New 'Once Upon a Time' Fic:"Blood Feud" (1/2)
DISCLAIMER: "Once Upon a Time" and all its wonderful characters belong to ABC and Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, etc.. I borrow them only with love.
TITLE: Blood Feud
CHARACTERS: Regina/The Evil Queen, Mary Margaret/Snow, David/Prince Charming, Emma Swan, Henry Mills,
SPOILERS: Through "The Queen Is Dead" (vaguely)
RATING: Teen
WARNINGS: Vague reference to past non-con.
SUMMARY: "The spell would not break until they learned to love one another. Or tore one another apart in the trying."
TIMELINE: Generally late season 2 or just after. The majority of the story was written before "Second Star to the Right" aired, so none of the events or character interactions from that final arc are taken into account here.
WORD COUNT: 12,603
Beta love to helenhighwater7, annienau08, one anonymouse, and ariestess for the best of intentions.*g*
BLOOD FEUD
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2013
The boy thought of it. The notion was formed the day his grandfather (no, not the one you are thinking of...the other one...the...darker one), the day his grandfather said the only means of ending a blood feud was the spilling of more blood.
Every fiber in Henry's being raged at the wrongness of this statement. At first he thought the real answer was to take away magic. He tried. He tried to explode it all away. But, in the end he realized; the answer to a blood feud was not more blood. The answer to dark magic was not more darkness. The answer to sickness was not more disease. The answer to the sleeping curse was not deeper hatred.
It was love.
All the answers...were love.
***
Gold agreed to help the boy. But he did not agree to participate in the plan. He agreed to help out of...curiosity...nostalgia...perhaps a hidden twist of apologetic affection.
Or perhaps he merely hoped to watch the royals destroy themselves, one and all, and spare him the trouble.
In any case, he cast the spell to keep them in the house. To keep them all in. Even the most powerful.
Henry was the one to explain it to them all. He was disappointed Gold had chosen to remain an observer, but the boy had learned to make the best of what he did have. He gathered the group together in Granny's, after hours. Neutral ground, of sorts. Mary Margaret, David, Emma, and Regina. Regina choosing to stand while the others sat. Regina looking wary and skittish and expecting an attack.
Henry took her hand and pulled her closer. Hesitant as she was, she had never once refused his touch.
"This has to stop," he said, by way of an opening statement. And truly, none in the room could call him wrong. It was the "how" that had long perplexed them.
"There's only one way," the boy said. "And you all know what it is. You just don't want to."
There was wisdom in youth. Simplicity slicing through the complexity of chaos.
"And what is that?" David asked, indulging the boy he was coming to love like a son.
The boy drew a deep breath and met the gaze of each of the adults in turn. "You have to talk to each other," he said. "You have to really talk to each other. Like family. Real family. All of you."
They each tried to argue, carefully and patiently, pacifying the boy, acknowledging his best intentions while trying to re-complicate the truth with tangled details. But the longer they talked, the more the inevitability soaked beneath their skins. There was love or there was hate. They could choose one or choose the other. Each of them, in his own way, grew tired of the option he had chosen for so long.
Three days passed and two more clandestine gatherings took place. In the end...each of them agreed to participate, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
On a Friday night, the five erstwhile royals gathered -- David, Mary Margaret, Emma, Henry, and Regina -- standing on the sidewalk in a shady part of Orbison Street, outside a vacant house in which Gold had invested long ago but rarely found tenants to occupy. Regina waved her hands, dusted the air with wisps of purple, and polished the place into suitable lodgings. Rumplestiltskin welcomed them across the threshold with a slick and professional air, led the tour like a realtor promoting his wares. Then he sealed the tenants inside like prisoners on death row.
Regina still had her magic. She had fallen off the wagon long ago. The Charmings should have been the ones feeling fear in such confined quarters. But it was Regina whose claustrophobia made her sick to her stomach. Even as Gold disappeared into the gathering evening shadows, she tried a freedom spell on the door and took a sharp shock to the fingers. Regina had been locked in towers before. She had no desire to repeat the experience.
The spell would not break until they learned to love one another. Or tore one another apart in the trying.
Day 1
Henry's happiness was all that held the night together. For the first hours, the simple fact of everyone's presence in a single house was enough for him. A tiny glimpse of the unified family for which he so longed. Emma and David and Mary Margaret were used to living together, used to being a family, if a new and disjointed one. They could forget for small stretches of time that this was not just another night in the loft. But the tension wafting off Regina was enough to prickle everyone's nerves. She hardly spoke, kept a safe distance from the others, even when she stood in the same room. She paced like a caged tiger, ate only a few bites of her dinner before she pushed the plate away. When she abruptly stalked out of the room in the middle of a lively conversation round the table, Henry called out to her. Her heels ceased to clack on the hallway tile, but she did not turn. Henry rose from his chair and followed his mother into the hall. The boy took a breath as if to speak, then he simply plunged himself into his mother's chest and wrapped his arms tight around her waist. Regina hesitated only a moment before hugging her son tight, never acknowledging the silent group watching every nuance of the display.
"Thank you. For doing this for me," the boy said, voice muffled in his mother's red blouse. She smelled like pieces of his childhood he wanted to remember. Magic was still spicy on her skin.
Regina let her hair hide her face as she held on to her son, fingers tangled in his tousled hair. She whispered, "Good night, darling," then disappeared up the stairs.
David stared at the floor. Emma smiled softly at Henry as he sought her eyes. Mary Margaret stared down the hallway, chasing after a whisper of memory.
Day 3
They soon discovered that one morning paper and four bored adults presented a consistent problem. The first day had seemed like a vacation, but the reality of their situation soaked in as days ticked by and no alarm clocks rang, no schedules called, no cell phone summoned immediate attention. The need for structure, for a daily plan and goals to accomplish, made itself speedily apparent.
Regina organized an educational regimen for Henry. She gathered a stack of carefully chosen books from the library on the second floor, and she wrote out a reading schedule, asking Henry to compose a summary of one book every second week, then bring it to her for perusal. Mary Margaret suggested she could help as well; she was a teacher after all. Regina offered a plastic smile and said no thank you, they would be fine.
Emma sat by and felt mildly inadequate. She hadn't even thought about schooling for Henry.
Day 6
Regina had a problem with the lack of privacy. She had lived alone for a long time. Then with Henry. But when he had been young, not yet talking, she had still been able to hear her own thoughts. Then later, he had been gone in school or off at activities or playing in his room several hours a day. In this place, Regina often felt the need to retreat to her room and shut the door and breathe. But those small quarters quickly grew overly confining. She longed for her own back yard. The bench, the trellis...her apple tree. She had spent many hours in her garden at Leopold's castle, many hours in the stables with no company but Rocinante. One day, she might ride another horse. One day.
On the sixth afternoon, Regina left the safety of her room, stretched her legs, and slipped downstairs for a glass of iced tea. The back door stood open onto the painfully small back garden, and the cool breeze dancing across the bare flesh of her throat and snaking beneath the silk of her blouse soothed her nerves. She carried her glass onto the narrow rear deck and settled against a post, eyes closed, drinking in the fleeting taste of freedom.
David's voice startled her, and she turned to find him seated in the shadows at the far end of the porch. "Easier to breathe out here, hmm?" he said. No threat or challenge laced his words, only a strange sort of comfortable camaraderie.
When Regina had slowed her breathing, she gave a small nod. "I've always preferred the outdoors," she said.
David's eyes narrowed in genuine surprise. "Really? I wouldn't have thought that about you."
