New 'Once Upon a Time' fic: "Blood Feud" (2/2)
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
(continued from part 1/2)
DAY 52
"He would have liked you," Regina said.
David looked over at his mother-in-law of sorts from his perch on the porch swing. The wind was cold, but the sky was clear. David lifted his eyebrows, requesting clarification.
"Daniel," Regina said. "The two of you...you're a lot alike."
"So are we." Mary Margaret's voice startled both lurkers on the porch. The younger woman had been hovering at the door from the kitchen, shadowed and unseen.
Regina turned with a deep and resentful frown as Mary Margaret stepped onto the wood of the porch. "Excuse me?"
"You and I, Regina. Despite what everyone says. We're a lot alike."
"We're nothing alike," Regina snapped.
The princess remained unruffled. "If I had lived your life, Regina...I might have been very much like you."
"I would never be like you."
Mary Margaret took a step closer. "Why? Why am I so different? You murdered dozens of innocent people. Maybe more."
"I murdered no one innocent. Only those who betrayed me. Who betrayed their queen. I would never hurt or betray someone I loved. And who loved me."
"Except for me."
"What?"
The sun flickered through the blowing leaves and speckled and dappled skin and stone. "I loved you," Snow said. "And you hurt me."
"You betrayed me."
"But I was a child. A child who made a mistake with tragic results. You were an adult. Who chose hatred."
David watched the slow blink and drag as Regina's lids lifted on a glare of pure hatred. The impact hit Snow like a rotten wind.
The boy, hovering in the shadows that had previously sheltered his grandmother, felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, felt the intangible energy he had begun to recognize as the power behind magic. He stepped into the light.
"Mom!"
David watched as his wife remained locked eye to eye with Regina, watched the two women's chests rise and fall as their pulses raced and the sun caressed their skin. He watched his grandson watch his mother with an urgency and determination and bravery far beyond his years.
Regina never looked at Henry. But without a word, she backed down. She walked past her son and into the darkness, moving in regal silence.
DAY 59
"Is that true?" the boy asked from the kitchen doorway. He was always unexpectedly in doorways. "Mary Margaret stopped your execution?"
Regina glanced toward her son, felt the presence of David at the nearby table and the uncomfortable stare from Mary Margaret. She cleared her throat and tried to reply, words slow and careful. The queen was nothing if not the politician. "There was some debate over who was the true reigning sovereign at the time, but...yes, she called off her guards."
Henry shook his head. "Why?"
The sting was familiar; she could gloss the effects. "She offered me a deal."
Henry shifted his weight and took a step into the dining room. "Well...what was the deal?"
Regina drew herself up straighter, stretched her chest for breath against the snugness of her push-up bra. "My freedom. Provided I was willing to...shift my loyalties. Relinquish certain...goals."
"You mean she wanted you to stop being evil. To be good again."
The clock ticked and a night creature scampered up the outside of the house. "That was her interpretation of the situation...yes."
Regina had ceased to acknowledge all the others the moment Henry had entered the room. Henry continued to gauge all expressions around him. "So...what did you do? Did you take the deal?"
Regina held her son's gaze for a steady beat, then offered him a melancholy and placating smile. "Henry, it was a long time ago, and there were a great deal of--"
The pain in the boy's eyes stopped her cold. "Mom. Please. Don't...lie...to me. Ever again. I can never start to trust you again, if you don't start telling me the truth. Telling all of us the truth. It's the only place to start. Please."
She stood in the middle of the dining room and breathed while the others held their breath. "No," Regina said at last. "I didn't take the deal. I tried to kill her."
The revulsion read like print on Henry's face, but Regina latched onto his clear effort to push past his reaction, to hide it. "She's my grandmother," he said softly.
She offered an indulgent and affectionate smile through the fear clouding her eyes. "Henry, you hadn't even been born yet."
"But she was someone's loved one, someone's friend, someone's daughter!"
"I was her daughter." Mary Margaret's voice seemed disembodied. Regina and Henry, in desperate eyelock, had reduced their world to one another.
Henry turned to his grandmother. "And you're still alive."
"Yes."
He looked once more to Regina. "But so are you."
Regina nodded. "Snow had...protected herself. I was banished."
Regina gazed down at the floor for a long time. Then she shook her head, and lifted her gaze to Henry's. "Henry, I'm sorry. I never wanted any of this to touch your life. All I ever wanted was for you to have a peaceful childhood. Where you felt accepted and safe and...loved."
A quiet moment passed before Henry offered a careful but genuine smile. "I did...for a while."
The glitter of hope danced through the sadness between them.
"And now...," he continued, "I'm trying to get it back."
The boy nearly cried when for a moment...just a moment...his real mother looked out at him through the queen's dark eyes. The mother who had soothed his worst nightmares with a gentle touch, laughed at his first jokes, rocked him to sleep, cut the crusts off his peanut butter and jellies, and told him those mean boys on the playground would never be as strong and brilliant and amazing as he.
His mother looked at him, gave a single open and painful laugh that broke the boy's heart (and a few others nearby.) "Don't try my way," Regina said.
Henry swallowed the lump in his throat and whispered. "I promise."
It was David who broke the spell. David who kept the moment protected and perfect. He suggested Henry come with him to the basement to pick out potatoes for dinner. Mary Margaret and Regina were left, emotions shimmering in the air like snowflakes.
Mary Margaret had taken a step toward the archway to the kitchen, when Regina said, "You said there was no good left in me."
Mary Margaret turned. "What? No. No, remember, I told you I thought that woman who saved me...that she was still inside you."
Shaking off the words, never looking up from the floor, Regina said, "No, before that. In the woods. When you thought I was a peasant woman. You said you took it back, that there was no good left in me. That you'd been wrong all along."
Mary Margaret's face softened and she took a step nearer to the queen. "Oh, Regina. I was...I was in shock from what I'd seen. I mean...can you blame me? All those people who had tried to help me, just... You know I didn't really believe what I said in that moment. Or I wouldn't have made you the offer that I did all that time later."
"But, by then I couldn't hear you," Regina said, voice unnervingly matter-of-fact. "Because I'd started to believe...that you were right. Or at least...to believe that was the only way forward for me. Good people don't...like to be alone."
Then she walked away before Snow could reply.
She declined to join them for dinner.
DAY 64
"Yeah! Get down!" Emma cried.
David laughed outright at his daughter's teasing. But the moment was precious and the warmth and humor were spreading through the room like firelight.
Mary Margaret had pulled a CD of some sort of African techno dance music from a bookshelf in the sitting room and Snow White and Prince Charming and their daughter and grandchild were hopping around the cozy living room, dancing like fools.
Henry was holding Emma's hands and twisting and jumping with the rhythm. Emma had abandoned all dignity and was merely mirroring her son's movements. David and Mary Margaret were linked in a more traditional dance hold, but their dance was pure freeform glee.
At the edge of the room, Regina Mills sat on the arm of the sofa, looking both pleased and a little awkward and misplaced in the family scene. Emma noticed just before Henry. But it was Henry who paused for a moment, letting go of one of Emma's hands, and held a hand out to his mother. "Come on, Mom," the boy said. "Dance."
Regina gave her boy a sweet smile, but shook her head to his offer. "No, thank you. You go ahead."
Henry tilted his head imploringly. "Come on. It's okay if you can't dance. No one cares, it's just for fun."
Mary Margaret spoke from behind him. "Henry, your mother is actually a lovely dancer. She even taught me a few things."
Henry's expression brightened. "That's right! You would have had to learn...for the...the royal balls, and stuff. Right?"
