Chapter Text
The Pattern,
referring to a widespread sequence of unexplained phenomena happening around the world.
37 known incidents, 13 of which involved biochemical components that had been previously under study or development by one Storybrooke, Inc. In each and every case, research on the component was discontinued at least two years before any event formally classified as bioterrorism took place.
If you’re thinking this is probably not a coincidence — well, congratulations. You are not the only one.
“No,” Regina insists, arms crossed and jaw tight. “Absolutely not.”
She watches him from the corner of her eye, the way he leans casually against Lucas’ desk, how he seems entirely unconcerned with the conversation — almost like, and she recognizes belatedly that this is probably the case, he knows that the decision’s already made.
It only angers her further.
It’s a Friday night and Regina had been halfway to her car - a night with Henry and perhaps some popcorn the only two things on her mind, for the first time since she started this investigation - before Lucas had called to pull this on her.
The older woman’s gaze is unwavering. Behind her, city lights flicker and glow, cloak the room in yellow and red. “You do need a communications expert, Regina,“ Lucas tells her again, “one with relevant experience with corporate systems. Locksley here has been consulting for the Interpol for a few years and comes highly recommended.”
She goes on to point out that Gold is a British national and that this makes cooperation imperative, and Regina calls bullshit on the very thought that this woman is interested in international cooperation of any kind whatsoever. As if Regina doesn’t have enough on her plate without having to babysit - oh, excuse me, cooperate with foreign agents. Regina says as much, in not so many words; can’t quite stop herself from scoffing.
Out on the street a screeching tire comes to a halt and Regina’s eyes shifts to meet his blue ones and all of a sudden, the wheels griding and sliding into place - something clicking in a remote part of her brain.
“Back up,” she says, previous point snipped. “What do you mean by experience with corporate systems?”
Lucas sits back on her chair and runs her tongue over her teeth, frowns like she was hoping Regina wouldn’t make the link.
He has the actual gall to grin at her.
“Robin, as in Robin Hood?” Regina barks out in indignation. “The leader of that hacker group that wreaked havoc with pharmaceutical patents and formulas a few years ago?”
Robin is unfazed, in fact one might say he is more amused than vexed. Regina wonders, not for the first time, why she wasn’t briefed on this beforehand; Ruby’s first and foremost job is to know about these things before Lucas herself thinks of them.
“I see my reputation precedes me,” Locksley is smirking. “Though if you’ll remember, there never was proof that I was involved in that at all.”
Lucas has a spacious office (well, by government standards) but it suddenly seems like a cubicle. One that is holding far too many egos, not least of all her own. Regina considers punching in her security code to the garage, getting in her car and running for the hills; running to a place far away from New York City, a place where the hills are not merely proverbial and with no smirking hackers to be found.
Instead she arches an eyebrow and counters, “Is the Interpol really so desperate that they’re now hiring thieves?”
He shrugs.
“I‘d rather think of it as cyberactivism myself. And what you choose to call thievery, the Interpol understands as…” he turns his eyes to the ceiling and squints, as though searching for the right words. “…Having a very particular sense of justice.”
Regina feels her jaw slack slightly. Feels the carpet being pulled from under her two feet.
Well,Ruby is fired.
After a beat, Regina turns her eyes back to the woman watching all of this unfold, eyebrow arched, still arched, never stopped - until the older woman sighs and throws a pointed look at Locksley, asking him to step out for a second.
He nods and goes quietly, steps around Regina to open the door, and steps around really is the only way to describe it. That Regina does not huff is a proof of inner strength.
When he is gone, Lucas levels her eyes with Regina’s. States, “the decision is final.”
Regina shakes her head in disbelief and knows the attitude isn’t going to win her any favours, never has won her any favours; especially not with this woman. But no one has ever sung praises to Regina Mills for knowing when to stop, and so, still, she continues.
“Is this some kind of joke?”
Lucas gaze is heavy on her from behind round specs. “In the nearly ten years you’ve known me, girl, have you ever known me to joke?” she pronounces, patience finally running thin, “And frankly, Mills, you should be thanking me for giving you this assignment and allowing you to have team at all.”
And, with that, the conversation is over. If you can really call this kind of ambush a conversation in the first place.
Late though the hour is, Regina has Ruby pull any information she can find on him and put it in a file, yes, for tonight; by the time Monday rolls around, she is well acquainted with every aspect of Robin Locksley’s life and career.
He walks into the office on Monday with the kind of swagger you can come to depend on, and Regina grasps a distinct trail of pinecones and ashes in the morning air. It reminds her of summers at camp and of days spent riding horses in woods that had seemed endless.
And she thinks she would hate him for that alone.
.
The end-of-summer breeze howls and sends papers flying in their make-shift office as the door closes behind her. Blanchard and Nolan are still out for lunch but Ruby is chatting idly with Locksley, one desk to her left.
Regina clears her throat and walks down the small corridor between desk rolls. Ruby barely acknowledges her, says ‘hey’ in the middle of whatever story she’s telling, whilst Locksley raises his eye and keeps his gaze trained on Regina as she finds her way to her computer. He does that often, and Regina ignores him always, the way his eyes follow her with an expression she can’t pinpoint and the way his stare drops to the ground right after that, as though it takes a second to gather his thoughts.
He’s been around for seven days and Regina has already tried to get him fired a total of five times — it’s only noon and this is already looking like try number six.
Ruby is cleaning out her Glock, telling some inconsequential story about a gun runner and his goober of a bodyguard as she disassembles the gun with a well-practiced hand. She is one-hundred percent showing off, her lipstick shade having grown a shade brighter after he joined the team, seeming suddenly determined to take advantage of the warm weather with the deepest V-necks she can possibly get away with.