Regina turned and gazed out over the high wall toward the blue sky beyond, chin lifted like the regal she would always be. "You know nothing about me."
David let go a soft laugh. "You may have a point there. Maybe that's exactly why we're all here."
Regina did not speak.
As the prince watched the fallen queen's profile in the late afternoon sun, watched her swallow a sip of iced tea and straighten the gold pendant hanging around her neck, it settled upon him how very much she was a woman he did not know. This hurricane force that had torn apart his family, his security, his life, shaken the very ground beneath him. This entity of the Evil Queen burned into his mind like the dark cloud that had once traveled at her heels. Here in the setting sun, watching a woman with a silk blouse and gold earrings and iced tea on her lips, a woman who was swallowing her pride and taking on a task she loathed for the son she loved...he gazed upon a stranger.
"That fence needs fixing," David said.
Regina looked his way with a frown, and David waved his lemonade toward a rough patch of wood at the far corner of the yard.
Regina followed his gaze and ran an appraising eye over the offending landscape. She turned back to him and waited for more, lifted her eyebrows, then finally prompted, "And?"
"And...I found some tools and wood in the shed. I think someone started to fix it and stopped. I thought it would be a good project for some distraction. And Henry asked if he could help."
"Oh." Regina stared at the porch boards for a while. Then she nodded, almost as if to herself. "Yes. That would be nice for him. He might learn something."
David nodded and took another sip of his drink. After a while, Regina tilted her head against the post once again and closed her eyes.
Day 8
Henry convinced Regina to make his favorite apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast. Without a word, she made enough for everyone. Emma ate more than her share and told Regina outright how much she loved them. David teased Mary Margaret about her usual recipe tasting a bit more like cardboard and Mary Margaret stuck out her tongue.
Regina said, "She never did pay much attention when I was teaching her."
Henry got syrup on his shirt.
"Henry, watch what you're doing."
"Yours really do taste like cardboard," he said to his grandmother, and Emma caught the small upturn at the corner of Regina's mouth.
Henry and David headed outside to saw boards with a ban from Regina on all power tools. Emma and Mary Margaret washed the dishes and decided to tackle laundering the bed sheets. Regina shut herself in her room with a book and a glass of iced tea.
Day 12
They discovered that watching movies together was not impossible. It took a while for Regina to admit she had a fondness for Cary Grant films and was not opposed to Gregory Peck. Mary Margaret liked Gene Kelly. Henry hooked up his laptop to the living room television and streamed films for them in the evenings. No one talked much. Every now and then Regina gave a soft chuckle at some of the humor, and Emma realized she had never seen Regina sincerely amused by something. There was very little eye contact. But no one left, and no one argued. On the fourth movie night, Mary Margaret made popcorn, and Regina silently melted the butter to drizzle on top. Mary Margaret held the bowl while Regina poured.
Day 16
Regina fell asleep in the corner of the couch during North by Northwest. Henry said it was okay, she had seen the movie before. Then he covered her with a lap blanket before he went to get ready for bed. The others washed up the snack bowls in the kitchen. David was the last one left to turn out the lights. He started to wake Regina so she wouldn't have a stiff neck in the morning. He watched her breathe for several seconds, noticed the soft crinkles at the corners of her eyes and the way her freckles were more visible in faded make-up and late-night light. In the end, he left her where she lay and climbed the stairs to Mary Margaret.
Day 19
"So, you were younger than Henry when you lost your mom?"
Mary Margaret stretched up from the top step of the library ladder, working her chosen book loose from its long-established home. She pulled the leather volume down and focused on the binding as she offered her reply to her daughter. "Yes. Several years younger, actually."
Emma frowned but remained silent where she stood steadying the ladder.
Snow White of the Enchanted Forest had never been much for books. But Mary Margaret of Storybrooke had developed a deep love of literature. She had begun by reading to her students, then gradually discovered the worlds and adventures open to her between these treasured covers. Now she could not imagine her life without the magic of stories.
Regina had already thoroughly perused the shelves for Henry, but she had taken a good-sized pile to her own room as well. Emma looked over the gaps and dust outlines where the queen had left her trace. "You know, I never really pegged Regina for a big reader," she said.
Mary Margaret looked down with interest, glad for the change of subject. Because, truthfully, the princess was still torn between savoring every single moment with her long lost daughter, making up for lost time and bonding heart to heart with every chance they got, and wanting to stay in her protected bubble in which she chose not to think about her infant daughter having been ripped from her arms and her life. "Oh, yes, Regina loves to read. Always. She read all the time when I was growing up."
"Really?"
"Really. She was always trying to pass on her favorites to me. And when I was young I did like to listen when she read to me, but I never had the patience to read much for myself. I was always running off. I think she was disappointed by that. She wanted to share what she loved."
Emma wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "It wasn't your fault if you weren't interested."
Mary Margaret narrowed her gaze and cocked her head in consideration. "Maybe. But maybe it wasn't about showing an interest in the books. Maybe I should have read them because I was interested in her. Maybe I should have shown that."
"Kids are allowed to be kids."
Mary Margaret tucked her book beneath her arm and began a careful descent. "They should be. But that doesn't excuse them from showing love to those they care about."
"And you...cared about Regina?"
"She's my stepmother. Of course, I cared about her. Don't you?"
Emma blinked. "Me?"
"Yes. I mean, you seem to...defend her more often than most people. The two of you seem to...understand each other."
"I wouldn't say...well, I mean, she's Henry's...and it's not like I can...I don't even..." Emma's words fell to nothing and her shoulders sagged beneath her mother's raised brows. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, of course I do. When she's...ya know...not trying to poison me. Or you." Then after a moment, she added, "Best enemies?"
And Mary Margaret could not stifle a laugh. "Welcome to the royal family."
Day 23
The prince found an old and scarred croquet set in the house's unfinished basement.
Henry lit up like a firework. Croquet was something Regina had often set out for them on summer evenings in their back garden. His very task-oriented mother held a few areas of planned recreation as sacred, and Henry treasured those times with her. When someone said, "Regina," the boy thought of the scheming Mayor, of the Evil Queen. When someone said, "Your Mom," the boy thought of walks along the trail at the edge of the park, kicking at piles of leaves with his hand wrapped tightly around his mother's and her soft smiles in the wind, fresh baked cookies when he came in from sledding, chapter after chapter of his favorite stories when he was ill, or croquet wickets and playful laughter beneath warm sun.
"You're doing it wrong," Regina said, as David pounded the scorepost into the forgiving ground.
The prince paused in his efforts and looked up at the queen with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, is that right, Your Majesty?"
Regina held out her hands as though the fault were obvious. Regina had never well-tolerated those who knew less than she.
David took a step back from his work. "Well, by all means, Regina...show me how it's done."
"You have to count it off in steps," Henry said with a grin, tossing an almost affectionate glance toward his mother as she moved into David's place.
"You measure this part with the mallet," Regina said, holding out an expectant hand. Henry supplied the mallet right on cue.
Regina complained there wasn't enough room in the small yard for proper spacing. She complained that the mallet heads were unevenly worn. She complained about the glare of the sun.
Henry knew all the rules and had to remind Mary-Margaret. With a little practice she regained her prowess. Emma had never really played croquet, and her father had to show her the basics. Henry proved to be an impressive young competitor. And Regina...Regina's ball smacked firmly into Mary Margaret's, David's, and Henry's balls in turn, and rather than taking any of the bonus shots, Regina chose to knock each and every one of her opponents' balls as far from the wickets as the confined space would allow. She won by eleven strokes.