Regina nodded. "That's right. I had dance instruction when I was young. And then after I was married."
Emma watched as Henry processed this information. It was still foreign to the boy to hear his mother speaking casually and honestly about her life. "Well, then," he said, "come on."
Regina dropped her gaze with a polite kind of shyness. "Oh, I...I'm afraid this isn't really my type of dancing."
David loosened his hold on his wife and stepped forward. "Well...what do you say we fix that?"
Regina gazed up at David in surprise, but she did not reply.
With a quick communicative glance toward Mary Margaret, David moved past Henry and held out a hand of invitation to Regina.
With only a brief hesitation, the queen slipped her hand into the prince's and stood.
He began to lead her in a dance that they had each performed dozens of times at social functions in their home realm. Regina fell into step with him, matching their own beats to the contrasting music with unexpected ease.
Henry watched David circling Regina around the living room and into the foyer with an rather enchanted smile on his young lips. Emma wondered if Henry's wild imagination were supplying the gowns and pearls and candle chandeliers.
"You dance quite well, Charming," Regina said, voice low and dusty and almost seductive.
"You're quite accomplished yourself, Your Majesty."
Day 67
"What about my father? Didn't he--"
The queen whirled from the counter, her voice crackling with incredulity. "Your father? Your father knew I didn't love him, and he didn't care. I was the proper ornament for him at the time, a necessary political tool. He never cared that I wasn't happy. He knew, he didn't care. I was an unavoidable casualty. Property. He intruded upon my privacy, read my personal journals, locked me in my rooms when he didn't like my behavior. He regularly refused to allow me to leave the grounds without him, not to mention he repeatedly forced me to--when I clearl--" but Regina broke off and looked away. Snow caught the small squint and twitch at the corner of her eye.
She knew this woman, for better or worse, for love and hate. She knew that for all the temper and flare and fire, the real hurts were quiet. And this one ran unusually deep.
The cold settled into Snow's stomach like liquid fear. She drew a slow breath. "Forced you to...what?"
Regina's lashes fluttered, but her gaze remained downcast. "The rest of that list isn't enough for you?"
"Forced you to...you can't mean... My father would never do that."
Regina gave a sharp exhale through her nose and arched an eyebrow. But the expected malice toward Snow was oddly absent in her carriage.
She did not speak.
"Regina...." A faint whisper.
"Do we..." Regina cleared her throat, then tried again. "Do we have more of the caramel ice cream? I told Henry I'd look."
The queen would not look at her step-daughter, but Snow would not look away. Brow furrowed, the princess nodded her reply. "Yeah," she said softly, "we do."
She thought Regina would leave. But the queen busied herself with the ice cream. Working the softer edges carefully with the serving spoon, arranging the scoops in a bowl for Henry. She stayed in Snow's part of the kitchen. And Snow did, too.
After a while, Regina disappeared toward the living room with the bowl of ice cream.
DAY 71
All morning, Regina was in an unprecedentedly good mood. No one could really guess why. It was a little unnerving. Maybe it was the time she had been spending with Henry, perhaps the boy's receptiveness. Maybe something of which none of them were aware. In any case, when the royals gathered for lunch, they found Regina had just finished making grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for all. Henry had been lurking around the kitchen helping his mother. And when he made some clever little remark about the weather and ducks and attempted his Daffy Duck impression, Regina actually laughed. A genuine, carefree laugh of which neither Emma nor David had known the woman was capable.
Regina turned in the lingering embers of her amusement and transferred a sandwich from the skillet to the plate in front of Emma. "Here you, go, dear," she said, meeting Emma's gaze for a gentle moment.
Emma couldn't keep the responding smile from her lips. Because when Regina did smile at you -- not sneer or smirk or gloat, but really smile at you -- she had the sweetest little crinkle at the corner of her eye. And Emma felt a wave of warmth and kindness rush over her that engendered a disorienting disconnect with the words Evil Queen.
On the far side of the room, Prince Charming said quietly to his grandson, "You know your mom has a beautiful smile."
The boy wrinkled his nose and said, "Eeiiw."
David frowned down through his affectionate humor. "What?"
"She's your wife's stepmother!" Henry sputtered, as though this were the most obvious and damning fact in the world.
The prince leaned back with a contagious laugh. "Henry, that doesn't mean she can't have a nice smile."
DAY 73
Emma tried to cook dinner. She kept it to a simple pasta dish, and it was almost edible, even by her own estimation. David had gotten inspired to bake (the boredom was having peculiar effects on them all) and he had taken over the task of desserts for the week.
With the passable pasta plates mostly empty and cleared, David served his custard dessert.
Emma and Henry eagerly dug into the treat. They had been sorely missing Granny's sundaes, and any sugary delight was enthusiastically welcomed.
The diners were all a few bites into their portions when Snow pulled back from her dessert cup with a soft moan. She shoved her chair from the table with a hand to her stomach and her complexion visibly paled.
"Mary Margaret?" Concern laced David's soft tone.
A beat passed, then Mary Margaret looked up at her husband and blurted out, "Are there strawberries in this?"
Regina dropped her spoon.
David glanced among the questioning faces. "Yes," he said. "I did..." He did not understand. Not at all.
Regina did. She frowned at the bewildered prince. "You gave her strawberries?"
David tried to speak but he was too lost to find words.
Snow ran for the kitchen sink and hurled.
Regina stood to follow, shooting a cruel glare at the now distraught David. "Strawberries make her ill," Regina said. "They have since she was a girl. How do you not know this?"
David tangled his fingers in his close-cropped hair, swiped a hand over his five o'clock shadow. "Oh, my God. It's...it's been so long, and it just...it never came up. Mary Margaret does the cooking, and...will she be okay? Does she need to go to the hospital?"
Regina stood at the sink with Snow, a hand resting on her back. "She'll be fine," Regina said. "Just miserable for a few hours."
"Oh, God, Mary Margaret, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry..."
Snow had stopped hurling, but remained hunched over the sink with her arms propped awkwardly on the counter. Regina, glowering at Charming, retrieved a cold soda can from the fridge, wrapped it in a dish towel and brought it to the back of Snow's neck.
Snow drew a slow and careful breath.
"Take it easy," Regina said.
David was so wrapped up in his own self-loathing, Henry was so much caught between the unexpected drama and the inner turmoil of judging the most tasteful time to dive back into his own desert before the ice cream topping melted, that Emma was the only one to see...really see, that intentionally or not, Regina was acting rather blatantly like Snow White's mother.
A whole day passed before Snow said to Regina, "You remembered."
"Remembered what?" The queen asked, scrambling for context.
"Last night at dinner, you--"
"Oh, that. How could I forget? The number of times you thought you could sneak a few strawberries, and when we had guests in the hall from--"
But Snow shook her head. "No. You remembered about the cold, on the back of my neck. That it's the only thing that ever helped to settle the nausea."
Regina held Snow's gaze for a long moment. "Oh. Yes," she said.
DAY 76
Emma found herself staying awake later and later at night. It was hard to sleep without her customary hours of exercise. The grounds of this house were far too small for a run, and there was no treadmill. She had finally found a jump rope amidst the miscellany in the basement, and that had served for some sort of cardio work, at least.
Emma had started reading at night; something she hadn't done since she was a kid. She discovered a series of mystery books in the library that kept her attention more than she expected. Perhaps she was simply that bored. She had read a fair amount of mystery books as a child. It had never occurred to her then, that she would one day be a small town sheriff working to solve mysteries.
One night, neither the day's exercise nor the reading had led her to the sought-after dreamland. She had dozed off on top of her book for nearly an hour, but then she had woken, turned off the light, and found herself staring at the ceiling listening to the most obnoxious cricket alive.