(“That accent should be illegal,” she had overheard Ruby positively gush to Blanchard on that very first Monday. “I know James Bond has like, no basis on reality, but I still feel like we need to put him in a suit. The first opportunity we can get.”
Blanchard smiled agreeably, replied “he is kindacute,” as though she had eyes for someone other than Nolan.
Neither of them had looked at Regina expecting her to contribute to the conversation; at this point Regina is counting the little blessings.)
“You’re good at that,” Locksley points out with an easy smile.
“You could say I grew up doing it. Most teens had sleepovers and ; I had afternoons at the firing range by the time I was thirteen.” Ruby tells him, but can’t quite hide her grin as she brushes the compliment aside. Regina frowns but keeps her face turned to her computer screen.
Ruby continues, “Lucas is my grandmother.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I’m an agency legacy of sorts.” Ruby says, now grinning outright. Then, with an eye roll: “One who will never see the field if the old wolf has any say on it at all.”
Locksley chuckles, a low and warm sound reverberating across the office, while Ruby pulls on the strand of red in her brown hair, curls it around a finger.
And Regina doesn’t mind the flirting. The way she sees it, the sooner Locksley sleeps with a colleague, the sooner she has legitimate grounds to get him transferred — and if the colleague in question is Ruby, well, Granny just might find it appropriate to teach him a lesson and Regina would not be opposed to personally overseeing that he gets the message.
However. Blanchard and Nolan already trade cute quips ad nauseam like it’s in their job description… and there’s only so much Romantic Comedy hour a single intelligence team can take. So.
“Ruby —” Regina interrupts. “I just sent you an email with a list of the people I want profiles on.”
“Right,” Ruby replies, exchanges a glance with Locksley that does not go unnoticed.
Silence reigns for a glorious two minutes.
And then:
“Regina. This is half the people in the company headquarters and everyone in their Maine lab.”
“Is it,” Regina says absentmindedly. Ruby still has some suffering to do for the lack of early warning about her grandmother deciding to add a wildcard to Regina’s team. And if the girl is gonna gloat around like that, well. Regina has never aspired to be a good team player, or much of a leader anyway.
She smirks. “Well, then you’d better get started, junior wolf.”
.
So, you now know that Regina Mills is neither a leader nor a team player and perhaps you are wondering: what is she?
That’s a common enough thread to pursue.
As if you could say what a person is or is not in one or two words. As if a person couldn’t be any given thing at any point in time or place.
This is an important concept because — Regina has made a living out of it. Out of being anything or anyone or no one at all. Of dark alleyways in Prague, in Bangkok, in Paris and one job, no questions asked. She has played both doctor and nurse, the mysterious lone traveler and the girl in the cafe who turns around and spills her coffee at the exact moment you open the door and oh, are we reading the same book? Isn’t that a coincidence?
No, it is not a coincidence. Coincidence does not apply.
Regina was, at some point in time, an excellent Black Ops agent. The very best if you needed a cold, hard edge and built-in netherworld navigation. Of the does their best work alone variety.
Later, she was reckless. Cold and hard, but wild. Absolutely unleashed.
Now, such as it is — Regina Mills is just Regina Mills.
It turned out, her birth name made an exceptional fake identity.
.
Henry is spending the weekend with Emma, and Regina has yet to get used to the stillness in the apartment on the days he isn’t there.
She’s learned to accept when he tells her, rather than asks her (overnight bag undoubtedly already packed), that he is going to stay with his mom. Has learned, not without some months of resistance, that he’ll meet her clout with equal and opposite energy of his own; that the harder she tries to keep him to herself, the fiercest grow his efforts to move away from her. The strategy now is to set reasonable boundaries — not on a school night, or as long as you have all your homework done before you go. To remind Miss Swan that she gave him up, along with all her rights to have any kind of relationship with him. So whatever restrictions she sets, Regina is being fairer than fair, really.
They’ve had so many good years, every nook and cranny of their home bearing witness; the carvings on the wall marking his progressing height, four shelves of children’s books they've gone through together, the stick-figure drawings of the two of them titled carefully, ‘family’ in unsure letters.
Morning light filters through the window of the kitchen and the television in living room plays the newscast, some political scandal or other she doesn’t really care about, volume turned up as though the sound could fill the spaces of Henry’s absence. Regina follows the recipe for apple scones to a fault and kneads the batter until it’s perfect. She has pre-heated the oven, set the timer and temperature exactly right.
Still, barely ten minutes pass before smoke has her running back to the kitchen.
It’s too late — the smell of burning dough, equal parts saccharine and rancid, fills the room as she opens the oven to find her scones half turned to charcoal.
Regina presses both palms against the cool marble counter, tries to remember to take deep breaths. She watches the tray of cinders as it smokes and cools, thinking of a blaze burning the treats from the inside; a kind of heat that carries on and on.
Now, Regina has been known to burn things before. The most uncanny coincidence, it always happens when she is at her most compulsive, when the wild storm is outraging at odds with a veneer struggling to stay still.
Her right hand comes up to massage the back of her neck, headache coming strong. She will call a handyman for the oven, again. Henry’s favourite treat might have changed anyway; the instinct to disallow every good part of their life will have seeped right down to his taste buds.
Henry now probably enjoys chocolate best, Regina decides.
.