It occurred to the Royals, a bit belatedly, that it was, perhaps, unwise to play croquet with the daughter of the Queen of Hearts.
Henry seemed incapable of any expression but a grin. The boy came in second place.
Day 26
David passed the freshly rinsed salad bowl to Emma, who took hold of it with the clean dishtowel in her hand. Emma had developed quite a fondness for this kitchen in the evenings. There was a dimly lit coziness about the place, a sense, perhaps, of the kind of home she had always imagined existed somewhere. The room was quiet this night, yet the soft sounds of an occupied home offered a subterranean comfort. Mary Margaret was upstairs in the shower, the water rush roaring softly in the wall, while Henry and Regina were in the living room playing chess, occasionally punctuated by an interjection or a laugh. Emma would have thought a strategic game of war would have come naturally to a woman such as Regina, but the game seemed to require a great deal of effort from the mayor.
"So. Almost a month," Emma said as she added the salad bowl to the growing pile of clean dishes.
Her father nodded, scrubbing intently at the spaghetti pot in his tall yellow gloves. She wondered if he had helped his mother wash dishes growing up. "Yeah," he said. "Almost a month."
"Do you think...I mean, do you think we're making progress? That this is...working?"
Emma squinted at her father's profile. Now and then she couldn't help but imagine what it would have been like to bring her first date home to this man, to ask him for a new bicycle, or to ride on his shoulders down Main Street on a Sunday afternoon. She wondered how often he wondered the same things. And if he felt like he had never had any more chance to learn to be a father than she had had to be a daughter.
David let the spaghetti pot settle into the sink, giving weight to his daughter's question. "I think...things among all of us have been wrong for...a really really long time. And I think they can't be fixed in a few nights."
Emma shifted her weight between her boots. "Yeah," she said to the floor, suddenly feeling quite young indeed.
"However," David continued, meeting Emma's gaze with a reassuring crinkle at the corner of his eye Emma had come to appreciate on a much deeper level than when she had known the gesture merely as one belonging to Mary Margaret's angsty crush, "I can't say I regret a single moment of being forced to hang out with my family. That's something I would actually pay Gold to do for me."
A grateful smile spread through Emma and she felt her shoulders sag from their braced scrunch. She had not realized how much she had feared confirmation that perhaps being cooped up in a cozy little house with her for a month was more than her parents had truly desired.
"Me too," she offered with a shy smile that belied her fortitude.
She left the words, "How do you think Regina feels?" unspoken. This moment belonged to her.
Day 29
The fireball hit the far well and sent the drapes up in a rush of blinding flame.
"Mom!!! Stop!--OW--Aahhh!!!"
The flash of heat from the glaring fire rushed so near Henry's flesh it burned like the Christmas Eve he had reached too close to the dinner candle and melted hot wax onto his arm.
Regina's horrified gasp rang through the room and she dropped at once to the floor beside her son. Frantic fingers grasped at the arm cradled at Henry's chest. "Henry. Oh, God, darling, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you, I thought you were upstairs. Are you all right?"
Mary Margaret stood several feet away, breath fast and heartbeat racing wild. She had barely ducked the path of the flaming missile hurled with such vehemence in her direction.
Henry winced as his mother probed the tender flesh. "Mom...what were you doing? Why would you try to hurt her?"
"Henry, I'm so sorry, I just--"
Mary Margaret watched the continuing flames lick at the ceiling, the carpet, the back of the arm chair. In this house they were locked inside. "Regina...," she warned, voice wispier than she had intended.
Regina glanced her way for only a moment, impatient and icy, but she understood quickly enough. With a distracted wave, the flames on the wall vanished and the curtains were left pristine and swinging as though in the wake of a light breeze.
"Henry..." Regina whispered, shoulders falling under a weight against which she had no armor. The disappointment in the boy's eyes brought tears to Regina's, but the fire in her veins kept the necessary offerings from her lips. She insisted on tending Henry's wounds, even as he tried to push her away.
She did not look at Mary Margaret.
Day 34
Regina and David continued to be the two who sought refuge on the forgiving boards of the back porch. As such they often found themselves in one another's company. Which Regina favored, since of all the endlessly babbling people in this damned house, Charming was the only one who seemed content to sit in blessed silence.
On this night, as the sun made its way down through the whispering willow tree and drew fingers of shadows across their quiet figures, David said softly, "Did you like to ride?"
Regina looked up at him, pulled from a sea of thoughts far from this garden. "What?"
"Horses. Did you like to ride? I mean, I know you had to back in our land, but that doesn't mean you liked it. It's just that I was thinking about...you liking to be outside, and..."
"I loved to ride," she said simply.
He almost did not know how to reply when her words held no apparent agenda.
"But you don't, anymore?"
Regina shrugged. "I had the same horse my whole life. Riding without him...I mean, I had ridden other horses at times, of course, but Rocinante was..."
"When did he pass away?" David asked, hand holding his soda can and resting on his thigh, sun cutting through the sea-water pale of his eyes.
A beat passed before Regina said clearly, "When I tore his heart out and tossed it into a magical fire."
Regina told herself she looked away when the sun glared in her eyes, not when the look of disgust and horror clouded the prince's countenance.
"Didn't you love him?" he asked.
Regina stared at her black pumps against the peeling white paint on the porch steps. "More than anyone. Anyone...but my father," she said. Then she wanted to get up and leave, like she always did. But all the energy had drained from her, and she stayed there on the porch, and David stayed with her. Not speaking. Not running.
Half an hour passed before David asked, "Do you miss him? Rocinante?"
"Every day," Regina whispered. And she knew Charming could hear the tears in her voice.
Day 37
The perpetual frown lines on Regina's brow seemed to deepen. Mary Margaret almost remembered a time when those frown lines did not exist.
"Would you try something for me?" the princess asked.
"For you?" The sarcasm dripped like maple syrup. "I'm not here for you."
"You were once, you know. A long time ago."
"No, I wasn't."
"Yes, Regina, you were. You say it was all fake, but...you were my stepmother for a long time. And you did protect me. You did take care of me. You lied to me about what happened to Daniel. You said it yourself, that was out of kindness. You were taking care of me."
"You were a child. I wasn't the monster you painted me to be. That doesn't mean I cared about you. "
"Fine. Don't do something for me. Do it for Henry."
Regina continued to glare sullenly for a count of five. Then she said simply, "Fine. What do you want me to do?"
Snow took a careful step closer to the queen and watched as Regina tensed. She pushed forward, regardless.
"Hold my hand," Snow said, and held out her open palm.
Regina actually flinched. "Excuse me?"
"Hold my hand."
"Why?"
"Because if you never touch me again, we will stay in our separate corners forever. You've held my hand countless times in our lives, Regina. You can do it now. Just...hold my hand. You don't have to say anything, but maybe it will help us...help us remember that we're both just...people. Doing the best we can. And we both want our family to be happy and safe."
No one moved.
Then after several breaths of hesitation, Regina slid her hand into Mary Margaret's. The motion was more familiar and natural than either of the two women would have imagined. Regina stared at the floor, and the wall clock's ticks seemed to increase in volume.
Regina drew an uneven breath. Her lips parted slightly and she shifted the set of her jaw.
Mary Margaret furrowed her brow and cocked her head, listening for the slightest hint, the smallest clue to the emotions tumbling behind the queen's façade.
The hand around hers tightened, then withdrew. Without a word or a glimpse of eye contact, Regina left the room and took the stairs to her room. Mary Margaret heard the slam and latch of the door.
