Chapter Text
Regina glared at the arrogant hatter before her. How dare he barge into her office and make demands on her time!
She should have known better than to think that changing her mind would be the end of the matter. He helped her procure the apple. The apple she'd planned to use to rid herself of the sheriff. But she hadn't used it. Emma's close proximity was no longer so abhorrent to her, so their deal was null and void as far as she was concerned. But people make rash decisions where their children are involved and he'd apparently had enough of watching his daughter from afar.
Her obsidian gaze flicked down to the fruit in his hand. Hadn't she hidden it away in a box from her crypt – protected from the ravages of time by residual magic? Had he been in her house? The thought of him invading her personal space sent a shiver of anger up her spine. "Where did you get that?"
"You should be more careful where you leave your valuables, Madam Mayor," the Hatter taunted. His wild, desperate stare fixed on the hateful woman and he flicked his chosen weapon casually from his hand, catching it deftly as it succumbed to gravity. "Especially ones as dangerous as this."
"What do you want? A bigger house?" She watched the tightening around his eyes and mentally kicked herself. Perhaps goading him wasn't the wisest decision.
"I want my daughter! I want my Grace!" he spat in a sudden rage. "Twenty-eight years, I have lived this torment – watching but never being allowed to interact. You think material possessions mean anything to me? Give me back my hovel and my child!"
Regina's thoughts turned to her son and a flash of blonde hair crossed her thoughts too; she needed to find a way to bring Jefferson back down to earth. Her eyes caught the apple again. What did he plan to do with it? Would he force her to eat it? She had envisioned Emma biting into it and ceasing to be a barrier between her and Henry, but their abrupt tumble into lust and depravity had put a hold on that plan. She was once again beginning to corral her world into a form she could live with. The last thing she needed was this insane tailor ruining everything.
"There's no magic here," she began firmly, but with a less biting tone. "I cannot change the parameters of the curse, but as mayor," she continued quickly, "I do have the means to find Page's parents unsuitable; I could have her back with you in a month."
The Hatter's face crumpled in agony, his thoughts warring between wanting his daughter and not wanting to hurt her in any way. "You made a deal with me. This magic for my life back."
"We can't go back."
"You will find a way back or you will suffer the consequences," he threatened. "When you least expect it, I will bring your world down around you, Your Majesty." He spat the title – wanting the mayor to remember that he was not cowed by her in either form of authority – and stalked out of her office, leaving her to stew in his words.
As the door snapped shut behind him, Regina's rigid form sagged a little. A hand landed on her stomach and she breathed through the nausea, turning it into anger. After a moment to gather her frayed control, the wheels of her mind began to spin around this new problem.
It seemed as if she was always going to be putting out fires like this. She'd learned long ago that if she wanted anything of substance in her life then she was going to have to fight tooth and nail to hold onto it. In this world without magic – in Storybrooke – she had a life that vastly trumped the one she'd left behind.
The shine had worn off a little after the first year or so. The mundane, repetitiveness had grated on her after a while. When she realised that Mary Margret had lost her backbone along with her memories, those gleefully bitchy meetings with the mousy school teacher lost most of their entertainment value. While she maintained her aura of power, with no one trying to attack her at every turn, she stopped feeling the need to be so constantly vigilant. She stopped feeling the need to scheme and plot. She'd won; her enemies were trapped.
For the next eighteen years, she fell into that odd calm. Amusing herself with cooking shows on the strange little picture-box in her tastefully decorated mansion, she developed a passion for food that reminded her of her potion making. She found a natural talent for organisation and tactics in her daily job as overlord of this quaint town. She exorcised her denied need to care for something by tending to her gardens. She made a ritual of visiting her father every week to tell him about her day – her way of an apology, though she wasn't particularly sorry.
All in all, the uneventful life she'd made for herself was a welcome break from the life she'd led in the Enchanted Forest. But while her hobbies were a pleasant distraction, they fell short of the 'happy ending' she'd wanted. Her food for the soul didn't reside in her kitchen and so she'd gone looking for something more substantial to fill that need.
Henry. Her son.
That squirming, screaming bundle of flesh and bone had terrified her at first. Out of her depth and jealous of Snow White's instant bond with the child, she'd almost given him back, but motherhood was an instinct that she found hard to ignore. He'd stayed. And her life had changed in ways that she could never have expected.
Like Emma.
After the initial determination to rid herself of the blonde, now Regina had the woman at her feet. Or at least, she had several sweaty, middle of the night hours each week. Sometimes, in one night. The sheriff had wormed, irritated and implanted herself into Regina's life without so much as a 'by your leave'. It was infuriating and exciting. They tore at each other, verbally, physically… emotionally. She couldn't wait to kick the blonde out of her bed – out of her house – after each liaison, but equally, she wanted to call Emma back as soon as she was gone.
She and Emma had something that she was not prepared to lose. And she would kill before she let anyone take Henry from her. She couldn't let a cursed apple destroy everything she'd worked for. Irony and poetic justice had no place in her life.