As far as Regina can remember, she has always known Gold. In her mind’s eye, she can still see him, sharp as a new memory, his voice low as he talked to her mother in the living room, the strong smell of tea in the oppressive Florida heat, always sitting with his back to the door and it was the first thing she would see when she entered the living room after school.
Back then her father was still in the military and hardly ever home, hardly ever in any of the homes they’d often moved in and out of, and Regina would only come to understand the nature of her mother’s relationship with Gold years later; many years too late. But even as a child she saw him as a strange, unpleasant man. The eccentric sense of humour, smile almost unnatural; odd edges that put distrust in the bottom of her stomach.
Truth be told, she’d have done almost anything to get him.
Regina has always been good at finding the secrets kept hidden underneath the bed, rattling in the closet — and Gold’s secrets would be enough fill a whole building, she is willing to bet. Any tax evasion or financial fraud claim would have done, as long as she could see the man behind bars.
And then this came up.
If she can prove that Storybrooke, Inc. is tied to at least one of the events they are calling The Pattern…
(See, case file number 17: airborne contagion that caused the skin of nearly 150 people to degenerate and dissolve in a matter of minutes;
See, case file number 11: unregistered clinics alluring clients with promises of weight loss and instead conducting a series of horrifying illegal human experimentations.)
… well, if she can prove that Gold had a hand in any of the cases, that’s not just putting him behind bars; it’s giving him a one way ticket to confinement in a maximum security prison - good for this lifetime and the next two or three.
It’s not quite justice, but then again, that does not apply.
One could say that what Regina is looking for here is more along the lines of revenge.
.
Locksley, it becomes clear soon enough, is a fairly competent communications agent — willing to ignore inane things such as privacy laws and common ethics (in the name of some undetermined overall justice), undeterred by the idea of hacking into the systems of people so powerful they could squash his existence without so much as a court case.
Not that Regina is particularly willing to admit this to his face, if only because he’s so very well aware of it already.
(He and Nolan walked Regina through the angles of Nolan’s new identity. He pointed at the screen of his computer and spoke as animatedly as she’s ever seen him do, while Regina leaned behind his chair and indicated the crinkles that would potentially throw the whole cover out the window.
When it became clear Regina had finally run out of things to pick apart, David smiled and announced, “It’s a solid story. This just might work.”
Regina noticed that her hand had been resting on Robin’s shoulder as she held herself behind him; couldn’t recall putting it there at all.
Locksley grinned, turning his chair in her direction. “I’d wager I’m quite good at this job,” he proclaimed, intolerable.
The fingers of her offending hand squeezed in a tight fist, nails digging into skin. Already on the way back to her desk, over her shoulder, she replied, “I’d say the jury is still out on that.”)
In two weeks, James Shephard — business intelligence analyst for the biotech market, recently moved from Vancouver — got a call from Storybrooke Inc.’s Human Resources to inform that he was hired and should start as soon as possible.
.
But intel comes in slower than Regina had anticipated, even if infiltration was smooth sailing.
Storybrooke has a strict need-to-know policy in regard to their scientific research. And Gold is nothing if not a careful son of bitch. Always making and breaking contracts with perfect timing, his company constantly dealing at the edge of legality and not to mention ethics, always with the right contact up his sleeve. Whenever there seems to be a connection, it fizzles out as quickly as it pops up.
And so Regina throws herself into her paperwork, reads and rereads case files until the papers curl at the edges. She plays up her role of Regina Mills, socialite with a brain for business, and has Blanchard spread word among her contacts that the Mills family is looking to put some of that old money into cutting-edge science projects.
It works like a charm and soon enough Regina is going to twice as many business lunches. Half whispers over a table become a frequent occurrence, as men and women in suits tell her well, I’m not supposed to tell anyone but we’re developing this new… but what follows is almost never what Regina is looking for.
This is how Autumn burns out, and Regina almost gets used to Ruby absently humming the newest top tune every other day. She suffers through Blanchard and Nolan’s barely concealed glances whenever he comes by to provide a round of updates. Blanchard calls him Charming as though it is mockery, as if she doesn’t think he is charming at all. Everyone in the building, everyone in any building,can see that it isn’t true — and most of the time Regina can even keep from jeering the unavoidable budding infatuation.
She almost comes to rely on Locksley challenging her every strategy, the way he matches her bite for bite with a defiant kind of look. She pretends not to notice the little match stick figures that he puts on his desk, or how he’ll show up with his fingers stained with watercolour paint.
Regina loses herself in phrasings like suspected genetic manipulation and traces of human design and unknown synthetic compound. Almost feels herself crumbling under the weight of the day to day in an off-the-grid operation that could be shut down and shoved under the carpet as though it never happened, unless they start producing results. Of having vengeance so close and yet just out of reach.
Almost.
.
She sits at her desk past work-hours, burns her tongue on steaming hot coffee. Misses Mary Margaret’s soft steps until the woman is standing right in front of her.
“I just got back from Boston,” Blanchard tells her. “FBI was there checking out the case, too. With some clearly not-FBI people conducting tests.”
Regina raises an eyebrow. From her desk lamp shines the only light in the room, outside a downpour hurtles. Mary Margaret throws some half-scrawled notes over Regina’s papers.
“Do you ever think we’re missing some vital piece of information here?” Blanchard asks. Her face conveys wary exasperation.
“I feel like we’re missing the question,” Regina answers.
The rain lunges at the window as they look at each other in the dim light.
.
“You’re not telling me all there is to know,” Regina states to Lucas, standing at the doorway of the older woman’s office.
Lucas sighs, long-suffering and heavy, but nods to herself.
“Close the door behind you,” she says.
