Chapter Text
She’s just told David that she’s pregnant, that they’re going to have another child together, and he’s holding her against his chest, and he’s saying all the right things, but none of it feels right. His body is too tense, his calloused fingers stiff where they’re lightly tangled in her long hair, and when she’d first said the words aloud, his eyes had assumed the same wild look of the prey she’d used to guiltily shoot during her bandit days.
Are you not happy?
No.
No, I’m not… I’m thrilled.
But he hadn’t sounded particularly thrilled; he hadn’t looked it either.
She tries her husband again, tests him, gingerly pushing away so she can properly see his face, but when she scrutinizes him closely, there’s nothing amiss as far as she can tell. His smile is appropriately charming, his laugh sure, and with a quick shake of her head, Snow settles into herself again; she justifies, she rationalizes, she believes, and has faith.
He just woke up, she tells herself.
He’s thrilled.
“We’ll build the nursery in Regina’s summer closet,” he jokes, kissing her lightly on the forehead. “That chamber is big enough to be a grown man’s bedroom.”
“She’ll hate that,” Snow can’t help but laugh, always strangely touched by the daily reminder that whatever horrors Regina had inflicted upon them once upon a time, she essentially lives right down the hall from them now—a friend.
Family even.
It is one of the princess’s most distant childhood dreams come true, reified every time she sees her former stepmother sitting in the chair next to hers in the dining hall, just as she had done when they were both so young, the fledgling princess and the beautiful Queen.
Granted, it’s still horribly complicated—as the finer details tend to be with her once mortal enemy. Regina is hurting deeply over the loss of Henry, and time has done little to heal her wounds. Some days, talking to her is like trying to turn a jagged knife into a spoon, and on those days, maybe turning a knife into a spoon would be the far easier task. She invests so much of her energy into sequestering herself away, snapping at people on better days and generously raiding the wine cellar on worse ones, rebuking nearly every effort Snow has put into reaching out to her.
Snow misses Emma and Henry, too, of course—every single day—but she has Charming, and she has faith that they’ll all eventually find each other again. And when they do, there might already be a new addition to their ever growing family. So, yes, the grief is always with her, settled in her stomach like a dull and pervasive ache, but there is also solace in believing in the possibility of a happy ending.
There is hope, and she has to hold on to that elusive but ever shining ideal no matter what; it’s her only defense against the darkness, against the voices that threaten to swirl in her head and tell her that she isn’t enough, that she’s always been a failure, and she’ll never be a good mother. She wasn’t to Emma, and how could she ever be to another—
She has to have hope, or else, well… she’d be down with Regina in the cellar, three bottles deep.
“Good,” Charming grins boyishly, embracing her again, lowering his chin against the crown of her head. But his body still feels like a wooden mannequin against her own, and Snow frowns into the silky fabric of his nightshirt.
“She owes us that, at least,” he continues softly—seriously even—his fingertips flexing restlessly into the thin cotton of her gown.
We’re having a baby.
Regina owes us.
It isn’t lost on Snow that these are conversations that she and her husband have had before.
—
David gets dressed quickly—(rather too quickly, really)—and says that he’s going to head down to debrief with the morning patrol. Go on to breakfast without him. He’ll see her at the daily council meeting afterwards. And he’d given her another crooked smile as he had said it, but this one looked tight on his lips, pale and unnatural.
Something’s weighing on her husband’s mind heavily. She pulls on a dress that is a little tighter around her midsection than it was a month ago and tries on a smile that’ll suggest to her friends that everything is okay.
Because it is, yes?
She’s having a baby.
At breakfast, she tells Red and Granny and Jiminy and the dwarves, all of whom have been there for her, her dearest and closest friends. Granny promises to start mixing up some herbal supplements, and Grumpy accidentally slaps her a little too hard on the back with celebratory glee. (“My bad, sis.”) Jiminy chirps soft affirmations in her ear, and Red—always the most perceptive to the nuances in Snow’s smile—congratulates her but knowingly says they’ll talk later.
