself to a sitting position. The bedcovers pooled in her lap. “I didn’t do anything!”
Nate raised an eyebrow at her. “What are the odds?”
Well, he had her there, Sophie was forced to concede. While Nate settled his robe and went to answer the door, she reached for her own silk and satin covering - keeping her back to the room’s door until she was ‘decent’. “Darling,” Nate said, as she was tying her sash, “Sheriff Swan says that she needs our help with something.”
“Our help?” Sophie asked brightly, turning to face the duo. Sheriff Swan was about Parker’s age, with similarly wild blond hair and intelligent eyes. Instead of a uniform, she wore practical working clothes - boots, jeans and a comfortable work shirt. She doesn’t go through her day expecting trouble, but she is ready for action if it comes to her. “With what?”
“Mrs. Baker, I know this may sound a little strange, but our Mayor has unfinished business with you. I will need you and your…husband…to come with me to her offices.”
Sophie could feel her brow furrow, mirroring her confusion. “Can I ask the woman’s name?”
“Regina,’ said the girl. “Regina Mills, and I’m afraid it has to be now, ma’am.”
“We can get dressed first, I hope?” Nate asked, moving in on the girl’s space and starting to urge her towards the door.
“Of course,” she said, “but I’ll be waiting right outside.”
Regina… Sophie was searching her memories for a connection while Nate escorted Sheriff Swan to the door. “Please tell me we don’t have to go out the window,” he hissed, once the door was closed and they were alone again.
There was…something. Something just out of reach that Sophie could sense was important. “Nate,” she said slowly, “I think we need to go with her. We need to see this woman.”
His demeanor shifted immediately. “You know who she’s talking about?”
Sophie took his hands in hers, drawing strength and stability from his presence. “I should know her,” she said. “Does that make any sense?”
“Do you think we’re looking into something better left alone?”
She was reassured that he was willing to stay and back her play. It made it easier to say, “I think we’re opening up something very bad if we don’t check into this and do everything we can to help.”
Smiling, Nate leaned in and kissed her. “Everything you can do to help. The Sheriff was very clear on that part.”
Once dressed, they were at least spared the indignity of being driven somewhere in a squad car. Another benefit of small town life, Sophie thought as they walked along the tooth-achingly picturesque streets. Nate had the Sheriff engaged in a lively conversation about the town and its history, but the woman was disturbingly adept at avoiding his more pointed attempts at getting information from her.
Sophie kept to herself, trying to puzzle out the mystery of who this woman was and why she was so important. She’s not a mark. That was about the only point she was certain about. Every time she tried to reach for the memory it felt somehow disconnected from who she was here and now. The idea that Regina Mills had never met Sophie Devereaux wasn’t an impossible concept at all, but that left her wrestling with the rather large questions of “who” and “what” and “how”.
She was no closer to an answer as they mounted the steps into City Hall, but when the Sheriff took them to an office where the woman who had been so interested in her at the diner was standing, Sophie glanced at Nate and saw that his lack of surprise matched her own.
“You aren’t Regina Mills.” The words escaped her before Sophie was even sure of what she was saying. The tiny woman dropped a quick curtsey, her eyes very carefully downcast.
“No, your Majesty,” she said. Sophie elbowed Nate in the side, allowing him to turn his snort of laughter into a quiet cough. “Since you don’t seem to recognize us, the Blue Fairy decided it would be best for me to prepare you before we take you to the queen.”
“This is a joke, right?” Nate took her arm, but certainty that they were not being lied to had already settled like a weight in Sophie’s heart.
She turned just enough to catch his eye. “Nate.” He went still immediately, almost in the exact same way she’d seen him do with Eliot countless times. “I know this sounds insane, but what she’s saying - it feels right.”
One of the myriad reasons she loved him so much was that once he saw she was serious he didn’t mock her feelings or dismiss them. “What do you want to do?”
She took his hand again. “Back my play. Be my black king.”
After a second, he leaned in and kissed her. “Always, my queen.”
Feeling calmer, she turned back to the waiting women. “What is your name?” she asked the woman from the diner.
She dropped another curtsey. “I am the Green Fairy, your Majesty.”
Sophie drew a deep breath. “And why am I here, Green Fairy?”
“They believe you are Mab, Queen of the Fairies,” Sheriff Swan said. Sophie didn’t mean to react when the girl started talking, but she held up a hand - cutting her off.
“I need to hear this from her,” she said. “Not you.”