Fringe science (also known as pseudoscience),
1. scientific inquiry that departs significantly from mainstream or orthodox theories, often associated with the paranormal.
2. any of various methods, theories or systems considered as having no scientific basis.
Such practices are considered to be dangerous, unethical and often impossible.
You’d like to know if any of this is real?
So would she.
It takes them days to get through all of the case files. A joint task force under the Department of Homeland Security, Lucas had told her; their Fringe team, she had called them.
All of a sudden, phrases that previously trailed off unwarrantedly have a second — outrageous — half. Things that were unclear before have an explanation, but the kind of explanation that does not go a long way toward clarification.
Take case file 78, for instance. A team of five robbers who were able to steal from safety deposit boxes in four banks across the country, virtually unnoticed by each bank’s security systems. Regina is fairly confident that the general public would not be comfortable with the provided explanation that they were able to get in and out by weakening the walls at subatomic level and walking through them.
And she never thought she’d see anything like virus that operates in the genetic code transforming humans into bipedal beasts printed in a government issued paper, but there it is. The sheer number of words that should not be strung together in one sentence assure Regina that it is probably not a mistake in the printing.
The stray thought that she’d been focusing on the fine print in the corner, when there’s a Guernica sized mural to look at, does occur to her.
Ruby is sitting with her legs crossed above her desk, nose scrunched up in disgust as her eyes rake over the papers. “I read the description in these cases and I think: it can’t get more gruesome than that. Then I look at the attached pictures. And it does.”
“I can hardly believe there’s government funding for this kind of experiment,” Blanchard agrees. She takes a sip of tea, scrawls down in her notepad. “Look, this one has a federal agent on drugs to get information out of a guy in a comatose state.”
“What?!” Ruby all but hoots, arm already reaching out to take the file from Blanchard’s hands. “Let me see.”
Blanchard chuckles as she hands the papers over. “You actually enjoy this,” she remarks.
“Ruby thinks we’ve just stumbled upon the The Twilight Zone treasure chest,” Regina says offhandedly from behind her own reading material.
“Well, we kinda did,” Ruby concurs.
“Robin, you’re awfully quiet,” Blanchard comments with a teasing smile thrown Ruby’s way. “What’s the matter? Not quite as excited as Ruby is by the idea of using acid to pick a dead guy’s brain?”
Locksley grimaces as all three pair of eyes turn toward him. He shifts in his chair.
“I don’t like the idea of dealing with forces we don’t understand, no.” He threads through his words slowly and with thought. Looks down at his cup of coffee. World-weary, Regina thinks; that’s what they call that particular expression.
“It’s never worth the consequences,” he continues after a beat.
Mary Margaret makes a doe-like face while Ruby’s jaw goes visibly slack. Regina watches as their eyes meet rapidly in silent conversation.
“Yes, you know what. You’re probably very reasonable in that,” Blanchard concedes. There is hardly anything to appease, though the girl tries anyway to disperse the tension in the room.
After that, the office is mostly quiet, just the sound of rustling paper and typing every couple of minutes. Regina feels overly aware of Locksley’s presence as she shuffles through file after file. When he moves, she counts to five and picks up her mug to follow him in the direction of the hallway. She puts some water in the electric kettle and watches the door to the bathroom from her position near the doorway. When he emerges, she is there to corner him.
“Locksley,” she calls out as he is about to walk past her.
“Yes,” he says as he turns back around, and it is more of a statement than a question. His tongue curls over his upper teeth, his chin jutting out defiantly.
“You’ve seen this kind of science before,” she says in kind. Not a question, but a statement. He doesn’t make any move to deny or confirm her.
Regina doesn’t take kindly to his silence, allows almost twenty seconds to see if he’ll offer up anything.
When he doesn’t:
“I don’t know what your agenda here is,” Regina tries impatiently, and actually. Before, it was not a question or a statement — it was an accusation. His mouth does open then, words about to tumble out, but Regina finds that she is half a minute past caring. She raises a hand to dismiss whatever he is about to tell her.
Instead, she goes with: “But if you get in my way, I will make sure you wish you had never left whatever British pub-hole you crawled out of.”
His blue eyes look straight into hers, not at her brow or her ears or his own shoes, as most people are prone to do when Regina adopts this tone. He doesn’t seem affronted, exactly, but his face displays a deep frown and still he says nothing.
“Are we clear?” Regina pushes.
Robin moves back until he stands against the wall, deliberately adding more space between them. “Crystal,” he agrees, scornful.
Regina has been back at her desk for a full three minutes before Locksley returns to his seat.
.
In case you haven’t gathered, Regina is not the kind of person who needs to believe in something to function. (She might have been, once, but she was a child then and that was a lifetime ago.) It follows that she has rarely, if ever, been the kind of person who has a hard time believing things they haven’t seen for themselves.
Belief was just another in a long line of things that did not apply.
Well, in every lifetime, there are turning points.
So Regina makes a stack of the CDs containing videos documented under the Fringe cases she has access to, and stays late one Wednesday to watch each and every one. Most of them are archives of security footage, a few are home videos and recordings from television.
Her breath catches on a surveillance recording of a woman actually, truly growing fangs and killing a guy by feeding off his neck.
It is perhaps a sign of selfishness, perhaps a sign of sanity that her first thought is: what did you get yourself into, mother?
The second: here’s a perfectly good reason to ban the Twilight movies from my house.
A couple of the videos demand two or three viewings, lest she end up believing that it might all be a trick of her exhausted eyes. Upwards of ten times she tells herself that there is a scientific explanation; grabs onto that thought greedily.