Her smile falters, just for a second, at this unwanted perceptiveness, but she readily picks up her face again when Red turns away.
She’s having a baby.
And she continues to smile throughout breakfast, even when the Merry Men who were on the morning patrol come into the dining hall without David. (Where is he if he’s not debriefing with them anymore? Why had he behaved so strangely this morning? Was it because of her? Emma? The baby? Or all of them together—their charming, messed up, little family?)
And then, along her husband's unknown whereabouts, there’s also the conspicuous absence of Regina; she hadn’t been on the morning patrol, and no one’s seen her since roughly yesterday when she’d been brushing her horse in the stables. It’s not altogether unusual for the Queen to skip the communal meals, having never been much of a socializer… nor eater frankly, but still, Snow can’t help but feel a little disappointed that she wasn’t around to hear the announcement.
Oh, she knows it’s psychologically unfathomable that she wants to see the reaction of the woman whose total villainy destroyed the happiness of her last pregnancy and ensured that she didn't get to raise her own daughter, but as everyone from her own husband to Rumplestiltskin has pointed out, she’s always been a little strange when it comes to Regina. She truly believes that the Evil Queen has changed for the better, and she’s simultaneously selfish insomuch as she wants to capitalize on this very fact as much as Regina will allow, rebuilding their relationship on the foundation of where it had once so completely collapsed. Perhaps she still feels a morsel of what David apparently does—that Regina owes them for what she did—but her commitment to not losing her again is far stronger than any desire to see justice fairly doled out.
If justice was perfectly meted in this world, all of them would be found wanting.
(She isn’t enough. Always a failure. Wasn’t a good mother to Emma. How could she ever be to another child? She killed Cora. Stole Maleficent’s baby. Told a secret so many decades upon decades ago.)
Friends surround her in the dining hall. They clasp her hands, they hug her, and they tell her they’re so happy for her, but she misses her family, the few people who understand her.
She needs them.
—
She hears Regina’s distinctive drawl near the grand staircase as she’s wandering the halls, vainly looking for David.
“Don’t call it a bribe, Thief,” the Queen says harshly as Snow awkwardly ducks into the spacious alcove on the side of the staircase. It’s just her and a brutally polished suit of armor, all stiffened joints. “It’s not that. It’s a gift. Haven’t you forest people ever heard of those before?”
“As condescending as ever, your Majesty,” she hears Robin Hood reply, faint amusement in his accented voice. “We do have gifts in the forest, but bear in mind that I also know when there are strings attached to quivers full of gold-tipped arrows. I’m a seasoned outlaw, and I know what hush money looks like when I see it.”
“Then take it and hush,” Regina hisses, and Snow can all but envision the sneer enlivening the woman’s face, how it stretches her pointed and painted features in grotesque ways. There's a distinctive clatter that she's fairly sure is the sound of the Queen shoving the quiver into Robin's chest.
“If you know what’s good for you.”
“Is that a threat, milady?” Robin’s tone pitches up in clear irritation, and Snow’s thinking that now might be a good time to jump out of the alcove and interrupt things—make sure that the situation doesn’t escalate any further—but her fellow bandit beats her to the punch. “Because I don’t believe you’re as good at making those as you used to be.”
A terrifying beat of silence.
Snow admires the outlaw’s audacity and fears for him because of it; not many people have the guts to be so candid with Regina, and usually, when they do, it doesn’t particularly end well for them. Yes, nowadays she’s more likely to transport mouthy offenders fifteen feet outside into the bitter cold than set them on fire, but still, so many people continue to think of her as the Evil Queen, and they watch her for any minor slip-up, looking for the slightest excuse to tie her to the stake if she falls.
But to her surprise (and unending relief), after the long pause, her former stepmother only exhales softly, the gesture audibly exhausted and so terribly sad.