It was somewhere in her room. It had to be. The damned thing wouldn't shut-up. She turned on the light, crawled around her bedroom floor, pulled up her pillows and plastered her ears to her headboard, to the baseboard, to the closet door. The cricket was either on the move or had a lot of friends.
She tried to cover her head with a pillow and sleep. In the end, Emma decided maybe some of the strawberry milk she and Henry had made earlier would put her out despite disturbances. Even though the flavoring was full of sugar.
With the bedside lamp back on, Emma pulled on a pair of yoga pants over her sleep shorts and padded her way past her parents' bedroom door. She could hear her father's soft snores behind the closed door. She paused at Henry's room, pushed his door a few inches in and watched his safely sleeping figure for a few moments before moving on.
Certain she was the only human awake at this late hour (possibly in all of Storybrooke), Emma was more than a little startled when she passed through the darkened living room and found herself three feet from a silent and shadowed Regina.
"Holy--Jesus Christ, Regina. You scared the crap out of me."
The queen lifted her gaze from her brandy and stared up at the intruder. She was seated on the couch in her pajamas and an open silk robe, one slippered foot propped on the edge of the coffee table. Elegant even in nightclothes. She did not speak, and her dark eyes blended with the night.
"What are you doing up?" Emma asked, still panting in the quiet. Of all people, Emma had never expected Regina to catch her by surprise. Regina's presence was such a tangible force in a room, Emma could usually feel the woman coming around a corner.
Regina, unruffled, gave a one-shouldered shrug and let her gaze sink. "We aren't allowed to be awake late in this house?"
Emma let go a wry breath. "Okay, Regina. I'm just going to get a drink."
The queen remained silent, and Emma proceeded to the kitchen and gathered the supplies for strawberry milk. But as she worked, she could not help but hear her son's voice echoing in her head. She has a lot of nightmares.
Emma stirred the sugar and food coloring into her milk, delaying the inevitable as she tranced out to the clinking rhythm of spoon against glass.
When she had returned the mix to the pantry, rinsed off the spoon, put the milk back in the fridge, and sponged off what she had splattered on the counter, Emma returned to the living room to find Regina exactly as she had left her. Dammit.
Emma stood in contemplation for a count of ten, then she drew a breath, stepped forward and perched herself on the arm of the couch. She took a sip of her strawberry milk, wiped her mouth with her wrist, then said quietly, "You okay?"
Regina drew a slow breath, silk nightclothes shifting with a swish. "I'm fine," she said. "I just couldn't sleep." She did not meet Emma's eyes.
The erstwhile princess took this in. Then she let out a heavy breath. "Well," she began, "I can tell you why I'm awake. There's a really really loud cricket somewhere in my bedroom. It's clearly inside the house, maybe inside the walls, but for the life of me, I can't find the damned thing. Could you hear it from your room?"
Regina shook her head. "No." She was replying to direct questions, but she wasn't engaging.
Emma remained undaunted. "Hunh. You're lucky you're at the other end of the hall. Henry seemed to be out cold."
The mention of Henry prompted the queen to turn a fraction in Emma's direction and lift an eyebrow with a hum of acknowledgement.
Emma continued to fill the silence. "Seriously, I think the thing must be inside a wall or behind the bookcase or something. I mean, there's not much stuff in that room. I even pulled the furniture out from the walls. I have no idea where...." Emma turned to gaze down at Regina's statuesque profile. "Hey....," she began, voice a bit softer and more tentative, "could you use magic to find a cricket like that?"
"Yes." Regina said.
Emma blinked. No one moved. Then, Emma breathed out, "Okay..."
The two women sat for a long moment in pregnant silence.
Finally, Emma dropped unceremoniously onto the couch cushion, squished in between the pillows and Regina close enough to brush the queen's knee and disrupt her peaceful stance. "Look," Emma said. "I'm sorry. I know it must feel like we're all ganging up on you sometimes."
To this Regina gave a wry exhale that screamed the words, Ya think? in Emma's head.
Emma nodded. "Yeah. And I know Henry wanted Gold here, too, to sort of...I don't know, even things out. But I can't say I'm sorry that he's not. But...it's not... Look, Regina, the thing is...," Emma paused to set her glass of milk on the coffee table, then she turned to half-face Regina. "Henry loves you," she said. "He's hurt and conflicted about what's right to do, but...he really loves you. And Henry's a pretty smart kid. You of all people should know that, right?"
Emma watched Regina swallow hard, gaze never leaving her glass. "He is."
"And he thinks you're a good person, that you just...got dealt a really lousy hand. And maybe...you didn't know what else to do. And if Henry thinks that, well...then I believe in him." She paused for a long moment, time seeming to slow in the grey-blurred hours of the early morning. "He doesn't want you to change for our sake, Regina," she said softly. "He just wants you to be happy. And...so do I."
Regina's breathing had quickened, and she shifted a little in her seat. Her lips parted, giving the slightest gentle sound to her breath.
Emma figured she had already risked death by fireball, she might as well go all the way. "So, Regina...whether you want me to or not, I'm going to sit here with you while you can't sleep. And I know every time someone is nice to you or honest with you, that your first instinct is to get up and walk away. And believe me, I understand that way, way too well. But I also understand what it's like to spend your life wanting a family more than anything in the world and not understanding why everyone else just seems to get one and you're left out. Wondering what the hell is wrong with you and what you did to deserve all this crap. So...I'm going to sit here. And if you want to get up and leave, that's your choice. I won't follow you."
The world held still. Then, Regina said, "I was here first." All the power of the Evil Queen of legend, all the layers and double meanings and years buried in the simple words coursed over Emma's skin like fireflies in the darkness.
Emma gave a slow nod. She settled into the couch and leaned her head back onto the soft cushions to stare at the ceiling.
Regina never looked at her. But she stayed.
Eventually, Emma dozed off where she sat. When she woke to the first threads of dawn, Regina was gone. Emma blundered her way upstairs through the still silent house, hoping for a few more hours of sleep. She had flopped into her welcoming bed, when her eyes fell upon the nightstand. Beside her wind-up alarm clock, in the grey-orange glow of the dawn, sat a large and blissfully silent cricket, trapped under the dome of what looked suspiciously like Regina's Scotch tumbler.
DAY 79
Henry caught a horrible cold. From where it was hard to imagine in their imposed isolation. But the poor kid was miserable and snoffling for days. For two nights straight, Regina sat up with the boy, leaning him against her chest, because it was the only way he could breathe enough to sleep. The Charming family was deeply affected by the display, realizing, each in their own way and own time, that this behavior was not just a side effect of Regina's recent attempts at redemption, but a sampling of long practiced routine. She had cared for Henry like this his whole life. Nursed fevers, laundered bedding, measured out medicine and read stories to pass the worst times. For the past decade as the conniving and controlling town mayor, Regina had also been a dedicated and loving and nurturing mother. The two images were hard to blend. Yet both were equally valid.
On the second night, David rose in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, then stole downstairs and made a cup of tea which he brought to Regina. She took the offering with a weary and grateful smile.
On the fifth day, Henry seemed to gain the upper hand on the virus and was at least fairly comfortable and content playing video games and reading books and sipping extra juice.
Which was when David came down with the cold. Emma soon learned that for a notably brave and valiant hero, her father whined worse than a child when he was ill. Mary Margaret treated her husband with the unruffled and tolerant patience of the grade school teacher she had long been, and he was soon finding his way back to health. His cough lingered, so Mary Margaret moved into Emma's room for the duration, leaving her husband a bell to ring if she were needed.