After, she sits in the dark with her elbows pressed to her knees and her face buried in both her hands.
There is a scientific explanation.
Like a beggar clutching at any source of warmth in the winter.
There is a scientific explanation.
.
She drives up to Boston alone, window half open to let the crisp air in, NPR thrumming with news Regina will not remember; news that will slip away from her as soon as she gets out of the car. She spends the entire drive trying to figure out what she’s expecting to find, is nowhere closer to a conclusion on it as she struts into the Federal Building but the amount of heads turning at the clack of her high heels does offer a strange kind of confidence.
Special Agent Broyles greets her in his office. He is the kind of person who makes an impression without trying; standing well over six feet tall, looking at you with grave and focused eyes. The kind of man who imposes respect just because he is, and he does, and there’s no real need to elaborate.
That is a comfort as well, even if Regina can already tell she won’t get much out of him.
They exchange few platitudes before she pitches her story about the corporate big bad wolf. Broyles listens impassively but his eyes do shift slightly to the side. She’s aware that the window behind her shows the open plan of desks where his team works, and glances over her shoulder.
"One of our agents has had similar suspicions about Massive Dynamic," Broyles tells her, forcing her to turn back around to face him before she can spot anyone that stands out. Regina finds his dark eyes studying her. "We started an investigation earlier this year. They’ve been mostly cooperative… if not always forthcoming."
Regina quirks a brow. “I see,” she says, smile growing a little impish. “We are taking quite a different approach with Storybrooke."
“So I understand,” is his reply, surprisingly lacking in judgement.
For a moment, Regina gives heed to the movement behind her, a dozen people picking up phones and typing into computers frantically trying to make sense of things that run well beyond the left field.
“Two of our foremost technology empires, possibly involved in all kinds of terrifying crimes,” she redacts after a pause. “What kind of world are we living in?”
Regina tempers what she says with a heavy dose irony.
“Certainly not the one I thought we were,” Broyles answers, voice grave and loaded with understanding.
.
Broyles chooses to tell her only half as much as he chooses to hold back, that much is clear. There would have been no reason to expect anything else.
There are always, and there will always be, men in suits holding back truths, documents classified above her level, the need to know basis. None of this is of concern.
What Regina does learn is enough to start piecing things together. Still, the whole thing has her missing a time when she was merely an operative, no context required. Or more precisely: no context she cared about. Get a mission, get a target, get it done, get the fuck out.
But this — how does one get out?
.
Her secret service codename, if you must know, is The Evil Queen.
No, truly — she was taken aback at first, too.
It wasn’t always that; no one is given that particular moniker without a long story behind it, as you might imagine. It used to be The Miller’s Daughter, back when she wore her long hair in a braid and impressed everyone with her fierce will and what whoever from high atop the thing had called a natural ability for strategic planning. Back then, people actually liked her, or perhaps they sympathised with her — her tragic love story, the determined way she would throw herself into her training, the decision to forego the life she was born into as daughter of Henry and Cora Mills.
She’d been their best for a while there.
But then the balanced tipped, just the smallest shift that was enough to touch the soft underbelly Regina had managed to keep tucked away for years. And once it did, there was no stopping it.
It was around that time that she’d heard it whispered the first time. The Evil Queen. On the day she’d first heard it — whispered behind her back by two kids new to the force, on a rare day she’d been at the offices — a fire had started through a power outlet on their floor. The whole building had been evacuated and she’d stood there watching as the firemen struggled to control the strangely persistent flames. She’d stood there in the cold of the street and felt white inside.
As if all her feelings had been left in that fire, she’d felt absolutely nothing.
.
One thing that is of concern: that within her team there is at least one person she can’t fully trust.
.
There is a long and deafening silence before Blanchard decides to speak up.
“And you’re sure agent Broyles said the word ‘war’?”
Regina’s eyes very nearly roll all the way back around her head. She paces the meeting room with a frantic sort of energy, scowling, glances to make sure that the blinds are closed.
“No, actually now that you mention it, he might have said war or he might have said that some organisations are doing all this to try and make the world of the Harry Potter books come to life,” she says, bracing herself on the table between them, hands meeting metal with a thump.
Blanchard sighs and stares back at Regina with a solemn expression.
Over the line, Nolan clears his throat. “Right, so he definitely said war,” he rectifies, his tone hard to parse on speakerphone. “What does that mean?”
Silence.
“Are you on your secure line?” Regina scolds, ignoring the question.
“Of course I’m on the secure… I’m not incompetent, Mills,” David says, voice growing an octave at the end. Under her breath, Regina mumbles, “Not entirely true.”
Blanchard rolls her eyes and cuts the bickering off with a — “Fine, so say Gold, or whoever is behind these freak episodes… believes there’s a war coming and has started to prepare for it with unconventional, hm, weaponry.”
She lets a beat sink in, raises a hand to rest on the back of her neck. Her eyes seem especially huge under fluorescent lights. “What kind of battle would require this kind of tech?”
Silence.
“So, what should I be looking for here?” Nolan says when it becomes clear Blanchard’s line of thought will go without response.
Regina thinks of the pack of cigarettes in her desk drawer and presses her hands more firmly against the metal of the table before her. “More or less the same as before. Pay close attention to the list of individuals and organisations that Gold might have been funding or even meeting with,” she says.
She lays out the facts that they know: there is an unknown number of privately funded organisations (cells, Agent Broyles had said) in over fifty countries trafficking in terms of science progress. One of the most prominent of these cells, called ZFT, is interested in warfare application for these scientific experiments and discoveries. For the last few years, ZFT has been mainly associated with Pattern events in Germany and the US.