“Just… be discreet, okay?” She asks, and it’s not quite a plea because the queen never begs, but it’s not exactly a simple request either, charged with implicit meaning. “If you must, tell people they’re… tokens of appreciation for your assistance lowering the shield.”
“I’ll keep your secret,” Robin replies earnestly, “but not because you gave me golden arrows or because I'm intimidated by you, but because I’m wor—“
“Don’t,” she fiercely cuts across him, sounding much more like her usual imperial self, but this illusory facade seemingly shatters as quickly as it had appeared, her voice small and broken there in the end. “Just… don’t.”
“Your Majesty—“
But then there’s a whooshing noise that Snow recognizes to be Regina poofing herself away in a swirl of purple smoke, leaving a coughing archer in her wake.
—
When she’s sure that Robin is gone as well, listening as he exits through the main entranceway, Snow finally emerges from the alcove and idly rubs her belly, thinking of all that she had just heard. Regina had apparently given the archer golden arrows in exchange for him keeping quiet about something. She presumes that the alluded to event must have happened while they were alone in the castle, and a little nauseously wonders if the Queen’s secret has anything to do with the cryptic note that David found in Snow’s saddlebag that first night: The day we met, I saved your life. Thank you for trying to save mine.
She’d been too cowardly to confront Regina about it, thoroughly relieved just to find her alive in the castle, and desperately afraid to receive an explicit confirmation that the missive had been a final goodbye. But still, her suspicions have only been ignored, not entirely dispelled—and perhaps they've been even heightened by the older woman’s continual recklessness here in the Enchanted Forest, where her preferred battle strategy has been fight first and worry about accumulated injuries later.
Snow for one is sick of seeing her former stepmother covered in her own blood—careless, proud, and so damn stubborn.
(And in her darkest nights, when she nightmares about Emma and Henry and vast, purple clouds enveloping her home of thirty years, she wonders to herself if every wound Regina receives is a passive form of suicide, committed again and again but never entirely sticking—cuts, bruises, scrapes, tears, and burns.)
(She fears that one day, she's going to wake up to find the body of an entirely victorious Queen, still and pale, laid out on a cold and lonely bier just like her mother and her father and Johanna and—)
(It's a silly thought, she tells herself on those nights. Just another stupid dream.)
As she ascends the staircase to the second landing, she thoughtfully concludes that Robin Hood knows something about the Queen's elusive heart that she doesn’t, but rather than use that information to his advantage, he’s genuinely concerned about her. He’s keeping her secret because he wants to, not because he’s receiving an elaborate gift in return.
Snow briefly smiles at the thought—comforted by the idea that there’s someone else besides herself looking out for Regina in this forest—but her contentment fades rapidly, brutally replaced with the same intuition that she’d felt only just this morning when her own husband had surely lied about being happy about their baby. In a similar vein, she’s being shut out from some aspect of Regina’s life yet again.
After all, it was the older woman’s insistence on letting her anger and pain over Daniel fester that had started the worst of their mutual troubles in the first place, and now here they are again some thirty years later, together in the same castle and simultaneously so far apart.
Doubts seize through her mind, bitter thoughts that condemn and ruin her. The people she loves most don’t trust her, and why should they? Why should David trust that this pregnancy will turn out better than the first? Why should Regina entrust her with another secret after what happened to the last? She’s always been a failure, and she’ll never be a good mother. She wasn’t to Emma, and so how could she ever be to another—
She frantically increases her efforts to find either David or Regina one before the council begins but to no avail; neither party is at their usual haunts inside the castle, and the session is too soon for her to scope the grounds without being late. She’ll have to settle with seeing them in the chamber that they designated to be their temporary war room.
But there’ll be no time for talking once the meeting begins with all eyes on her—their perfect leader, the ever smiling Snow White.
—
“Where’ve you been?” Snow demands under her breath, somewhat angrily, when David makes it into the council room only a few minutes before the enchanted sundial on the floor indicates that it’s ten. He had come in with Robin Hood, the two of them chuckling quietly amongst themselves, before assuming his place beside her at the round table.