DAY 81
They started trying to talk. Really talk. Regina balked. Regina was a powder keg of explosive magic and passion and they had all been walking on eggshells for weeks and months. Maybe since the day they all met. Holding Henry as a literal and figurative shield between them would only work for so long. The only way to reach Regina was to push her to the edge of her inner fire, then either die with her in the flames or melt away her defenses and catch her in their arms.
They started to try.
On the third attempt, the third time they tried to talk about all the things that could never be said, Mary Margaret said, "I'm so sorry you lost Daniel. You deserved to be loved. That's all I wanted for you." And Emma reached out and stroked Regina's cheek when she started to cry.
When Emma said, "Henry doesn't want to be afraid, anymore," Regina stood up and left.
The remaining royals stared at one another for a count of five, then Emma and Mary Margaret stood up and followed the queen to her room.
They barged brazenly through Regina's closed door, found the startled mayor seated on the floor beside her bed. They sat down on the floor on either side of Regina, their backs resting against the side of the mattress.
"Excuse me!" Regina sat wide-eyed, indignant and tear-stained. She tried to turn away, to reject the intrusion, but surrounded as she was, there was no direction to look but at the ceiling.
"Yeah. We're here. Deal with it," Emma said, as she crossed her tall boots at the ankle and settled in to stay, thigh pressed up against Regina's.
Snow reached over and clasped Regina's hand. Regina pulled back, but Snow only tightened her grip as Emma found Regina's other hand.
Regina tugged and frowned as the two younger women stubbornly held on. She bristled and sent a sharp shock through Emma's hand to make her recoil.
"Regina!" Snow's free hand shot out and smacked Regina's knuckles.
The queen stared at her stepdaughter. "Did you just hit me?"
And while the two remained in locked glares, Emma cautiously resumed her hold on Regina's free hand.
After a long beat, Regina sagged and dropped her weight against the bedside, gaze returning to the ceiling. "Why won't you get out?" she asked, half resigned, half weary.
"Because we're your family, Regina," Snow said simply.
"Since when?"
"Since the day we met. Any time you wanted us to be."
"Henry is my family. My father was my family. Daniel was my family."
"You can always have more. There's no limit to love."
Regina lowered her gaze to study her fingers where they lay tangled with Emma's. A thin trail of dark make-up in tear-tracks colored the line of her cheek, smudged where Emma had touched her face downstairs.
"You're doing this, because you want out of this accursed house," Regina said flatly.
Snow drew a breath and lifted one knee. "Maybe, in the beginning. But now...what good would that do us, Regina? It won't help us unless it's real. We'll get out of this house, yes, but then what? We go back to the nightmare we've been trapped in all these years? We go back to fighting and struggling and hurting one another? Henry stays caught between us all?" Snow shook her head. "No. No one wins that way. We're here because we've always needed to be here."
"I don't need you," Regina snapped, voice hoarse and deep.
Emma involuntarily tightened her fingers around the queen's, surprised at the protectiveness she had begun to feel, even in the face of Regina's power. Close quarters apparently could affect people.
The three women sat for a long time. Regina sniffed wetly and swallowed. Then she said, "So, you want me to change. To pacify all of you."
Mary Margaret shifted to face her stepmother, tucked her foot beneath her knee. "No. We want you to be yourself again. Your true self. Finally. That's what Henry wants. That's the woman who was his mother. The mother he loved. He wants you back in his life so very much."
"I'm not two people," Regina said. "As much as you all seem to want me to be."
"No," Snow said. "You're the Queen."
I was always the Queen. It was you who added Evil to my name.
The three women sat on the floor of the old house that Mr. Gold never seemed to be able to rent. The night deepened, and in the end the threesome crawled onto the bed, kicked off their shoes, and settled in for the night. Mary Margaret couldn't help but note that Regina's bed was significantly more comfortable than either the one she had shared with Charming or the one she had recently shared with Emma. She wondered if that had been coincidence.
Moonlight trailed through the open curtains with the breeze when Snow woke, her neck a bit stiff from sleeping in her turtleneck sweater. She lay still, debating whether she would just slip back into sleep, or whether she should sit up and pull off her sweater and use it as a blanket. Then reality disentangled from her dream worlds and she realized it hadn't been the sweater that had awakened her at all. They were sleeping in Regina's room, the three of them. And Regina was crying.
Snow lay still a moment longer, feeling the gentle shift of the bed as Regina breathed close behind her, taking in the quieter, more peaceful breaths that meant Emma was still sleeping on the far side of the bed.
Moving carefully, guardedly, as though she were holding out her hand to a wild bluebird, Snow White rolled in place and squinted to make out detail in the fuzzy darkness. She reached out and lay a hand on the shadowy curve of Regina's shoulder.
To her surprise, Regina did not startle or move away. She remained on her side, face half-tucked into the feather pillow, hair sleep-tousled and dusting her jaw.
Mary Margaret took two fingers and pulled the errant strands of hair from Regina's cheek, smoothed them down the side of her neck. "Tell me," Snow whispered.
The silence reigned for a long time in the untethered shadows. In a breath barely audible as voice, Regina whispered, "I can't need you. I can't...let myself love another family...and then lose you. Again. I don't have it left." The throaty shards of voice sent a visceral ache through Snow's chest.
"Regina...," she breathed, hand resting firmly now on Regina's shoulder, thumb caressing through the silk of her blouse, "as long as you don't go back to hurting people, no one in this house will EVER leave you."
"And what if I do? What if I fail your tests?"
Snow leaned closer to the queen in the darkness. "After all that has happened since the day we met...all the horrors, all the pain, all the death...I'm still here. I'm still trying. I always was."
The three women lay in the quiet of the sleeping house. Emma's soft breaths kept time with the pulse of the breeze through the curtains. Mary Margaret listened to Regina's muted tears.
She felt Regina's muscles tense and pull beneath her fingers. Clouds shifted in the sky and deepened the intimacy of the darkness. Regina inched closer. Cautiously, she tucked herself into Snow's chest, just her forehead and arm contacting Snow's sweater. Snow did not move. Regina tangled her fingers into the knit cloth of the sweater and held on.
Snow shifted her weight and cradled Regina closer. She felt Regina's breath catch. A lifetime ago, Snow had curled into this woman's sleep-warmed body in the wee hours of the night, running toward comfort from her own night terrors. With her fingers tenderly smoothing Regina's raven hair, Snow White whispered, "It's all right, Mother." And somewhere in the blur of moonlight and shadows, the two women returned to sleep.
DAY 83
Emma woke at the ungodly hour of 5am. She had finally fallen asleep at a reasonable hour, only to wake before full dawn. Dammit. She had her bed all to herself again, as her parents had resumed their usual sleeping arrangements. Emma lay in bed as long as she could stand, then she pulled a warm sweatjacket over her tank top and padded down the stairs in search of coffee.
She was yawning and walking with half-closed eyes when she reached the bottom of the stairs and was startled into wakefulness by what she saw through her squint. The front door...was open. Only a few inches. But for the first time in eighty-three days, the latch had sprung free.
Emma quelled her immediate city-girl instincts to brace against an intruder. She reached out a tentative hand and pulled at the old wood. The door moved freely at her touch and a cool morning wind wafted through the entryway and lifted her hair. Emma stood in the freeing breeze for a long moment, drinking in the soft autumn scents. Then she drew a deep breath and with a quick glance over her shoulder toward the members of her family sleeping beyond, she pushed the door quietly back into place. She would make the family pancakes and maybe some eggs. It was Saturday. They had all day.