DAY 42
Henry found a GameCube in the back of the cabinet beneath the television. He could not believe they had not noticed it before. Only two games accompanied the system, but those were two games more than Henry had seen in over a month. He had the system hooked up and running in no time flat. He started teaching Emma to play his favorite of the two games the very first day. By the third day, their afternoon game had become a ritual.
One morning, during breakfast, Regina was more antisocial than usual. After breakfast, she disappeared to her room. Henry told Emma later that Regina had a really bad headache. He said she got them sometimes and that they could last a while. Over the next two days, Emma and Mary Margaret tried to do something to help -- hot compresses, massages, warm soup -- but Regina, though not as cold as she might have once been, remained unreceptive to most offers of comfort. She preferred to stay quiet and alone in her room or huddled in a shadowy corner of an occupied room. On the third day, she took some more aspirin and went up for an afternoon nap during Emma and Henry's gaming hour. Halfway through the daily tournament, Regina returned to refill her tea glass.
Emma noticed Henry glancing up toward his mom, noticed the slight tuck of his brow, the narrowing of his gaze in recognizable concern. But he said nothing, continuing with their game. When Regina passed back through the room on her way upstairs, while Emma was taking her turn, Henry said, "Did you get a nap?"
Regina turned and offered her son a feeble smile. Emma could see the wear in the other woman's eyes; the drain and fatigue. The headache must have been really bad.
"I slept a little," Regina said softly. She reached out and ruffled Henry's hair. "Don't worry, darling. It should get better soon. You go on with your game."
Henry nodded. He watched after his mother for a moment, then turned back to the television.
"She has a lot of nightmares," the boy said moments later, squinting toward the game controller held loosely in his hands.
Emma fumbled for the pause button on her own controller and turned to gaze down at her son. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. She used to, at least, I don't know...I mean, I haven't been around as much since..."
"Yeah."
Henry ran his thumbnail around the edges of the controller buttons, picked at the embossed letters. "But she used to. And sometimes...when I was younger...I used to pretend that I did. Had nightmares, I mean. Even when I didn't. And then I'd ask to sleep with her...so she wouldn't be alone. If I was there...she wouldn't cry."
Emma stared at the boy for a long time. This wondrous little person who had come from her, grown without her, and somehow found her again. She reached out and pulled Henry into a smothering and lopsided embrace. "You're one heck of a little kid, ya know that?" she whispered into his hair.
She expected a sarcastic little, "I know." She didn't expect Henry's young fingers to tangle in her belt loops and hold on.
DAY 47
"You know...it really means us."
"What?" Regina turned from the sink where she had been rinsing out her bourbon glass. The last rays of the day's sun drew stripes across the counter and the golden wood of the floor.
Snow dropped back against the counter, unconsciously spinning the dish cloth tangled in her hands. "When Henry says we all need to love, we all need to forgive one another. That we all need to...really talk to each other again. He doesn't really mean all of us. He means us. You and me."
"That's not true. No one in this house gives a crap about me except for Henry."
Mary Margaret's brow furrowed and she rested one hand on her hip, propped the other on the oven handle. "You really can't see it, can you? You never could."
"See what?" The defensiveness was like molasses.
"What you want most, Regina. What you want is family. Love. And all those years you and I lived together...I did love you. I was your family. You just couldn't see it."
Regina huffed out her incredulity. The familiar sneer twisted her lips and she fixed her gaze above the back door. "Believe me, I wasn't the one who was blind to what was happening in that house."
"Tell me, Regina. Tell me. In the very beginning, before you lost Daniel. When we first thought we might be family. Did you love me?"
Regina turned her head and stared at the princess for a dangerously long spell of silence. Then she dropped her gaze to floor and said clearly, "Yes."
"You loved me?"
"Of course, I did. You of all people should know, betrayal only hurts when you care."
Icicles thrown like fireballs.
DAY 50
"Don't you think this should be done outside??" Mary Margaret employed her best school teacher voice, but the smile beneath her words stole her authority.
Emma and Henry would not have listened in any case. Henry was holding tight to Emma's blouse, being held piggyback as Emma spun around the living room. The game had begun with Henry trying to learn a handstand and Emma spotting, progressed through back flips off Emma's waist as the two held hands, and finally become a goofy and uncoordinated effort to see who got impossibly dizzy first. Emma was losing.
"Okay, you win!" she cried and the game ended in a heap of arms and legs and giggles crashing into the couch.
It was only after Henry had recovered from his laughter and started reconstructing the original condition of the couch that Emma wandered toward the dining room table and noticed the sketchbook.
Regina had been sitting nearby, observing the afternoon play session, and on the table in front of her lay a large sketchbook, an artist's pencil, and a kneaded eraser. The open page of the book took Emma's breath away.
"Did you...did you draw these?" Emma's fingers crept toward the sketchbook, as though touching could help her understand. She glanced toward Regina, hardly able to tear her eyes from the penciled images. The open page held three drawings; moments captured of the innocent play between herself and her son -- Henry flopped on the couch and Emma smiling above him and tickling his ribs. Henry held on her back, her own head tossed back and joyful. The two of them forehead to forehead and nose to nose as he challenged her choice for movie night.
Regina had settled in her chair, legs crossed and hands folded in her lap like a proper mayor. She was still dressing in nice skirts and slacks and high heels. Regina was forever royal. She drew a slow breath and met Emma's expression of wonder. "Yes," Regina said simply.
"You...Regina, these are amazing. I had no idea you could..." Emma's words faded as she was drawn into the incredible detail and emotion captured in the black and white sketches. "I can't draw a hang man," Emma said honestly.
When Regina did not speak, Emma said, "Have you been drawing a long time?"
Regina's gaze rested on the sketchpad. She lifted her eyebrows as though about to reply, when Mary Margaret spoke from the couch beside Henry. "She's been drawing as long as I've known her. She just wouldn't let me tell anyone."
Emma watched as the queen's throat muscles rippled in a swallow, but this small movement was her only acknowledgement of the words. "Yeah?" Emma prompted. "You did this when you were young?"
Regina nodded. "Yes. I used to draw all the time."
Emma reached out toward the book. "May I?" she asked.
Regina shrugged and gave a quick nod of consent.
Emma picked up the book and began to page through. "Oh, my God." She had to admit, she not only had not expected Regina's artistic talent, but she had never expected her to record such intimate and affectionate moments between Henry and his Other Mother. "Have you...are there drawings from when Henry was young?"
Regina seemed surprised by the question. But there was a softness in her gaze that appeared only at the mention of her son. "Yes," she said. "Back at our house. I wasn't...drawing as much when he was young, of course. Single mother, I rarely had my hands free. But there are some pieces."
Emma nodded and continued to page through the drawings chronicling their days in this house, the days just before, Regina's last days with Cora.
After a moment, Regina said, "I had many years' worth of sketch books, I...I lost them...when I enacted the curse."
"Would they be back in the enchanted forest?"
Regina shrugged again. She shook her head. "I don't know." She did not speak for a long moment. Then, "I tried to burn them all, once. But my father took them and...saved them."
For a woman with no more than a suitcase's worth of her past, Emma was surprisingly shocked by Regina's words. "Why did you want to burn them?"
The queen met her gaze with an unnerving steadiness. "Because they were full of people I loved. And love is weakness."
Emma slowly returned the sketchbook to the table. She drummed her fingers on the polished mahogany. "You don't...you don't still believe that, do you?"
Regina did not reply. She sat forward and pulled the latest page of work from her sketchbook "Would you like this?" she asked, holding the paper toward Emma.
"I...yeah. Are you sure?"
Regina nodded. "Of course."