“Strategizing with Robin,” he returns softly, pressing a gentle hand into the small of her back. Her nose wrinkles at the faintest whiff of ale she can smell on his breath, the oaky notes inelegantly disguised by the mint leaf he’s chewing. “I’m… er… going hunting with him today to see if we can track an elk herd. We’ll be fed through the winter if we can down a few.”
“Uh-huh,” she narrows her eyes at her husband accusingly. “You hate hunting.” He’s a shepherd whose experience with animals mostly resides with domesticated sheep, and he’s also a swordsman who couldn’t properly string a bow if Robin Hood himself gave him lessons, which is supposedly what is happening.
“Different times, different measures,” he mutters, not quite meeting her in the eye, his face every bit as waxen as it had been this morning when she’d first told him she was pregnant. “I’ve got a family to provide for—a kingdom.”
But just as she opens her mouth to call him out on the blatant lie, to maybe even take a shot about the liquor he’s clearly been drinking, Regina finally sweeps in, wearing a maroon riding coat and shiny leather boots that nearly ride all the way up to her thighs. She determinedly doesn’t look at Robin as she drapes herself into the only available chair next to his, and with her arrival—she’s not sorry she’s late—the council begins.
It’s purely bureaucratic at first. Granny gives the rundown on food rations, and Blue says that she and the fairies are still trying to figure out a way to return them all to Storybrooke. Grumpy explains that the castle grounds are becoming overpopulated with tents from displaced citizens; they’ll need to start clearing some trees soon to make some more room, as well as to gather firewood for the impending winter.
“You can prepare the eastern perimeter for tree removal,” Regina says with a lazy wave of her hand, not even bothering to look at the map the dwarves have spread out. “It’ll allow for easier access to the brook if some of that undergrowth is cleared. And perhaps we can even utilize it as a source for a new well.”
There are appreciative, if begrudging, nods around the table at the practical suggestion. Regina, for whatever her many faults are, is an excellent leader when she isn’t terrorizing the lives of countless thousands of people.
David proposes his and Robin’s hunting trip to general approval, and it doesn’t escape Snow’s careful notice that the archer briefly bites his lip at this, though his expression is otherwise inscrutable.
“We’ll head north with a party and mark the tracks of the elk herd,” the archer elaborates with the confidence of a lifelong hunter. “Half of my band will continue following the quarry for a few days, while the other half will keep to the local boundaries and bag a few birds before returning to the castle. I want to ensure there are enough trained marksmen around for night patrols.”
“And you’ll be staying locally?” Snow asks her husband, receiving a nod and a cheeky grin in reply.
“You betcha—I’m not stupid enough to try any archery lessons leagues away from a healer.”
She isn’t sure if this either confirms or disproves her working theory that he’s not actually going hunting at all, but all the same, she’s at least comforted by the notion that he won’t be gallivanting across the dangerous mountain ranges where the Merry Men usually like to hunt. A thin sigh of relief filters through her nostrils before she turns to Robin.
“And how about you?“ She asks kindly, not entirely surprised when his answer is—
“Local too, your Highness,” he smiles gallantly, flashing his brilliant teeth. “Someone has to tuck my lad into bed, and after that, I shall join a night patrol… those winged beasts have been rooting around the Queen’s magical shield with more insistence lately. It bothers me that they’re so determined to dig beneath her defenses...”
Where Regina’s bored expression had incrementally softened at the mention of Roland, ferocity takes over at a perceived (and nonexistent) slight to her prowess.
“Like hell they will,” she growls petulantly, glaring at the man sitting to her immediate left, and it strikes Snow that this is surely the first time that the two have interacted since that overheard conversation in the vestibule. But despite the sensitive nature of that exchange—despite Robin's sincere concern for the Queen, despite the rare vulnerability that Regina had so fleetingly shown, despite the profound secret that apparently exists between them—neither of them seem to be acknowledging those nuances now, easily falling back into their usual verbal warfare. “It’ll take much more than some simian freaks to make it past my barriers.”