*****
#
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
(continued from part 1/2)
DAY 52
"He would have liked you," Regina said.
David looked over at his mother-in-law of sorts from his perch on the porch swing. The wind was cold, but the sky was clear. David lifted his eyebrows, requesting clarification.
"Daniel," Regina said. "The two of you...you're a lot alike."
"So are we." Mary Margaret's voice startled both lurkers on the porch. The younger woman had been hovering at the door from the kitchen, shadowed and unseen.
Regina turned with a deep and resentful frown as Mary Margaret stepped onto the wood of the porch. "Excuse me?"
"You and I, Regina. Despite what everyone says. We're a lot alike."
"We're nothing alike," Regina snapped.
The princess remained unruffled. "If I had lived your life, Regina...I might have been very much like you."
"I would never be like you."
Mary Margaret took a step closer. "Why? Why am I so different? You murdered dozens of innocent people. Maybe more."
"I murdered no one innocent. Only those who betrayed me. Who betrayed their queen. I would never hurt or betray someone I loved. And who loved me."
"Except for me."
"What?"
The sun flickered through the blowing leaves and speckled and dappled skin and stone. "I loved you," Snow said. "And you hurt me."
"You betrayed me."
"But I was a child. A child who made a mistake with tragic results. You were an adult. Who chose hatred."
David watched the slow blink and drag as Regina's lids lifted on a glare of pure hatred. The impact hit Snow like a rotten wind.
The boy, hovering in the shadows that had previously sheltered his grandmother, felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, felt the intangible energy he had begun to recognize as the power behind magic. He stepped into the light.
"Mom!"
David watched as his wife remained locked eye to eye with Regina, watched the two women's chests rise and fall as their pulses raced and the sun caressed their skin. He watched his grandson watch his mother with an urgency and determination and bravery far beyond his years.
Regina never looked at Henry. But without a word, she backed down. She walked past her son and into the darkness, moving in regal silence.
DAY 59
"Is that true?" the boy asked from the kitchen doorway. He was always unexpectedly in doorways. "Mary Margaret stopped your execution?"
Regina glanced toward her son, felt the presence of David at the nearby table and the uncomfortable stare from Mary Margaret. She cleared her throat and tried to reply, words slow and careful. The queen was nothing if not the politician. "There was some debate over who was the true reigning sovereign at the time, but...yes, she called off her guards."
Henry shook his head. "Why?"
The sting was familiar; she could gloss the effects. "She offered me a deal."
Henry shifted his weight and took a step into the dining room. "Well...what was the deal?"
Regina drew herself up straighter, stretched her chest for breath against the snugness of her push-up bra. "My freedom. Provided I was willing to...shift my loyalties. Relinquish certain...goals."
"You mean she wanted you to stop being evil. To be good again."
The clock ticked and a night creature scampered up the outside of the house. "That was her interpretation of the situation...yes."
Regina had ceased to acknowledge all the others the moment Henry had entered the room. Henry continued to gauge all expressions around him. "So...what did you do? Did you take the deal?"
Regina held her son's gaze for a steady beat, then offered him a melancholy and placating smile. "Henry, it was a long time ago, and there were a great deal of--"
The pain in the boy's eyes stopped her cold. "Mom. Please. Don't...lie...to me. Ever again. I can never start to trust you again, if you don't start telling me the truth. Telling all of us the truth. It's the only place to start. Please."
She stood in the middle of the dining room and breathed while the others held their breath. "No," Regina said at last. "I didn't take the deal. I tried to kill her."
The revulsion read like print on Henry's face, but Regina latched onto his clear effort to push past his reaction, to hide it. "She's my grandmother," he said softly.
She offered an indulgent and affectionate smile through the fear clouding her eyes. "Henry, you hadn't even been born yet."
"But she was someone's loved one, someone's friend, someone's daughter!"
"I was her daughter." Mary Margaret's voice seemed disembodied. Regina and Henry, in desperate eyelock, had reduced their world to one another.
Henry turned to his grandmother. "And you're still alive."
"Yes."
He looked once more to Regina. "But so are you."
Regina nodded. "Snow had...protected herself. I was banished."
Regina gazed down at the floor for a long time. Then she shook her head, and lifted her gaze to Henry's. "Henry, I'm sorry. I never wanted any of this to touch your life. All I ever wanted was for you to have a peaceful childhood. Where you felt accepted and safe and...loved."
A quiet moment passed before Henry offered a careful but genuine smile. "I did...for a while."
The glitter of hope danced through the sadness between them.
"And now...," he continued, "I'm trying to get it back."
The boy nearly cried when for a moment...just a moment...his real mother looked out at him through the queen's dark eyes. The mother who had soothed his worst nightmares with a gentle touch, laughed at his first jokes, rocked him to sleep, cut the crusts off his peanut butter and jellies, and told him those mean boys on the playground would never be as strong and brilliant and amazing as he.
His mother looked at him, gave a single open and painful laugh that broke the boy's heart (and a few others nearby.) "Don't try my way," Regina said.
Henry swallowed the lump in his throat and whispered. "I promise."
It was David who broke the spell. David who kept the moment protected and perfect. He suggested Henry come with him to the basement to pick out potatoes for dinner. Mary Margaret and Regina were left, emotions shimmering in the air like snowflakes.
Mary Margaret had taken a step toward the archway to the kitchen, when Regina said, "You said there was no good left in me."
Mary Margaret turned. "What? No. No, remember, I told you I thought that woman who saved me...that she was still inside you."
Shaking off the words, never looking up from the floor, Regina said, "No, before that. In the woods. When you thought I was a peasant woman. You said you took it back, that there was no good left in me. That you'd been wrong all along."
Mary Margaret's face softened and she took a step nearer to the queen. "Oh, Regina. I was...I was in shock from what I'd seen. I mean...can you blame me? All those people who had tried to help me, just... You know I didn't really believe what I said in that moment. Or I wouldn't have made you the offer that I did all that time later."
"But, by then I couldn't hear you," Regina said, voice unnervingly matter-of-fact. "Because I'd started to believe...that you were right. Or at least...to believe that was the only way forward for me. Good people don't...like to be alone."
Then she walked away before Snow could reply.
She declined to join them for dinner.
DAY 64
"Yeah! Get down!" Emma cried.
David laughed outright at his daughter's teasing. But the moment was precious and the warmth and humor were spreading through the room like firelight.
Mary Margaret had pulled a CD of some sort of African techno dance music from a bookshelf in the sitting room and Snow White and Prince Charming and their daughter and grandchild were hopping around the cozy living room, dancing like fools.
Henry was holding Emma's hands and twisting and jumping with the rhythm. Emma had abandoned all dignity and was merely mirroring her son's movements. David and Mary Margaret were linked in a more traditional dance hold, but their dance was pure freeform glee.
At the edge of the room, Regina Mills sat on the arm of the sofa, looking both pleased and a little awkward and misplaced in the family scene. Emma noticed just before Henry. But it was Henry who paused for a moment, letting go of one of Emma's hands, and held a hand out to his mother. "Come on, Mom," the boy said. "Dance."
Regina gave her boy a sweet smile, but shook her head to his offer. "No, thank you. You go ahead."
Henry tilted his head imploringly. "Come on. It's okay if you can't dance. No one cares, it's just for fun."
Mary Margaret spoke from behind him. "Henry, your mother is actually a lovely dancer. She even taught me a few things."
Henry's expression brightened. "That's right! You would have had to learn...for the...the royal balls, and stuff. Right?"
Regina nodded. "That's right. I had dance instruction when I was young. And then after I was married."