Emma took the piece of paper and held it close. Regina took her sketchbook and left for the kitchen.
(continued in part 2/2)
TITLE: Blood Feud
CHARACTERS: Regina/The Evil Queen, Mary Margaret/Snow, David/Prince Charming, Emma Swan, Henry Mills,
SPOILERS: Through "The Queen Is Dead" (vaguely)
RATING: Teen
WARNINGS: Vague reference to past non-con.
SUMMARY: "The spell would not break until they learned to love one another. Or tore one another apart in the trying."
TIMELINE: Generally late season 2 or just after. The majority of the story was written before "Second Star to the Right" aired, so none of the events or character interactions from that final arc are taken into account here.
WORD COUNT: 12,603
Beta love to helenhighwater7, annienau08, one anonymouse, and ariestess for the best of intentions.*g*
BLOOD FEUD
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2013
The boy thought of it. The notion was formed the day his grandfather (no, not the one you are thinking of...the other one...the...darker one), the day his grandfather said the only means of ending a blood feud was the spilling of more blood.
Every fiber in Henry's being raged at the wrongness of this statement. At first he thought the real answer was to take away magic. He tried. He tried to explode it all away. But, in the end he realized; the answer to a blood feud was not more blood. The answer to dark magic was not more darkness. The answer to sickness was not more disease. The answer to the sleeping curse was not deeper hatred.
It was love.
All the answers...were love.
***
Gold agreed to help the boy. But he did not agree to participate in the plan. He agreed to help out of...curiosity...nostalgia...perhaps a hidden twist of apologetic affection.
Or perhaps he merely hoped to watch the royals destroy themselves, one and all, and spare him the trouble.
In any case, he cast the spell to keep them in the house. To keep them all in. Even the most powerful.
Henry was the one to explain it to them all. He was disappointed Gold had chosen to remain an observer, but the boy had learned to make the best of what he did have. He gathered the group together in Granny's, after hours. Neutral ground, of sorts. Mary Margaret, David, Emma, and Regina. Regina choosing to stand while the others sat. Regina looking wary and skittish and expecting an attack.
Henry took her hand and pulled her closer. Hesitant as she was, she had never once refused his touch.
"This has to stop," he said, by way of an opening statement. And truly, none in the room could call him wrong. It was the "how" that had long perplexed them.
"There's only one way," the boy said. "And you all know what it is. You just don't want to."
There was wisdom in youth. Simplicity slicing through the complexity of chaos.
"And what is that?" David asked, indulging the boy he was coming to love like a son.
The boy drew a deep breath and met the gaze of each of the adults in turn. "You have to talk to each other," he said. "You have to really talk to each other. Like family. Real family. All of you."
They each tried to argue, carefully and patiently, pacifying the boy, acknowledging his best intentions while trying to re-complicate the truth with tangled details. But the longer they talked, the more the inevitability soaked beneath their skins. There was love or there was hate. They could choose one or choose the other. Each of them, in his own way, grew tired of the option he had chosen for so long.
Three days passed and two more clandestine gatherings took place. In the end...each of them agreed to participate, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
On a Friday night, the five erstwhile royals gathered -- David, Mary Margaret, Emma, Henry, and Regina -- standing on the sidewalk in a shady part of Orbison Street, outside a vacant house in which Gold had invested long ago but rarely found tenants to occupy. Regina waved her hands, dusted the air with wisps of purple, and polished the place into suitable lodgings. Rumplestiltskin welcomed them across the threshold with a slick and professional air, led the tour like a realtor promoting his wares. Then he sealed the tenants inside like prisoners on death row.
Regina still had her magic. She had fallen off the wagon long ago. The Charmings should have been the ones feeling fear in such confined quarters. But it was Regina whose claustrophobia made her sick to her stomach. Even as Gold disappeared into the gathering evening shadows, she tried a freedom spell on the door and took a sharp shock to the fingers. Regina had been locked in towers before. She had no desire to repeat the experience.
The spell would not break until they learned to love one another. Or tore one another apart in the trying.
Day 1
Henry's happiness was all that held the night together. For the first hours, the simple fact of everyone's presence in a single house was enough for him. A tiny glimpse of the unified family for which he so longed. Emma and David and Mary Margaret were used to living together, used to being a family, if a new and disjointed one. They could forget for small stretches of time that this was not just another night in the loft. But the tension wafting off Regina was enough to prickle everyone's nerves. She hardly spoke, kept a safe distance from the others, even when she stood in the same room. She paced like a caged tiger, ate only a few bites of her dinner before she pushed the plate away. When she abruptly stalked out of the room in the middle of a lively conversation round the table, Henry called out to her. Her heels ceased to clack on the hallway tile, but she did not turn. Henry rose from his chair and followed his mother into the hall. The boy took a breath as if to speak, then he simply plunged himself into his mother's chest and wrapped his arms tight around her waist. Regina hesitated only a moment before hugging her son tight, never acknowledging the silent group watching every nuance of the display.
"Thank you. For doing this for me," the boy said, voice muffled in his mother's red blouse. She smelled like pieces of his childhood he wanted to remember. Magic was still spicy on her skin.
Regina let her hair hide her face as she held on to her son, fingers tangled in his tousled hair. She whispered, "Good night, darling," then disappeared up the stairs.
David stared at the floor. Emma smiled softly at Henry as he sought her eyes. Mary Margaret stared down the hallway, chasing after a whisper of memory.
Day 3
They soon discovered that one morning paper and four bored adults presented a consistent problem. The first day had seemed like a vacation, but the reality of their situation soaked in as days ticked by and no alarm clocks rang, no schedules called, no cell phone summoned immediate attention. The need for structure, for a daily plan and goals to accomplish, made itself speedily apparent.
Regina organized an educational regimen for Henry. She gathered a stack of carefully chosen books from the library on the second floor, and she wrote out a reading schedule, asking Henry to compose a summary of one book every second week, then bring it to her for perusal. Mary Margaret suggested she could help as well; she was a teacher after all. Regina offered a plastic smile and said no thank you, they would be fine.
Emma sat by and felt mildly inadequate. She hadn't even thought about schooling for Henry.
Day 6
Regina had a problem with the lack of privacy. She had lived alone for a long time. Then with Henry. But when he had been young, not yet talking, she had still been able to hear her own thoughts. Then later, he had been gone in school or off at activities or playing in his room several hours a day. In this place, Regina often felt the need to retreat to her room and shut the door and breathe. But those small quarters quickly grew overly confining. She longed for her own back yard. The bench, the trellis...her apple tree. She had spent many hours in her garden at Leopold's castle, many hours in the stables with no company but Rocinante. One day, she might ride another horse. One day.
On the sixth afternoon, Regina left the safety of her room, stretched her legs, and slipped downstairs for a glass of iced tea. The back door stood open onto the painfully small back garden, and the cool breeze dancing across the bare flesh of her throat and snaking beneath the silk of her blouse soothed her nerves. She carried her glass onto the narrow rear deck and settled against a post, eyes closed, drinking in the fleeting taste of freedom.
David's voice startled her, and she turned to find him seated in the shadows at the far end of the porch. "Easier to breathe out here, hmm?" he said. No threat or challenge laced his words, only a strange sort of comfortable camaraderie.
When Regina had slowed her breathing, she gave a small nod. "I've always preferred the outdoors," she said.
David's eyes narrowed in genuine surprise. "Really? I wouldn't have thought that about you."
Regina turned and gazed out over the high wall toward the blue sky beyond, chin lifted like the regal she would always be. "You know nothing about me."