“Not saying they were going to, your Majesty,” Robin snorts, arching a waggish brow. When he shifts in his seat, his quiver rattles and the golden arrows he was only recently bequeathed catch in the sunlight pouring in through the arches. Bribes. Gifts. Hush money. Snow sees that her former stepmother’s darkly painted lips have drawn back into a dangerous sneer. “Your listening skills leave much to be desired.”
“You cretinous, little—“
“Okay, you two!” David interrupts them loudly before they can really hit their stride, banging the tip of his sheathed sword against the marbled floor to get their attention. “We don’t really have time for this. Regina, you’re supposed to be coordinating our offensive strategies. Have you got anything new to tell us?”
For a second there, Snow isn’t entirely convinced that she’s going to back off of Robin, her entire body taut with visible irritation, but finally, the Queen only sighs deeply, nods at Charming, and then, as plainly as day—with a frankly obscene lack of hesitation—offers up one of the most idiotic plans she’s ever proposed.
Which is genuinely saying something given Regina’s track record with idiotic plans.
“I’m going to visit my parents’ old estate,” she says, very purposefully shifting her heavy gaze to Snow, her dark eyes determined and unflinching, clearly expecting a fight and perhaps very well spoiling for one. “It’s high time that I learn as much about my sister as possible to know what we’re up against. Perhaps Cora left something behind in her personal vault there—something we can exploit and use against the wicked bitch.”
“No,” Snow snaps immediately, earning a silent snarl that has long stopped fazing her. “Absolutely not. It’s not safe. Your mother—“
“—is my mother, Snow,” Regina cuts across her with an air of vicious finality, folding her arms across her tightly corseted torso. “I know her. I know her magic. I can disarm any traps she may have set and return without any lasting repercussions.”
It’s the tiniest of slips, but still, it’s a rare miscalculation of speech, and Snow jumps on it in the same instant that Regina realizes her error with an under-the-breath curse.
“But there are repercussions, aren’t there?” She presses insistently, her lips curving upwards into a smug smile. Had Regina been just a degree more careful, she wouldn’t have intimated that there were consequences at all, but she did, and she bristles rather childishly at having been caught. “Yes, that’s what I thought. Cora’s vault is dangerous—even to you, Regina.”
Perhaps especially to you, she wants to say but doesn’t dare, well-aware that Cora’s abysmal conception of motherhood is an off-limits topic, and Regina only leers at her from across the table, as though she can read her mind on this crucial but unspoken point.
Robin raises an inquisitive brow, looking between the two women rather perceptively.
“Why would your mother’s vault be dangerous, milady?” He frowns, his gaze settling decisively upon Regina, those rich blue eyes kindled with unmistakable concern. Again, Snow is touched by the archer’s persistence in worrying for Regina, and she idly wonders if, despite everything, he might actually like her.
If there’s chemistry and mutual attraction between the both of them beneath all the brutal snark.
If this could very well be the beginning of something.
Maybe.
If Regina would stop lashing out and saying things like, “It’s hardly any of your business, Thief. Now go stick an arrow up your ass or something.”
Snow quickly intercepts as Robin opens his mouth, presumably to tell her something to the effect of, after you, milady.
“Which is code for the fact that Regina’s mother—” She bites her lower lip, suddenly reticent, pretty sure that she doesn’t have much of a right to speak on Cora; she killed her after all, and the reminder of that black spot on her heart haunts her every day, echoed back to her nearly every time she stares into Regina’s dark eyes. And now, at the mention of her mother, those same eyes are boring into her intensely, surely swirling with the memories of a woman who had it in her to crush the heart of her daughter’s first love. The princess swallows—temporarily frozen and overwhelmed and so, so guilty—but Charming squeezes her knee beneath the round table, grounding her, giving her the strength to finish the sentence. “—was a very powerful sorceress, and she’d surely take certain measures to protect her possessions…”
She trails off rather weakly at this but doesn’t look away from Regina. She doesn’t think she has the right to do that either with as much as they’ve gone through at the hands of the same dead woman. But to her surprise, her former nemesis doesn’t look particularly incensed—not any more than she usually does anyway—at the carefully worded evaluation. In fact, her next words are delivered with a certain degree of—not kindness, exactly—but self-possession, each syllable carefully measured and quietly articulated.