(Regina’s of the theory that Nolan’s lack of depth is what marks him as deeply pragmatic and action-oriented; it’s what allows him to run past the profound worldview-shifting questions and fall right into the ok, so what do we do about it.
It’s the best thing about him, if you ask Regina.)
Between the two of them, a few ideas are bounced around about what could classify as valuable intel and how and where to get it.
Blanchard sits quietly, a far off look upon her face.
And then, before the call ends:
“A war against whom?” Blanchard asks, finally letting out what she’d been clearly stewing while making no contribution to the conversation.
Outside the meeting room, Ruby is laughing loudly at some inane thing Locksley has said.
Inside. Silence.
.
It is the end of the fall, and the winter is off to what can only pass as a mild beginning. More rain than usual, barely any snow. Ruby decides loudly that it is a good thing because the freezing cold would make the crime scenes she has to visit that much worse.
Regina refrains from wondering about the reasoning behind that statement.
Mary Margaret makes tea at nearly compulsive rate. Doesn’t ask whether or not Regina wants any, brings it to her desk instead and leaves it between the calendar and the stack of case files. Even when Regina is there, Blanchard will gently put her hand on Regina's forearm and quietly place the cup in its usual place.
The holiday season arrives unexpectedly, the Christmas tourists filling the streets; the glittering lights, red and green colours dominating store fronts. It’s already very nearly the week of when she notices that Henry hasn’t done his usual theatre of not-so-subtly implying to her exactly what he wants for a gift. The strain in their relationship weights in as she recognises that she has no idea, while in previous years she had always known what her son had been excited about at the time.
There’s a feeling that she gets from this discovery, like this investigation will lead to nothing but her own unraveling.
They have a sharply silent Christmas dinner. Regina does try. But Henry closes at every attempt at conversation, slouches his way through the meal, and overall the clatter of cutlery meeting porcelain makes up the most present sound in the room. There’s no hot chocolate and marshmallow, no It’s A Wonderful Life or The Grinch playing long after they’d fallen asleep on the couch. The turn of the year comes and goes with hardly anything to distinguish it.
She follows Agent Broyles’ cases attentively. Sends in Blanchard and Ruby whenever there’s word of something that could pertain to an international criminal network and Storybrooke Inc. With some practice, Regina begins to understand what classifies as part of a larger pattern and what would be better described as a standalone episode of the world’s most bizarre procedural drama.
The downside of this arrangement is that she often finds herself alone with Locksley at the offices.
Perhaps one might say Regina underuses his abilities.
In reality it’s more like she deliberately sends him on wild-goose chases to make sure he won’t work on anything pertinent.
By mid-January they’ve settled into an unspoken agreement to keep out of each other’s way. He disappears for hours at a time. One afternoon, they brush shoulders as she’s leaving the break room and he is entering it. She smells the gunpowder on him and realises he’s been going to the shooting range.
The upside of that is, it’s better than that damned unpolished wood scent that had a way of getting under her skin.
Every now and then, she’ll be telling him to do something that they both know will be a completely pointless effort and he’ll gaze at her like he can’t really tell why he’s still here.
What Regina wants to tell him is, she doesn’t know either.
And yet, he persists.
.
Ruby calls her at 2AM, doesn’t say hello, greets her with: “Mills, are you watching this?”
Regina rubs sleep off her eyes. “Watching what?”
“Turn the news on.”
Grumbling about hers being a family household, Regina rummages the living room couch for the remote control and lowers the volume on her tv, glances at the direction of the bedrooms; Henry is a light sleeper.
She flicks through news channels and they all account the same thing: witnesses all over the West Side are reporting a minor tremor in NYC.
On the phone, Ruby is saying that she’s been listening to the internal police transmissions. It seems the Fire and Police Departments are scratching their heads over one building in particular — it’s as though there and there alone, an earthquake has taken place.
.
Around 6AM, most of the firefighters and paramedics have cleared out and Regina stands right behind the isolation tapes surrounding the brownstone.
The strange thing is: the building is still standing.
Or, the strange thing is: it looks like it’s been shaken up and put back together with all its windows and doors and pipes in the wrong places.
Broyles approaches her from the other side of the do not cross lines, his coat unbuttoned and flying wildly with the wind, his hands tucked inside its pockets. Even in high heeled boots, Regina is much shorter than him and has to crane her neck to meet his eyes.
“We’re still figuring out what happened,” he says, stepping in front of her.
Regina quirks an eyebrow and folds her arms tighter over her ribs. “I assume there’s a theory,” she says in turn.
He betrays no reaction for a beat. And then Broyles grabs the tape between them and holds it up to let her pass underneath. “There’s always a theory,” he agrees.
Multiverse theory,
describes the hypothesis of an infinite set of universes coexisting simultaneously.
An incalculable, immeasurable amount of dimensions, in many ways similar to ours but slightly diverging from seemingly insignificant choices. The extra minute you took in the morning to change into a different shirt. The trivial text message you never returned.
That certainly puts a lot of weight on the things you didn’t do, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, we don’t have the time for this kind of pondering.
Regina operates on a need to know basis of her own.
What her team doesn’t know —
(Well, all kinds of things.
But, more pressingly —)
There is in fact a criminal network exchanging not drugs or weapons, but scientific progress of a dubious ethical nature. Some of its cells are moved by the belief that these cutting-edge scientific experiments, different from all that’s been tried and tested, will be fundamental to approaching warfare.
Some of these organisations are original to our universe. Others are not.
Our universe is only one of many.