Emma watched as Henry processed this information. It was still foreign to the boy to hear his mother speaking casually and honestly about her life. "Well, then," he said, "come on."
Regina dropped her gaze with a polite kind of shyness. "Oh, I...I'm afraid this isn't really my type of dancing."
David loosened his hold on his wife and stepped forward. "Well...what do you say we fix that?"
Regina gazed up at David in surprise, but she did not reply.
With a quick communicative glance toward Mary Margaret, David moved past Henry and held out a hand of invitation to Regina.
With only a brief hesitation, the queen slipped her hand into the prince's and stood.
He began to lead her in a dance that they had each performed dozens of times at social functions in their home realm. Regina fell into step with him, matching their own beats to the contrasting music with unexpected ease.
Henry watched David circling Regina around the living room and into the foyer with an rather enchanted smile on his young lips. Emma wondered if Henry's wild imagination were supplying the gowns and pearls and candle chandeliers.
"You dance quite well, Charming," Regina said, voice low and dusty and almost seductive.
"You're quite accomplished yourself, Your Majesty."
Day 67
"What about my father? Didn't he--"
The queen whirled from the counter, her voice crackling with incredulity. "Your father? Your father knew I didn't love him, and he didn't care. I was the proper ornament for him at the time, a necessary political tool. He never cared that I wasn't happy. He knew, he didn't care. I was an unavoidable casualty. Property. He intruded upon my privacy, read my personal journals, locked me in my rooms when he didn't like my behavior. He regularly refused to allow me to leave the grounds without him, not to mention he repeatedly forced me to--when I clearl--" but Regina broke off and looked away. Snow caught the small squint and twitch at the corner of her eye.
She knew this woman, for better or worse, for love and hate. She knew that for all the temper and flare and fire, the real hurts were quiet. And this one ran unusually deep.
The cold settled into Snow's stomach like liquid fear. She drew a slow breath. "Forced you to...what?"
Regina's lashes fluttered, but her gaze remained downcast. "The rest of that list isn't enough for you?"
"Forced you to...you can't mean... My father would never do that."
Regina gave a sharp exhale through her nose and arched an eyebrow. But the expected malice toward Snow was oddly absent in her carriage.
She did not speak.
"Regina...." A faint whisper.
"Do we..." Regina cleared her throat, then tried again. "Do we have more of the caramel ice cream? I told Henry I'd look."
The queen would not look at her step-daughter, but Snow would not look away. Brow furrowed, the princess nodded her reply. "Yeah," she said softly, "we do."
She thought Regina would leave. But the queen busied herself with the ice cream. Working the softer edges carefully with the serving spoon, arranging the scoops in a bowl for Henry. She stayed in Snow's part of the kitchen. And Snow did, too.
After a while, Regina disappeared toward the living room with the bowl of ice cream.
DAY 71
All morning, Regina was in an unprecedentedly good mood. No one could really guess why. It was a little unnerving. Maybe it was the time she had been spending with Henry, perhaps the boy's receptiveness. Maybe something of which none of them were aware. In any case, when the royals gathered for lunch, they found Regina had just finished making grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for all. Henry had been lurking around the kitchen helping his mother. And when he made some clever little remark about the weather and ducks and attempted his Daffy Duck impression, Regina actually laughed. A genuine, carefree laugh of which neither Emma nor David had known the woman was capable.
Regina turned in the lingering embers of her amusement and transferred a sandwich from the skillet to the plate in front of Emma. "Here you, go, dear," she said, meeting Emma's gaze for a gentle moment.
Emma couldn't keep the responding smile from her lips. Because when Regina did smile at you -- not sneer or smirk or gloat, but really smile at you -- she had the sweetest little crinkle at the corner of her eye. And Emma felt a wave of warmth and kindness rush over her that engendered a disorienting disconnect with the words Evil Queen.
On the far side of the room, Prince Charming said quietly to his grandson, "You know your mom has a beautiful smile."
The boy wrinkled his nose and said, "Eeiiw."
David frowned down through his affectionate humor. "What?"
"She's your wife's stepmother!" Henry sputtered, as though this were the most obvious and damning fact in the world.
The prince leaned back with a contagious laugh. "Henry, that doesn't mean she can't have a nice smile."
DAY 73
Emma tried to cook dinner. She kept it to a simple pasta dish, and it was almost edible, even by her own estimation. David had gotten inspired to bake (the boredom was having peculiar effects on them all) and he had taken over the task of desserts for the week.
With the passable pasta plates mostly empty and cleared, David served his custard dessert.
Emma and Henry eagerly dug into the treat. They had been sorely missing Granny's sundaes, and any sugary delight was enthusiastically welcomed.
The diners were all a few bites into their portions when Snow pulled back from her dessert cup with a soft moan. She shoved her chair from the table with a hand to her stomach and her complexion visibly paled.
"Mary Margaret?" Concern laced David's soft tone.
A beat passed, then Mary Margaret looked up at her husband and blurted out, "Are there strawberries in this?"
Regina dropped her spoon.
David glanced among the questioning faces. "Yes," he said. "I did..." He did not understand. Not at all.
Regina did. She frowned at the bewildered prince. "You gave her strawberries?"
David tried to speak but he was too lost to find words.
Snow ran for the kitchen sink and hurled.
Regina stood to follow, shooting a cruel glare at the now distraught David. "Strawberries make her ill," Regina said. "They have since she was a girl. How do you not know this?"
David tangled his fingers in his close-cropped hair, swiped a hand over his five o'clock shadow. "Oh, my God. It's...it's been so long, and it just...it never came up. Mary Margaret does the cooking, and...will she be okay? Does she need to go to the hospital?"
Regina stood at the sink with Snow, a hand resting on her back. "She'll be fine," Regina said. "Just miserable for a few hours."
"Oh, God, Mary Margaret, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry..."
Snow had stopped hurling, but remained hunched over the sink with her arms propped awkwardly on the counter. Regina, glowering at Charming, retrieved a cold soda can from the fridge, wrapped it in a dish towel and brought it to the back of Snow's neck.
Snow drew a slow and careful breath.
"Take it easy," Regina said.
David was so wrapped up in his own self-loathing, Henry was so much caught between the unexpected drama and the inner turmoil of judging the most tasteful time to dive back into his own desert before the ice cream topping melted, that Emma was the only one to see...really see, that intentionally or not, Regina was acting rather blatantly like Snow White's mother.
A whole day passed before Snow said to Regina, "You remembered."
"Remembered what?" The queen asked, scrambling for context.
"Last night at dinner, you--"
"Oh, that. How could I forget? The number of times you thought you could sneak a few strawberries, and when we had guests in the hall from--"
But Snow shook her head. "No. You remembered about the cold, on the back of my neck. That it's the only thing that ever helped to settle the nausea."
Regina held Snow's gaze for a long moment. "Oh. Yes," she said.
DAY 76
Emma found herself staying awake later and later at night. It was hard to sleep without her customary hours of exercise. The grounds of this house were far too small for a run, and there was no treadmill. She had finally found a jump rope amidst the miscellany in the basement, and that had served for some sort of cardio work, at least.
Emma had started reading at night; something she hadn't done since she was a kid. She discovered a series of mystery books in the library that kept her attention more than she expected. Perhaps she was simply that bored. She had read a fair amount of mystery books as a child. It had never occurred to her then, that she would one day be a small town sheriff working to solve mysteries.
One night, neither the day's exercise nor the reading had led her to the sought-after dreamland. She had dozed off on top of her book for nearly an hour, but then she had woken, turned off the light, and found herself staring at the ceiling listening to the most obnoxious cricket alive.