“Correct,” she nods thoughtfully, “which is why I’m going there alone. No need to expose anyone else to my mother’s twisted ideas of fun…”
It’s a long cry from the throaty rage she’d leveled at Snow on her front porch mere months ago when the princess had been at her lowest, when she’d thought that death was the only palatable alternative to living with the darkness she had wrought. Not even a few days later, Regina had apparently come to a similar conclusion when she centered all of her magic on the destructive failsafe she had made, prepared to sacrifice herself to save Henry—to save them all. The fundamental difference between the two suicide attempts was that one of them had been inherently selfish… and it hadn’t been Regina’s.
This was all less than a year ago.
So much has changed between them since then.
“You’re not going either,” Snow protests again, as vehement as Regina is strangely reserved. “We’ll find a way to beat Zelena that doesn’t involve you potentially getting hurt.”
She supposes this is where she’s the one who screws up, careless with her wording, ignorant of the irony that Regina so effortlessly identifies. She laughs mirthlessly, the gesture chillingly flat in her eyes.
“How naïve of you to think this’ll end any other way, Snow.”
“Regina—“ She exhales painfully, stricken, and suddenly, so completely terrified for her former nemesis’s wellbeing. How does this woman always accept the possibility of her own pain so easily? How has she come to regard its presence as the only reliable norm in her life? But before she can turn her shock into another plea, Regina has turned towards David again, determination in the set of her jaw.
“You know I’m right, Charming,” she appeals to him in a succinct voice before flicking her gaze around the entirety of the table: Granny, the dwarves, Blue, and even Robin, whose expression perhaps most closely matches the strain in Snow’s own. “We’ve played defensively far too long, and it’s time to start looking for answers before my sister decides to make a move that we can’t recover from. You’re a strategist, same as I am—this makes sense.”
David shifts uncomfortably in his chair—perhaps reacting to Regina’s insinuation that they’re alike in any way—but he doesn’t flinch. Snow thinks on the assessment for little more than a moment and arrives at the conclusion that it’s astonishingly apt; when they’re not being stubborn jackasses, her husband and once stepmother are both fairly logical individuals, approaching dangerous situations like chess players, and that’s what makes them effective leaders in times of crisis.
“You promise you won’t take any unnecessary risks?” He asks, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “That’s the only way I’m okaying this mission—I want your solemn word that you’re coming back here without so much as a scrape on your knee, Regina. And you’re taking someone with you.”
Regina immediately tries to protest, but David firmly cuts her off by raising his hand. “Save it. There needs to be someone with you just in case things go south or the witch shows up. You can take anyone you’d like, but you’re not going alone.”
“And who exactly is jumping at the bit to accompany the Evil Queen to her mother’s dark vault?” She scoffs, peering around the table with clear disdain, and Snow sees the reciprocal reluctance in her friends’ expressions, the incredible and firmly warranted dislike. It wasn’t just Snow whom the Queen had terrorized in her reign; it was an entire, sprawling kingdom. “Any of the seven dipshits?”
“Hey!” Grumpy snarls as his brothers bristle in unison, some even brandishing the small pickaxes perpetually hanging from their belts.
“Regina, dammit, quit antagonizing—“ David starts angrily, but the Queen talks over him, her eyes alight with a mad and maddening kind of humor.
“How about you, Thief?” She drawls thickly, turning to look at Robin, and Snow intimately recognizes what she’s doing—pushing everyone away so she can have her way, so she can go to that isolated manor on a hill and face her demons there alone.