David let go a soft laugh. "You may have a point there. Maybe that's exactly why we're all here."
Regina did not speak.
As the prince watched the fallen queen's profile in the late afternoon sun, watched her swallow a sip of iced tea and straighten the gold pendant hanging around her neck, it settled upon him how very much she was a woman he did not know. This hurricane force that had torn apart his family, his security, his life, shaken the very ground beneath him. This entity of the Evil Queen burned into his mind like the dark cloud that had once traveled at her heels. Here in the setting sun, watching a woman with a silk blouse and gold earrings and iced tea on her lips, a woman who was swallowing her pride and taking on a task she loathed for the son she loved...he gazed upon a stranger.
"That fence needs fixing," David said.
Regina looked his way with a frown, and David waved his lemonade toward a rough patch of wood at the far corner of the yard.
Regina followed his gaze and ran an appraising eye over the offending landscape. She turned back to him and waited for more, lifted her eyebrows, then finally prompted, "And?"
"And...I found some tools and wood in the shed. I think someone started to fix it and stopped. I thought it would be a good project for some distraction. And Henry asked if he could help."
"Oh." Regina stared at the porch boards for a while. Then she nodded, almost as if to herself. "Yes. That would be nice for him. He might learn something."
David nodded and took another sip of his drink. After a while, Regina tilted her head against the post once again and closed her eyes.
Day 8
Henry convinced Regina to make his favorite apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast. Without a word, she made enough for everyone. Emma ate more than her share and told Regina outright how much she loved them. David teased Mary Margaret about her usual recipe tasting a bit more like cardboard and Mary Margaret stuck out her tongue.
Regina said, "She never did pay much attention when I was teaching her."
Henry got syrup on his shirt.
"Henry, watch what you're doing."
"Yours really do taste like cardboard," he said to his grandmother, and Emma caught the small upturn at the corner of Regina's mouth.
Henry and David headed outside to saw boards with a ban from Regina on all power tools. Emma and Mary Margaret washed the dishes and decided to tackle laundering the bed sheets. Regina shut herself in her room with a book and a glass of iced tea.
Day 12
They discovered that watching movies together was not impossible. It took a while for Regina to admit she had a fondness for Cary Grant films and was not opposed to Gregory Peck. Mary Margaret liked Gene Kelly. Henry hooked up his laptop to the living room television and streamed films for them in the evenings. No one talked much. Every now and then Regina gave a soft chuckle at some of the humor, and Emma realized she had never seen Regina sincerely amused by something. There was very little eye contact. But no one left, and no one argued. On the fourth movie night, Mary Margaret made popcorn, and Regina silently melted the butter to drizzle on top. Mary Margaret held the bowl while Regina poured.
Day 16
Regina fell asleep in the corner of the couch during North by Northwest. Henry said it was okay, she had seen the movie before. Then he covered her with a lap blanket before he went to get ready for bed. The others washed up the snack bowls in the kitchen. David was the last one left to turn out the lights. He started to wake Regina so she wouldn't have a stiff neck in the morning. He watched her breathe for several seconds, noticed the soft crinkles at the corners of her eyes and the way her freckles were more visible in faded make-up and late-night light. In the end, he left her where she lay and climbed the stairs to Mary Margaret.
Day 19
"So, you were younger than Henry when you lost your mom?"
Mary Margaret stretched up from the top step of the library ladder, working her chosen book loose from its long-established home. She pulled the leather volume down and focused on the binding as she offered her reply to her daughter. "Yes. Several years younger, actually."
Emma frowned but remained silent where she stood steadying the ladder.
Snow White of the Enchanted Forest had never been much for books. But Mary Margaret of Storybrooke had developed a deep love of literature. She had begun by reading to her students, then gradually discovered the worlds and adventures open to her between these treasured covers. Now she could not imagine her life without the magic of stories.
Regina had already thoroughly perused the shelves for Henry, but she had taken a good-sized pile to her own room as well. Emma looked over the gaps and dust outlines where the queen had left her trace. "You know, I never really pegged Regina for a big reader," she said.
Mary Margaret looked down with interest, glad for the change of subject. Because, truthfully, the princess was still torn between savoring every single moment with her long lost daughter, making up for lost time and bonding heart to heart with every chance they got, and wanting to stay in her protected bubble in which she chose not to think about her infant daughter having been ripped from her arms and her life. "Oh, yes, Regina loves to read. Always. She read all the time when I was growing up."
"Really?"
"Really. She was always trying to pass on her favorites to me. And when I was young I did like to listen when she read to me, but I never had the patience to read much for myself. I was always running off. I think she was disappointed by that. She wanted to share what she loved."
Emma wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "It wasn't your fault if you weren't interested."
Mary Margaret narrowed her gaze and cocked her head in consideration. "Maybe. But maybe it wasn't about showing an interest in the books. Maybe I should have read them because I was interested in her. Maybe I should have shown that."
"Kids are allowed to be kids."
Mary Margaret tucked her book beneath her arm and began a careful descent. "They should be. But that doesn't excuse them from showing love to those they care about."
"And you...cared about Regina?"
"She's my stepmother. Of course, I cared about her. Don't you?"
Emma blinked. "Me?"
"Yes. I mean, you seem to...defend her more often than most people. The two of you seem to...understand each other."
"I wouldn't say...well, I mean, she's Henry's...and it's not like I can...I don't even..." Emma's words fell to nothing and her shoulders sagged beneath her mother's raised brows. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, of course I do. When she's...ya know...not trying to poison me. Or you." Then after a moment, she added, "Best enemies?"
And Mary Margaret could not stifle a laugh. "Welcome to the royal family."
Day 23
The prince found an old and scarred croquet set in the house's unfinished basement.
Henry lit up like a firework. Croquet was something Regina had often set out for them on summer evenings in their back garden. His very task-oriented mother held a few areas of planned recreation as sacred, and Henry treasured those times with her. When someone said, "Regina," the boy thought of the scheming Mayor, of the Evil Queen. When someone said, "Your Mom," the boy thought of walks along the trail at the edge of the park, kicking at piles of leaves with his hand wrapped tightly around his mother's and her soft smiles in the wind, fresh baked cookies when he came in from sledding, chapter after chapter of his favorite stories when he was ill, or croquet wickets and playful laughter beneath warm sun.
"You're doing it wrong," Regina said, as David pounded the scorepost into the forgiving ground.
The prince paused in his efforts and looked up at the queen with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, is that right, Your Majesty?"
Regina held out her hands as though the fault were obvious. Regina had never well-tolerated those who knew less than she.
David took a step back from his work. "Well, by all means, Regina...show me how it's done."
"You have to count it off in steps," Henry said with a grin, tossing an almost affectionate glance toward his mother as she moved into David's place.
"You measure this part with the mallet," Regina said, holding out an expectant hand. Henry supplied the mallet right on cue.
Regina complained there wasn't enough room in the small yard for proper spacing. She complained that the mallet heads were unevenly worn. She complained about the glare of the sun.
Henry knew all the rules and had to remind Mary-Margaret. With a little practice she regained her prowess. Emma had never really played croquet, and her father had to show her the basics. Henry proved to be an impressive young competitor. And Regina...Regina's ball smacked firmly into Mary Margaret's, David's, and Henry's balls in turn, and rather than taking any of the bonus shots, Regina chose to knock each and every one of her opponents' balls as far from the wickets as the confined space would allow. She won by eleven strokes.
It occurred to the Royals, a bit belatedly, that it was, perhaps, unwise to play croquet with the daughter of the Queen of Hearts.