It was somewhere in her room. It had to be. The damned thing wouldn't shut-up. She turned on the light, crawled around her bedroom floor, pulled up her pillows and plastered her ears to her headboard, to the baseboard, to the closet door. The cricket was either on the move or had a lot of friends.
She tried to cover her head with a pillow and sleep. In the end, Emma decided maybe some of the strawberry milk she and Henry had made earlier would put her out despite disturbances. Even though the flavoring was full of sugar.
With the bedside lamp back on, Emma pulled on a pair of yoga pants over her sleep shorts and padded her way past her parents' bedroom door. She could hear her father's soft snores behind the closed door. She paused at Henry's room, pushed his door a few inches in and watched his safely sleeping figure for a few moments before moving on.
Certain she was the only human awake at this late hour (possibly in all of Storybrooke), Emma was more than a little startled when she passed through the darkened living room and found herself three feet from a silent and shadowed Regina.
"Holy--Jesus Christ, Regina. You scared the crap out of me."
The queen lifted her gaze from her brandy and stared up at the intruder. She was seated on the couch in her pajamas and an open silk robe, one slippered foot propped on the edge of the coffee table. Elegant even in nightclothes. She did not speak, and her dark eyes blended with the night.
"What are you doing up?" Emma asked, still panting in the quiet. Of all people, Emma had never expected Regina to catch her by surprise. Regina's presence was such a tangible force in a room, Emma could usually feel the woman coming around a corner.
Regina, unruffled, gave a one-shouldered shrug and let her gaze sink. "We aren't allowed to be awake late in this house?"
Emma let go a wry breath. "Okay, Regina. I'm just going to get a drink."
The queen remained silent, and Emma proceeded to the kitchen and gathered the supplies for strawberry milk. But as she worked, she could not help but hear her son's voice echoing in her head. She has a lot of nightmares.
Emma stirred the sugar and food coloring into her milk, delaying the inevitable as she tranced out to the clinking rhythm of spoon against glass.
When she had returned the mix to the pantry, rinsed off the spoon, put the milk back in the fridge, and sponged off what she had splattered on the counter, Emma returned to the living room to find Regina exactly as she had left her. Dammit.
Emma stood in contemplation for a count of ten, then she drew a breath, stepped forward and perched herself on the arm of the couch. She took a sip of her strawberry milk, wiped her mouth with her wrist, then said quietly, "You okay?"
Regina drew a slow breath, silk nightclothes shifting with a swish. "I'm fine," she said. "I just couldn't sleep." She did not meet Emma's eyes.
The erstwhile princess took this in. Then she let out a heavy breath. "Well," she began, "I can tell you why I'm awake. There's a really really loud cricket somewhere in my bedroom. It's clearly inside the house, maybe inside the walls, but for the life of me, I can't find the damned thing. Could you hear it from your room?"
Regina shook her head. "No." She was replying to direct questions, but she wasn't engaging.
Emma remained undaunted. "Hunh. You're lucky you're at the other end of the hall. Henry seemed to be out cold."
The mention of Henry prompted the queen to turn a fraction in Emma's direction and lift an eyebrow with a hum of acknowledgement.
Emma continued to fill the silence. "Seriously, I think the thing must be inside a wall or behind the bookcase or something. I mean, there's not much stuff in that room. I even pulled the furniture out from the walls. I have no idea where...." Emma turned to gaze down at Regina's statuesque profile. "Hey....," she began, voice a bit softer and more tentative, "could you use magic to find a cricket like that?"
"Yes." Regina said.
Emma blinked. No one moved. Then, Emma breathed out, "Okay..."
The two women sat for a long moment in pregnant silence.
Finally, Emma dropped unceremoniously onto the couch cushion, squished in between the pillows and Regina close enough to brush the queen's knee and disrupt her peaceful stance. "Look," Emma said. "I'm sorry. I know it must feel like we're all ganging up on you sometimes."
To this Regina gave a wry exhale that screamed the words, Ya think? in Emma's head.
Emma nodded. "Yeah. And I know Henry wanted Gold here, too, to sort of...I don't know, even things out. But I can't say I'm sorry that he's not. But...it's not... Look, Regina, the thing is...," Emma paused to set her glass of milk on the coffee table, then she turned to half-face Regina. "Henry loves you," she said. "He's hurt and conflicted about what's right to do, but...he really loves you. And Henry's a pretty smart kid. You of all people should know that, right?"
Emma watched Regina swallow hard, gaze never leaving her glass. "He is."
"And he thinks you're a good person, that you just...got dealt a really lousy hand. And maybe...you didn't know what else to do. And if Henry thinks that, well...then I believe in him." She paused for a long moment, time seeming to slow in the grey-blurred hours of the early morning. "He doesn't want you to change for our sake, Regina," she said softly. "He just wants you to be happy. And...so do I."
Regina's breathing had quickened, and she shifted a little in her seat. Her lips parted, giving the slightest gentle sound to her breath.
Emma figured she had already risked death by fireball, she might as well go all the way. "So, Regina...whether you want me to or not, I'm going to sit here with you while you can't sleep. And I know every time someone is nice to you or honest with you, that your first instinct is to get up and walk away. And believe me, I understand that way, way too well. But I also understand what it's like to spend your life wanting a family more than anything in the world and not understanding why everyone else just seems to get one and you're left out. Wondering what the hell is wrong with you and what you did to deserve all this crap. So...I'm going to sit here. And if you want to get up and leave, that's your choice. I won't follow you."
The world held still. Then, Regina said, "I was here first." All the power of the Evil Queen of legend, all the layers and double meanings and years buried in the simple words coursed over Emma's skin like fireflies in the darkness.
Emma gave a slow nod. She settled into the couch and leaned her head back onto the soft cushions to stare at the ceiling.
Regina never looked at her. But she stayed.
Eventually, Emma dozed off where she sat. When she woke to the first threads of dawn, Regina was gone. Emma blundered her way upstairs through the still silent house, hoping for a few more hours of sleep. She had flopped into her welcoming bed, when her eyes fell upon the nightstand. Beside her wind-up alarm clock, in the grey-orange glow of the dawn, sat a large and blissfully silent cricket, trapped under the dome of what looked suspiciously like Regina's Scotch tumbler.
DAY 79
Henry caught a horrible cold. From where it was hard to imagine in their imposed isolation. But the poor kid was miserable and snoffling for days. For two nights straight, Regina sat up with the boy, leaning him against her chest, because it was the only way he could breathe enough to sleep. The Charming family was deeply affected by the display, realizing, each in their own way and own time, that this behavior was not just a side effect of Regina's recent attempts at redemption, but a sampling of long practiced routine. She had cared for Henry like this his whole life. Nursed fevers, laundered bedding, measured out medicine and read stories to pass the worst times. For the past decade as the conniving and controlling town mayor, Regina had also been a dedicated and loving and nurturing mother. The two images were hard to blend. Yet both were equally valid.
On the second night, David rose in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, then stole downstairs and made a cup of tea which he brought to Regina. She took the offering with a weary and grateful smile.
On the fifth day, Henry seemed to gain the upper hand on the virus and was at least fairly comfortable and content playing video games and reading books and sipping extra juice.
Which was when David came down with the cold. Emma soon learned that for a notably brave and valiant hero, her father whined worse than a child when he was ill. Mary Margaret treated her husband with the unruffled and tolerant patience of the grade school teacher she had long been, and he was soon finding his way back to health. His cough lingered, so Mary Margaret moved into Emma's room for the duration, leaving her husband a bell to ring if she were needed.