This war, you see, it’s between two different but parallel universes on a collision course.
The reasons Regina hasn’t shared this with her team are equal parts disbelief, lack of trust and a struggle to say it out loud with a straight face.
.
25 hours in and here’s where we are:
A building, could be any building, is about to disappear from this NYC into the other one.
This will happen in under ten hours.
Regina did not have the easiest time explaining to her team that the tremors reported were not minor earthquakes per se, but instead, were caused by a five-story brownstone from another world quite literally crashing into ours.
That kind of statement does tend to bring up a lot of inquiry.
She managed to momentarily bypass these questions with only a minor spin effort.
(“There will be time for all that later,” Regina had said, —
The scientific team has said that when an object is taken from one dimension to another in this manner, the universes demand balance. At this point there is no way to determine which building will be ripped away. We’ve been asked to help the FBI in trying to determine where in Manhattan this will happen. This is happening now. Questions later.
— The argument and tone of voice were reasonably persuasive.)
Blanchard is at Massive Dynamic with the FBI while Locksley has hacked into the systems of three separate Observatories to aid the monitoring of seismic activity in this region. David has been looking into Storybrooke’s archives, searching for any kind of past research that might be useful or any connection between the company and these events. Ruby is tracking news reports and Police and Fire Departments radio transmissions and lines.
None of the approaches solve their problem.
27 hours in:
Regina puts her coat on hastily and doesn’t bother with scarf or gloves. Outside is a crisp cold under a grey sky. It’s near the end of the afternoon and the daylight is already dim. Regina bites the bullet and calls Emma Swan. The fingers of the hand not gripping the cellphone curl into a nervous fist. She convinces Miss Swan to take Henry to the Mills Family house in the Hamptons for the weekend though Emma says it’s not even remotely the right weather for the seaside and also, this is a little sudden.
There’s something to be said about Emma Swan. For all the fighting they’ve done (an extensive amount of fighting) and for all her brassiness (one of her most distinct qualities), she can sense a mood. Instead of disputing or demanding reasons, the woman goes right into the heart of the issue at hand.
Which ultimately, is just one question — “Is this about Henry’s safety?”
Emma gets her punch in (“When Henry says you do not just run the family finances… he’s really got a point, doesn’t he?”) but agrees to get him out of the city right away.
Regina calls Henry right after and then goes back in, straight past their offices and into the nearest meeting room. Without bothering to take off her trench coat, she finds a spot on the ground and lets herself slide down with a deep breath.
.
In the dark, Regina pictures the road that will take Henry away; seeks comfort in the idea of him falling asleep to the sound of waves pulling and returning to shore. She envisions endless subway and train lines. Their bright and lonely lights and the late night commuters, wondering if they will feel the tremors under the ground, from the depths of the Earth. Outside, dogs all around the city will have started their frenzied howling, she knows; one of the signs that whatever will happen, will happen soon.
She sits there with her legs drawn up to her chest and her head tilted between her knees. These reveries, and the imaginary howling in her ear, are interrupted by a door slamming open, followed by heavy footsteps against the vinyl tiles. There’s a loud and slow exhale, much like the one Regina let seep out a few minutes before.
No, is what she thinks. “This room is taken, find your own,” is what she says.
There’s a gap that leads her to think that whoever it was must have gone gone away quietly.
Wishful thinking.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. Regina snaps her chin up.
It’s Locksley — of course it is.
“Look, if Blanchard sent you to give me a pep talk…” she scowls, making sure that her exasperation is punctuated clearly.
Locksley raises his hands up defensively and in the darkness, Regina can only just make out his form and the way he spreads his fingers out, the curve of his rised shoulders. “I might need a pep talk myself,” he counters. “Not quite sure what good I’d be trying to give one at this point.”
There’s nothing about his voice that’s mean or spiteful and that’s what knocks her out; hollows the hostility before it’s had a chance to unload.
He shrugs, takes a few tentative steps toward her and, finding no protest, adds a degree of assurance to them as he crosses the room.
Locksley joins her on the floor and then leans his head back to press against the wall. Draws up his knees but stops short of crowding them against his body as she is doing, leaving his legs half stretched before him. He’s close enough that their arms nearly brush; the phantom of a touch that she feels acutely.
Regina tilts her chin forward to her own knees and allows herself to close her eyes for a few seconds.
He’s the one to break the silence between them, of course.
“I’m rubbish with pep talks anyway,” Locksley whistles out shakily, followed by a low chuckle. Regina turns her head so she can catch a glimpse of him, the corner of her lip rises of its own accord.
“You’ve guessed that there’s a reason, a reason for why I am here,” he says, speaking as if he’s hastily made a decision. His words slip out like a crying jag when it begins, struggling to keep in at first and then stumbling out by sheer force of the first free breath. “There is. My wife was a journalist, you see, a brilliant… brilliant journalist when I got myself involved in — and it’s no justification but I was so angry. Her pregnancy had been high risk and, after, we struggled through our medical bills here in the US…”
He rubs the heel of his right hand fiercely against a brow. “I started digging, hospitals and pharmaceuticals and — there are an awful lot of conspiracy theories online, do you know? There was a lot of talk about chemical labs involved in undivulged scientific experiments with human beings, a lot of… And Marian wasn’t even interested at first but I was so singleminded and then one day, she heard something at the newspaper about Storybrooke…”
He’s beginning to sound slightly delirious, Regina thinks as Robin flounders his way through words she doesn’t quite catch. She listens trying to make sense of what he’s saying but gets distracted by the way his blue eyes flit around, how he frowns deeply, guiltily and it becomes clear why as he tells her, finally, “Her death was my fault. It was my fault she was involved in any of it.”