Henry seemed incapable of any expression but a grin. The boy came in second place.
Day 26
David passed the freshly rinsed salad bowl to Emma, who took hold of it with the clean dishtowel in her hand. Emma had developed quite a fondness for this kitchen in the evenings. There was a dimly lit coziness about the place, a sense, perhaps, of the kind of home she had always imagined existed somewhere. The room was quiet this night, yet the soft sounds of an occupied home offered a subterranean comfort. Mary Margaret was upstairs in the shower, the water rush roaring softly in the wall, while Henry and Regina were in the living room playing chess, occasionally punctuated by an interjection or a laugh. Emma would have thought a strategic game of war would have come naturally to a woman such as Regina, but the game seemed to require a great deal of effort from the mayor.
"So. Almost a month," Emma said as she added the salad bowl to the growing pile of clean dishes.
Her father nodded, scrubbing intently at the spaghetti pot in his tall yellow gloves. She wondered if he had helped his mother wash dishes growing up. "Yeah," he said. "Almost a month."
"Do you think...I mean, do you think we're making progress? That this is...working?"
Emma squinted at her father's profile. Now and then she couldn't help but imagine what it would have been like to bring her first date home to this man, to ask him for a new bicycle, or to ride on his shoulders down Main Street on a Sunday afternoon. She wondered how often he wondered the same things. And if he felt like he had never had any more chance to learn to be a father than she had had to be a daughter.
David let the spaghetti pot settle into the sink, giving weight to his daughter's question. "I think...things among all of us have been wrong for...a really really long time. And I think they can't be fixed in a few nights."
Emma shifted her weight between her boots. "Yeah," she said to the floor, suddenly feeling quite young indeed.
"However," David continued, meeting Emma's gaze with a reassuring crinkle at the corner of his eye Emma had come to appreciate on a much deeper level than when she had known the gesture merely as one belonging to Mary Margaret's angsty crush, "I can't say I regret a single moment of being forced to hang out with my family. That's something I would actually pay Gold to do for me."
A grateful smile spread through Emma and she felt her shoulders sag from their braced scrunch. She had not realized how much she had feared confirmation that perhaps being cooped up in a cozy little house with her for a month was more than her parents had truly desired.
"Me too," she offered with a shy smile that belied her fortitude.
She left the words, "How do you think Regina feels?" unspoken. This moment belonged to her.
Day 29
The fireball hit the far well and sent the drapes up in a rush of blinding flame.
"Mom!!! Stop!--OW--Aahhh!!!"
The flash of heat from the glaring fire rushed so near Henry's flesh it burned like the Christmas Eve he had reached too close to the dinner candle and melted hot wax onto his arm.
Regina's horrified gasp rang through the room and she dropped at once to the floor beside her son. Frantic fingers grasped at the arm cradled at Henry's chest. "Henry. Oh, God, darling, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you, I thought you were upstairs. Are you all right?"
Mary Margaret stood several feet away, breath fast and heartbeat racing wild. She had barely ducked the path of the flaming missile hurled with such vehemence in her direction.
Henry winced as his mother probed the tender flesh. "Mom...what were you doing? Why would you try to hurt her?"
"Henry, I'm so sorry, I just--"
Mary Margaret watched the continuing flames lick at the ceiling, the carpet, the back of the arm chair. In this house they were locked inside. "Regina...," she warned, voice wispier than she had intended.
Regina glanced her way for only a moment, impatient and icy, but she understood quickly enough. With a distracted wave, the flames on the wall vanished and the curtains were left pristine and swinging as though in the wake of a light breeze.
"Henry..." Regina whispered, shoulders falling under a weight against which she had no armor. The disappointment in the boy's eyes brought tears to Regina's, but the fire in her veins kept the necessary offerings from her lips. She insisted on tending Henry's wounds, even as he tried to push her away.
She did not look at Mary Margaret.
Day 34
Regina and David continued to be the two who sought refuge on the forgiving boards of the back porch. As such they often found themselves in one another's company. Which Regina favored, since of all the endlessly babbling people in this damned house, Charming was the only one who seemed content to sit in blessed silence.
On this night, as the sun made its way down through the whispering willow tree and drew fingers of shadows across their quiet figures, David said softly, "Did you like to ride?"
Regina looked up at him, pulled from a sea of thoughts far from this garden. "What?"
"Horses. Did you like to ride? I mean, I know you had to back in our land, but that doesn't mean you liked it. It's just that I was thinking about...you liking to be outside, and..."
"I loved to ride," she said simply.
He almost did not know how to reply when her words held no apparent agenda.
"But you don't, anymore?"
Regina shrugged. "I had the same horse my whole life. Riding without him...I mean, I had ridden other horses at times, of course, but Rocinante was..."
"When did he pass away?" David asked, hand holding his soda can and resting on his thigh, sun cutting through the sea-water pale of his eyes.
A beat passed before Regina said clearly, "When I tore his heart out and tossed it into a magical fire."
Regina told herself she looked away when the sun glared in her eyes, not when the look of disgust and horror clouded the prince's countenance.
"Didn't you love him?" he asked.
Regina stared at her black pumps against the peeling white paint on the porch steps. "More than anyone. Anyone...but my father," she said. Then she wanted to get up and leave, like she always did. But all the energy had drained from her, and she stayed there on the porch, and David stayed with her. Not speaking. Not running.
Half an hour passed before David asked, "Do you miss him? Rocinante?"
"Every day," Regina whispered. And she knew Charming could hear the tears in her voice.
Day 37
The perpetual frown lines on Regina's brow seemed to deepen. Mary Margaret almost remembered a time when those frown lines did not exist.
"Would you try something for me?" the princess asked.
"For you?" The sarcasm dripped like maple syrup. "I'm not here for you."
"You were once, you know. A long time ago."
"No, I wasn't."
"Yes, Regina, you were. You say it was all fake, but...you were my stepmother for a long time. And you did protect me. You did take care of me. You lied to me about what happened to Daniel. You said it yourself, that was out of kindness. You were taking care of me."
"You were a child. I wasn't the monster you painted me to be. That doesn't mean I cared about you. "
"Fine. Don't do something for me. Do it for Henry."
Regina continued to glare sullenly for a count of five. Then she said simply, "Fine. What do you want me to do?"
Snow took a careful step closer to the queen and watched as Regina tensed. She pushed forward, regardless.
"Hold my hand," Snow said, and held out her open palm.
Regina actually flinched. "Excuse me?"
"Hold my hand."
"Why?"
"Because if you never touch me again, we will stay in our separate corners forever. You've held my hand countless times in our lives, Regina. You can do it now. Just...hold my hand. You don't have to say anything, but maybe it will help us...help us remember that we're both just...people. Doing the best we can. And we both want our family to be happy and safe."
No one moved.
Then after several breaths of hesitation, Regina slid her hand into Mary Margaret's. The motion was more familiar and natural than either of the two women would have imagined. Regina stared at the floor, and the wall clock's ticks seemed to increase in volume.
Regina drew an uneven breath. Her lips parted slightly and she shifted the set of her jaw.
Mary Margaret furrowed her brow and cocked her head, listening for the slightest hint, the smallest clue to the emotions tumbling behind the queen's façade.
The hand around hers tightened, then withdrew. Without a word or a glimpse of eye contact, Regina left the room and took the stairs to her room. Mary Margaret heard the slam and latch of the door.
DAY 42
Henry found a GameCube in the back of the cabinet beneath the television. He could not believe they had not noticed it before. Only two games accompanied the system, but those were two games more than Henry had seen in over a month. He had the system hooked up and running in no time flat. He started teaching Emma to play his favorite of the two games the very first day. By the third day, their afternoon game had become a ritual.