There was a quick, nervous intake of breath, and the Green Fairy bobbed another curtsey. “Your Majesty,” she said breathlessly, “Our Mayor - the Queen of the Enchanted Forest once upon a time - was a former lover of yours. Your being here has reawakened the bond you laid on her and we need…” She paused and Sophie saw her attention flick briefly to Nate, then back, “We need to know what your intentions are.”
Memories, hazy as anything she’d ever struggled with, ghosted across Sophie’s mind. Winged creatures, jeweled lands, food, drink, everyone catering to her slightest whim… It was the sort of life she’d been chasing for herself up until the point Nate had come into her life and given her a family, a home, love and new purpose. It was real? she wondered, trying to relax and allow the images to come into better focus.
“I have a consort,” she said carefully, and while the words were strange on her lips, she knew on a soul deep level they were what she needed to say. “I have no interest in former lovers anymore.”
Another curtsey. “Yes, your majesty. Blue Fairy thought that might be the case.”
“We need you to release her,” Sheriff Swan interjected. “This bond between you is…problematic.”
***************************
“Your Majesty,” Mother Superior said, taking Regina by the shoulders and steering her away from the mirror. “You need to stop. She will be here any moment.”
Trying desperately to hold back tears of frustration, Regina nevertheless allowed herself to be guided into a nearby armchair. “Can’t you do anything to make it easier?” she asked, turning pleading eyes on the other woman. “Something to help me survive it?”
The tiny woman crouched down in front of her, taking both Regina’s hands in her own. “I cannot do any magic in defiance of my queen’s will,” she said, her expression sympathetic. “But you will survive this, Regina. It has been decades since you and Mab were together. Surely you…”
Regina shook her head. “As long as I had a tiny piece of her to cling to I knew I would be okay, that it wasn’t really over. You’re bringing her here to set me free.” She squeezed the Blue Fairy’s hands. “No mortal can fall from that height and live.”
“You assume I would let you fall.”
Heart skipping several beats, Regina sprang to her feet and spun to face the speaker. Mab, Queen of the Fairies, looking every bit as inhumanly beautiful as she always shone in Regina’s memory. A man stood behind her and one deliberate pace to the left. She has a consort, Regina recalled, tears finally slipping free at the incontrovertible evidence she had been replaced.
“Your majesty,” she breathed, stepping free of the chair and starting to sink to the floor in the deepest curtsey she was capable of.
“No.” Mab shook her head. “You do not bow to me. I won’t have it.”
Knees trembling, Regina manage to comply with the order. “Thank you,” she said softly, hearing a familiarly reverent tone in the words. Once upon a time Mab had been her whole world. The lure of returning to such a simple existence was almost too powerful to resist.
The Fairy Queen motioned her forward. Feeling as though she would shatter under the pressure, Regina forced herself to close the distance that separated them. “You are Regina Mills,” she said. It wasn’t a question, more like she was confirming facts in her own mind, but Regina answered anyway.
“Yes, your majesty.”
Fingertips lightly brushed her skin, tracing the curve of her cheeks and skimming lightly down either side of Regina’s neck to meet in the hollow at the base of her throat. “You were very precious to me once.”
Regina whimpered, feeling the same stirrings as before deep inside her body - every bit of pleasure she was capable of experiencing rising up to meet her lover’s touch. Mab hesitated, one eyebrow raised as she sensed the energy shift. “Very precious,” she said wonderingly. “I see now why everyone counts this such an emergency.”
Soothing sunlight energy played across Regina’s skin, easing her back off the cliff and gentling her back into the moment. “I am so sorry I left you with this.”
“Do you remember her?” Emma asked.
“It’s not memory,” Mab said, her voice pitched so that became part of the soothing, calming spell she’d been weaving around the two of them. “Not as you mean it.”
Her hands dropped to the first button on Regina’s silk blouse. “Nate, would you make sure the door is secured. This won’t take long, but it isn’t for the prying eyes of outsiders.”
Mab’s consort turned smartly on his heel and went to do as she had bid him. Regina was relieved to see that he stayed at the door. They might have shared experience as Mab’s lovers, but the Fairy Queen had continued undoing her buttons and this was going to be difficult enough without a stranger’s immediate presence distracting her.
“I need to get at your flesh for this,” Mab said, drawing her attention again. “It isn’t a difficult spell, but it is rather definite in its requirements.” She undid the last button, leaving the red silk blouse hanging open. “Not to mention it has been centuries since I’ve done it.” Reaching under the clothing, she pressed one hand over Regina’s heart, the other over her solar plexus.