Regina inhales and it catches somewhere between her lungs and her throat.
“I suppose I thought that if I could help stop these people; or if I could just - then she wouldn’t have died for nothing,” he continues and she’s still working out the words, or the courage, to say something back.
“But Roland is all I have,” Robin breathes out, unbridled and burdened. “If anything should happen to him because I pursued this…”
He closes his eyes, shaking his head and Regina does the same.
“I got an anonymous tip about my mother having repeated meetings with Gold before her disappearance,” she blurts out. “That’s why I started all this.”
His head darts up and Regina’s startled to note that at some point in the last five minutes her hand has found its way over his. He stares wide eyed at her admission and she pushes herself off the floor abruptly, scrambles to get up on her cramping legs while already reaching for the phone inside the pocket of her overcoat.
“Regina — “ she hears him call out faintly behind her. She’s already pacing away, toward the other corner of the room. Regina keeps her back to him as she hits the number and waits for Emma to pick up.
“Regina?” Emma says in lieu of a greeting.
“Swan, where are you?” she asks. Emma immediately chastises her for calling to hurry them along — seriously? It’s barely been twenty minutes, I am in your apartment waiting for…
Regina turns left on her feet, glances over her shoulder at Robin’s silhouette standing midway across the room. Doesn’t see but rather feels his eyes steady on her.
“No, listen. I need you to… do me a favor. Pick someone else up before you leave for the Hamptons.”
.
Mary Margaret will tell them that she’s not quite sure how, but that in the surge of adrenaline, the FBI managed to figured out and evacuate the brownstone seconds before it was ripped away into another reality.
Three tourists who were wandering late in the evening right by where the High Line first bends, allowing a view of Washington Street, will spend their entire lives swearing they saw a building in New York City disappear into thin air.
The morning news will report that it was all a product of unscheduled, controlled demolition.
Of the building that once held five floors worth of hotel rooms, nothing will be left in this dimension but a crater and concrete dust.
You’d be surprised at what you can make the general public believe.
.
On Sunday evening, Emma drops Henry at their doorstep. He shuffles through the doorway, puts his backpack down with a pointed thump and pushes his winter clothes in the entrance closet. She sits on the couch with her legs tucked to her side watching him cautiously.
“Did you have a good weekend, sweetheart?” she tries.
Henry shakes his head and mutters with a miffed frown, “It was fine.”
He’s already turning to make a beeline to his room when Regina calls his name out softly.
She rises out of her seat and comes to a stop right in front of him, stooping down so that she can meet her son’s eyes at the same height. “I know I haven’t always been honest with you,” she begins.
“And I’m sorry.”
Henry blinks once, twice, his face remaining drawn and untrusting.
Regina brings her palm under his chin to lift it up gently. He’s so big, so changed from the little boy who used to bump into corners of furniture she’d never even noticed had corners before; so different also from the boy who would climb the bookshelves pretending he was finding a treasure high up in the highest tower of an enchanted forest. But with this expression, he looks younger than he has in a year, she thinks.
“I’m very sorry that I tried to make you feel like your instincts were silly. They’re not. You were right, Henry,” pausing as her voice breaks at his name. “You are right.”
The way that he looks at her now, it exposes her at even her most virtuous mistakes — the ones she’s made despite all the best of her intentions; lays them out like bits of crumb mapping the path of all her wrong turns.
She fiddles with the collar of his checkered shirt and continues, “I won’t always be able to tell you everything. My… my job and the law require that I keep some secrets.”
Her voice grows stronger as she tells him that some things, other things, she won’t tell him because she needs to protect him.
“I don’t know how to love very well,” Regina says, reminding herself that only part of the state their relationship is in can be accounted to her deceit. The other part is all walls she’s tried build around them; walls to protect him and sustain everyone else at bay. “But I do love you. And I want to make it up to you.”
Henry is hard to read and unyielding at times, and Regina considers briefly that these are traits he’s picked up from her. But all he has to do is put a hand on her shoulder for relief to floor her. Inside her it’s as though gravity has lifted and her heart has gone loose, floating weightless inside her chest.
She pulls him to her in an embrace, smiles shakily as his arms surround her. Regina kisses Henry’s temple gently and hears a tired sigh in her ear.
“Do you want to go to bed?” she whispers against his hair. “We have all the time in the world.”
Henry grips her back tighter and shakes his head. “No, let’s talk about it now,” he whispers back.
.
Mary Margaret looks at her proudly and it’s frankly disturbing, deeply uncomfortable in the same way that you might feel after unexpectedly receiving a vocal compliment from the professor whose opinions you most vocally disagree with. It starts with a small upturn of the lips but develops into a full on grin by the time Regina tells them that she’s also called David and asked him to come to the offices after his hours at Storybrooke — and so the meeting will be after their usual hours, if they don’t mind.
Regina has never felt more polite in her life.
(“It seems like… a conversation to have with the whole team together” is the point where Blanchard’s face starts to look truly stretched out and creepy.)
“We all need to,” Regina says, more than a little awkward. “Level our understanding of the case.”
She rubs her hands over her ribs to smooth out her shirt; looks around the room at the three people staring up at her: Blanchard with her unwarranted affectionate expression, Ruby with a smirk and eyes brimming with curiosity, and Locksley —
Locksley she lingers on, just briefly, enough time for him to nod at her. Regina thinks she spots a twitch on the left corner of his lip.
She rolls her eyes and loses the struggle to control her own small smile.