One morning, during breakfast, Regina was more antisocial than usual. After breakfast, she disappeared to her room. Henry told Emma later that Regina had a really bad headache. He said she got them sometimes and that they could last a while. Over the next two days, Emma and Mary Margaret tried to do something to help -- hot compresses, massages, warm soup -- but Regina, though not as cold as she might have once been, remained unreceptive to most offers of comfort. She preferred to stay quiet and alone in her room or huddled in a shadowy corner of an occupied room. On the third day, she took some more aspirin and went up for an afternoon nap during Emma and Henry's gaming hour. Halfway through the daily tournament, Regina returned to refill her tea glass.
Emma noticed Henry glancing up toward his mom, noticed the slight tuck of his brow, the narrowing of his gaze in recognizable concern. But he said nothing, continuing with their game. When Regina passed back through the room on her way upstairs, while Emma was taking her turn, Henry said, "Did you get a nap?"
Regina turned and offered her son a feeble smile. Emma could see the wear in the other woman's eyes; the drain and fatigue. The headache must have been really bad.
"I slept a little," Regina said softly. She reached out and ruffled Henry's hair. "Don't worry, darling. It should get better soon. You go on with your game."
Henry nodded. He watched after his mother for a moment, then turned back to the television.
"She has a lot of nightmares," the boy said moments later, squinting toward the game controller held loosely in his hands.
Emma fumbled for the pause button on her own controller and turned to gaze down at her son. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. She used to, at least, I don't know...I mean, I haven't been around as much since..."
"Yeah."
Henry ran his thumbnail around the edges of the controller buttons, picked at the embossed letters. "But she used to. And sometimes...when I was younger...I used to pretend that I did. Had nightmares, I mean. Even when I didn't. And then I'd ask to sleep with her...so she wouldn't be alone. If I was there...she wouldn't cry."
Emma stared at the boy for a long time. This wondrous little person who had come from her, grown without her, and somehow found her again. She reached out and pulled Henry into a smothering and lopsided embrace. "You're one heck of a little kid, ya know that?" she whispered into his hair.
She expected a sarcastic little, "I know." She didn't expect Henry's young fingers to tangle in her belt loops and hold on.
DAY 47
"You know...it really means us."
"What?" Regina turned from the sink where she had been rinsing out her bourbon glass. The last rays of the day's sun drew stripes across the counter and the golden wood of the floor.
Snow dropped back against the counter, unconsciously spinning the dish cloth tangled in her hands. "When Henry says we all need to love, we all need to forgive one another. That we all need to...really talk to each other again. He doesn't really mean all of us. He means us. You and me."
"That's not true. No one in this house gives a crap about me except for Henry."
Mary Margaret's brow furrowed and she rested one hand on her hip, propped the other on the oven handle. "You really can't see it, can you? You never could."
"See what?" The defensiveness was like molasses.
"What you want most, Regina. What you want is family. Love. And all those years you and I lived together...I did love you. I was your family. You just couldn't see it."
Regina huffed out her incredulity. The familiar sneer twisted her lips and she fixed her gaze above the back door. "Believe me, I wasn't the one who was blind to what was happening in that house."
"Tell me, Regina. Tell me. In the very beginning, before you lost Daniel. When we first thought we might be family. Did you love me?"
Regina turned her head and stared at the princess for a dangerously long spell of silence. Then she dropped her gaze to floor and said clearly, "Yes."
"You loved me?"
"Of course, I did. You of all people should know, betrayal only hurts when you care."
Icicles thrown like fireballs.
DAY 50
"Don't you think this should be done outside??" Mary Margaret employed her best school teacher voice, but the smile beneath her words stole her authority.
Emma and Henry would not have listened in any case. Henry was holding tight to Emma's blouse, being held piggyback as Emma spun around the living room. The game had begun with Henry trying to learn a handstand and Emma spotting, progressed through back flips off Emma's waist as the two held hands, and finally become a goofy and uncoordinated effort to see who got impossibly dizzy first. Emma was losing.
"Okay, you win!" she cried and the game ended in a heap of arms and legs and giggles crashing into the couch.
It was only after Henry had recovered from his laughter and started reconstructing the original condition of the couch that Emma wandered toward the dining room table and noticed the sketchbook.
Regina had been sitting nearby, observing the afternoon play session, and on the table in front of her lay a large sketchbook, an artist's pencil, and a kneaded eraser. The open page of the book took Emma's breath away.
"Did you...did you draw these?" Emma's fingers crept toward the sketchbook, as though touching could help her understand. She glanced toward Regina, hardly able to tear her eyes from the penciled images. The open page held three drawings; moments captured of the innocent play between herself and her son -- Henry flopped on the couch and Emma smiling above him and tickling his ribs. Henry held on her back, her own head tossed back and joyful. The two of them forehead to forehead and nose to nose as he challenged her choice for movie night.
Regina had settled in her chair, legs crossed and hands folded in her lap like a proper mayor. She was still dressing in nice skirts and slacks and high heels. Regina was forever royal. She drew a slow breath and met Emma's expression of wonder. "Yes," Regina said simply.
"You...Regina, these are amazing. I had no idea you could..." Emma's words faded as she was drawn into the incredible detail and emotion captured in the black and white sketches. "I can't draw a hang man," Emma said honestly.
When Regina did not speak, Emma said, "Have you been drawing a long time?"
Regina's gaze rested on the sketchpad. She lifted her eyebrows as though about to reply, when Mary Margaret spoke from the couch beside Henry. "She's been drawing as long as I've known her. She just wouldn't let me tell anyone."
Emma watched as the queen's throat muscles rippled in a swallow, but this small movement was her only acknowledgement of the words. "Yeah?" Emma prompted. "You did this when you were young?"
Regina nodded. "Yes. I used to draw all the time."
Emma reached out toward the book. "May I?" she asked.
Regina shrugged and gave a quick nod of consent.
Emma picked up the book and began to page through. "Oh, my God." She had to admit, she not only had not expected Regina's artistic talent, but she had never expected her to record such intimate and affectionate moments between Henry and his Other Mother. "Have you...are there drawings from when Henry was young?"
Regina seemed surprised by the question. But there was a softness in her gaze that appeared only at the mention of her son. "Yes," she said. "Back at our house. I wasn't...drawing as much when he was young, of course. Single mother, I rarely had my hands free. But there are some pieces."
Emma nodded and continued to page through the drawings chronicling their days in this house, the days just before, Regina's last days with Cora.
After a moment, Regina said, "I had many years' worth of sketch books, I...I lost them...when I enacted the curse."
"Would they be back in the enchanted forest?"
Regina shrugged again. She shook her head. "I don't know." She did not speak for a long moment. Then, "I tried to burn them all, once. But my father took them and...saved them."
For a woman with no more than a suitcase's worth of her past, Emma was surprisingly shocked by Regina's words. "Why did you want to burn them?"
The queen met her gaze with an unnerving steadiness. "Because they were full of people I loved. And love is weakness."
Emma slowly returned the sketchbook to the table. She drummed her fingers on the polished mahogany. "You don't...you don't still believe that, do you?"
Regina did not reply. She sat forward and pulled the latest page of work from her sketchbook "Would you like this?" she asked, holding the paper toward Emma.
"I...yeah. Are you sure?"
Regina nodded. "Of course."
Emma took the piece of paper and held it close. Regina took her sketchbook and left for the kitchen.
(continued in part 2/2)