DAY 81
They started trying to talk. Really talk. Regina balked. Regina was a powder keg of explosive magic and passion and they had all been walking on eggshells for weeks and months. Maybe since the day they all met. Holding Henry as a literal and figurative shield between them would only work for so long. The only way to reach Regina was to push her to the edge of her inner fire, then either die with her in the flames or melt away her defenses and catch her in their arms.
They started to try.
On the third attempt, the third time they tried to talk about all the things that could never be said, Mary Margaret said, "I'm so sorry you lost Daniel. You deserved to be loved. That's all I wanted for you." And Emma reached out and stroked Regina's cheek when she started to cry.
When Emma said, "Henry doesn't want to be afraid, anymore," Regina stood up and left.
The remaining royals stared at one another for a count of five, then Emma and Mary Margaret stood up and followed the queen to her room.
They barged brazenly through Regina's closed door, found the startled mayor seated on the floor beside her bed. They sat down on the floor on either side of Regina, their backs resting against the side of the mattress.
"Excuse me!" Regina sat wide-eyed, indignant and tear-stained. She tried to turn away, to reject the intrusion, but surrounded as she was, there was no direction to look but at the ceiling.
"Yeah. We're here. Deal with it," Emma said, as she crossed her tall boots at the ankle and settled in to stay, thigh pressed up against Regina's.
Snow reached over and clasped Regina's hand. Regina pulled back, but Snow only tightened her grip as Emma found Regina's other hand.
Regina tugged and frowned as the two younger women stubbornly held on. She bristled and sent a sharp shock through Emma's hand to make her recoil.
"Regina!" Snow's free hand shot out and smacked Regina's knuckles.
The queen stared at her stepdaughter. "Did you just hit me?"
And while the two remained in locked glares, Emma cautiously resumed her hold on Regina's free hand.
After a long beat, Regina sagged and dropped her weight against the bedside, gaze returning to the ceiling. "Why won't you get out?" she asked, half resigned, half weary.
"Because we're your family, Regina," Snow said simply.
"Since when?"
"Since the day we met. Any time you wanted us to be."
"Henry is my family. My father was my family. Daniel was my family."
"You can always have more. There's no limit to love."
Regina lowered her gaze to study her fingers where they lay tangled with Emma's. A thin trail of dark make-up in tear-tracks colored the line of her cheek, smudged where Emma had touched her face downstairs.
"You're doing this, because you want out of this accursed house," Regina said flatly.
Snow drew a breath and lifted one knee. "Maybe, in the beginning. But now...what good would that do us, Regina? It won't help us unless it's real. We'll get out of this house, yes, but then what? We go back to the nightmare we've been trapped in all these years? We go back to fighting and struggling and hurting one another? Henry stays caught between us all?" Snow shook her head. "No. No one wins that way. We're here because we've always needed to be here."
"I don't need you," Regina snapped, voice hoarse and deep.
Emma involuntarily tightened her fingers around the queen's, surprised at the protectiveness she had begun to feel, even in the face of Regina's power. Close quarters apparently could affect people.
The three women sat for a long time. Regina sniffed wetly and swallowed. Then she said, "So, you want me to change. To pacify all of you."
Mary Margaret shifted to face her stepmother, tucked her foot beneath her knee. "No. We want you to be yourself again. Your true self. Finally. That's what Henry wants. That's the woman who was his mother. The mother he loved. He wants you back in his life so very much."
"I'm not two people," Regina said. "As much as you all seem to want me to be."
"No," Snow said. "You're the Queen."
I was always the Queen. It was you who added Evil to my name.
The three women sat on the floor of the old house that Mr. Gold never seemed to be able to rent. The night deepened, and in the end the threesome crawled onto the bed, kicked off their shoes, and settled in for the night. Mary Margaret couldn't help but note that Regina's bed was significantly more comfortable than either the one she had shared with Charming or the one she had recently shared with Emma. She wondered if that had been coincidence.
Moonlight trailed through the open curtains with the breeze when Snow woke, her neck a bit stiff from sleeping in her turtleneck sweater. She lay still, debating whether she would just slip back into sleep, or whether she should sit up and pull off her sweater and use it as a blanket. Then reality disentangled from her dream worlds and she realized it hadn't been the sweater that had awakened her at all. They were sleeping in Regina's room, the three of them. And Regina was crying.
Snow lay still a moment longer, feeling the gentle shift of the bed as Regina breathed close behind her, taking in the quieter, more peaceful breaths that meant Emma was still sleeping on the far side of the bed.
Moving carefully, guardedly, as though she were holding out her hand to a wild bluebird, Snow White rolled in place and squinted to make out detail in the fuzzy darkness. She reached out and lay a hand on the shadowy curve of Regina's shoulder.
To her surprise, Regina did not startle or move away. She remained on her side, face half-tucked into the feather pillow, hair sleep-tousled and dusting her jaw.
Mary Margaret took two fingers and pulled the errant strands of hair from Regina's cheek, smoothed them down the side of her neck. "Tell me," Snow whispered.
The silence reigned for a long time in the untethered shadows. In a breath barely audible as voice, Regina whispered, "I can't need you. I can't...let myself love another family...and then lose you. Again. I don't have it left." The throaty shards of voice sent a visceral ache through Snow's chest.
"Regina...," she breathed, hand resting firmly now on Regina's shoulder, thumb caressing through the silk of her blouse, "as long as you don't go back to hurting people, no one in this house will EVER leave you."
"And what if I do? What if I fail your tests?"
Snow leaned closer to the queen in the darkness. "After all that has happened since the day we met...all the horrors, all the pain, all the death...I'm still here. I'm still trying. I always was."
The three women lay in the quiet of the sleeping house. Emma's soft breaths kept time with the pulse of the breeze through the curtains. Mary Margaret listened to Regina's muted tears.
She felt Regina's muscles tense and pull beneath her fingers. Clouds shifted in the sky and deepened the intimacy of the darkness. Regina inched closer. Cautiously, she tucked herself into Snow's chest, just her forehead and arm contacting Snow's sweater. Snow did not move. Regina tangled her fingers into the knit cloth of the sweater and held on.
Snow shifted her weight and cradled Regina closer. She felt Regina's breath catch. A lifetime ago, Snow had curled into this woman's sleep-warmed body in the wee hours of the night, running toward comfort from her own night terrors. With her fingers tenderly smoothing Regina's raven hair, Snow White whispered, "It's all right, Mother." And somewhere in the blur of moonlight and shadows, the two women returned to sleep.
DAY 83
Emma woke at the ungodly hour of 5am. She had finally fallen asleep at a reasonable hour, only to wake before full dawn. Dammit. She had her bed all to herself again, as her parents had resumed their usual sleeping arrangements. Emma lay in bed as long as she could stand, then she pulled a warm sweatjacket over her tank top and padded down the stairs in search of coffee.
She was yawning and walking with half-closed eyes when she reached the bottom of the stairs and was startled into wakefulness by what she saw through her squint. The front door...was open. Only a few inches. But for the first time in eighty-three days, the latch had sprung free.
Emma quelled her immediate city-girl instincts to brace against an intruder. She reached out a tentative hand and pulled at the old wood. The door moved freely at her touch and a cool morning wind wafted through the entryway and lifted her hair. Emma stood in the freeing breeze for a long moment, drinking in the soft autumn scents. Then she drew a deep breath and with a quick glance over her shoulder toward the members of her family sleeping beyond, she pushed the door quietly back into place. She would make the family pancakes and maybe some eggs. It was Saturday. They had all day.
*****
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