***********************************
Sophie only dimly understood what she was doing and saying or why, but she didn’t fight her instincts. Whatever this was, it was real, and if the young queen’s body language was any indication, going to be very painful.
“When fairies love,” she said, “it can create a bond that transcends everything. More often than not, the results are disastrous for mortals.” She could feel the Regina trembling now. “I know you think this is going to be the end of everything, but it is a necessary transition for both of us.”
“I know,” the girl said, but there was grief in her voice and tears in her eyes. “You have a consort.”
“And you have a soul mate to find,” Sophie agreed. Not wishing to draw things out any longer, she bowed her head, drew a slow, deep breath, and pulled on the energy that she recognized as her own.
It was hard going at first. Intellectual understanding was one thing - it was quickly obvious that the girl’s heart was bound more tightly than either of them had first suspected. “Nate I need you,” Sophie called as she felt Regina start to pull away, physically as well as magically.
Bless him, he was at her side in a moment, and he understood enough not to touch her. “What should I do?”
“Hold her,” Sophie said, redoubling her efforts to pull her own energy free of the girl. “She won’t be able to do anything magically, but I need you to keep her physically where she is.” She felt a ripple of tension shiver around the room as Nate took his place, but as long as the other women didn’t interfere, she didn’t let them distract her for more than a moment.
Having Nate opposite her balanced and grounded Sophie, allowing her to access a well of strength she hadn’t remembered was hers to use. “There we go,” she crooned as threads of energy began to unwind from each other. “Much better.”
“No,” Regina protested, and the sound was more sob than words. “Don’t leave me.”
Sophie wavered for a moment, her fingers flexing possessively against skin that was becoming more familiar with every passing second. “This is not your destiny,” she said firmly. “I am not your destiny. You knew the truth when you first asked leave to go home.”
Memory of the day suddenly sprang into full and vivid life. Sophie suddenly understood that she had always known her relationship with Regina was going to be as transitory as all the others. When the girl had first declared her desire to go home Sophie had simply thought it must be time and let her go without a second thought. Do you understand how strong you must have been to leave me with my bond still on your heart? she thought, willing the girl to see the same things she was.
“You will survive this,” she said out loud as the last of energy binding them came unraveled and Regina collapsed crying in Nate’s arms. Shaking now, Sophie opened her eyes and nodded across at Nate. He scooped the sobbing girl up in his arms and carried her to the couch.
The fairies were looking at her with open concern. “Your majesty?” the Blue Fairy asked.
Smiling, Sophie impulsively opened her arms and drew them into an embrace. “You did right,” she said, kissing each of them on the head.
They stayed in her arms for a beat longer than normal humans would before pulling free. “You remember it all?” the Green Fairy asked.
Sophie glanced back at Nate, who was talking in low tones to the Sheriff. “I remember enough.” She cupped each of the women’s cheeks, feeling an absurdly maternal surge towards both of them. “This is my life now, though, and Nate is my chosen consort. Neither of you may tell anyone you have seen me.”
Their twinned expressions of disappointment were almost comical. “You won’t return?” the Blue Fairy asked.
Smiling, Sophie shook her head. “I think this proves I will be back when I am needed, but it is not time for me to reclaim my throne. Not yet.”
She stayed with the fairies for a few more minutes, settling things as best she could, before going to see Regina. The queen was awake and calm, but she was still lying where Nate had placed her and showed no interest in getting up any time soon. “How are you feeling?” Sophie asked, perching lightly on the coffee table. Instinct pushed her to take Regina’s hand, but she didn’t want to risk undoing what they had just accomplished.
“Hollowed out,” the queen said. “Lost.”
“It will pass,” Sophie said firmly, “so long as you focus on everything you have instead of wallowing in what you have lost.”
“Easy for you to say,” Regina said bitterly. “You already have a life without me.”
Sophie shook her head. “Easy for me to say because I have experienced what you are feeling more times than I suspect you ever will. And it was when I started looking at what I had that the universe brought me Nate.” Grinning slightly, she risked a glance at her erstwhile soulmate. “And then spent several long human years forcing us to learn how to be worthy of each other.”
She sighed. “And you have a life without me, Regina. People who love you who never even knew I had a claim on your heart. Take your comfort in that and the rest will fall into place.”