“And what of me, your Majesty?” He asks with narrowed eyes, his voice deceptively light as she leans forward in her chair, the wood creaking beneath her shifting weight.
“Wouldn’t you love to have a chance to learn more about me and all the devastation I’ve caused? The innumerable, unspeakable horrors ? Would that turn you on?” She finishes, her voice deliciously sultry and so clearly an act, but no one else can see it. Granny and Blue and the dwarves—they’re all looking at her like she’s diseased—and Robin’s at a rare loss for words, his face flushed at the sudden proximity of the Queen’s weaponized cleavage. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, Thief, like I’m someone worth getting to know. How about it then—want to play house with a psychopath?”
Some of the dwarves are standing up now, and David’s yelling at them to sit down, and Snow’s fists are clenched tightly on top of her gowned lap, trembling violently. She’s suddenly so angry at Regina for being such a consummate liar, for playing into her role as a villain and justifying it as a shield, a tool, and a readymade excuse.
“Enough, Regina,” she barks, slamming her hands on the table hard enough to cause multiple people to flinch. “I’m coming with you.”
“No,” her husband immediately says, unspeakable worry laden in just the one syllable, and for some reason, it reminds her of the fact that she’s pretty pissed at him too. They’re going to have a baby, and they’re supposed to be thrilled, but he’s been distant and untruthful all day—probably for some stupidly noble reason that they’re going to have a row about later. “You’re pregnant, Snow—you shouldn’t be traipsing around in magically boobytrapped vaults.”
“Hell to the no,” Regina agrees with him vigorously, seemingly shocked out of her seductress act, first by her genuine surprise at the initial proposition and then by David’s unexpected revelation, her gaze briefly darting downwards to Snow's stomach. A pang of disappointment trickles through her—she had wanted to tell Regina herself—but the ugly feeling is fleeting, giving way to awe at the Queen's next words. “It’s too dangerous for your pretty, little head.”
It's half an insult, and it's half... not?
It's not exactly the kindest gesture of care she's ever received, if it's even that.
But, no, it's Regina, and she's simply just trying to push her away so she can do this clearly reckless thing without interference.
That is it.
That is all.
“I appreciate the concern”—she levels both of them a glare that explicitly communicates that she does not, in fact, appreciate the concern—“but I’m not a child in case you’ve forgotten, and being pregnant isn’t synonymous with frailty, Charming." She enunciates his name scathingly, glad that he winces. "I’ve survived living in the woods for years. I’ve weathered countless curses. I’ve survived you for gods’ sake!” She directs this last part specifically at Regina, not even remotely regretful about dredging up all the bitter history between them, the cat and mouse games they used to so hatefully and lovingly play in this very forest. (It’s important to remember the darkness of where they came from, so they can be all the more appreciative of their reconciliation in the light.) “I can handle a vault. What I won’t handle is you two being overly precious about my safety.”
She haughtily regards each of them, the proud shepherd and the relentless Queen, her husband and her Regina, as though daring either of them to defy her wishes. It’s the lingering remnant of the spoiled princess in her, perhaps, someone very much accustomed to getting exactly what she wants, and in this ephemeral moment, what she wants most from the two people she’s closest to in this realm is for them to stop being dumbasses.
David stares at her incredulously, his gloved fingers taut where they still rest on her knee, but Regina, after blinking a few times in amazement, actually laughs, the sound harsh and vaguely crazed on her tongue.
“What?” David asks sharply. “What is it?”
But Regina only continues laughing, holding her stomach a little and shaking her perfectly coiffed head.
“It’s just, who would have ever thought, shepherd boy, that we’d be on the same page of trying not to get your wife killed by my mother and I?”
It’s ridiculous to imagine.
Absurd even given their storied past.
“I need a goddamn aspirin,” David only groans, pulling a hand across his pale brow, as Regina’s not entirely sound grin seems to unnerve the other members at the table far more than her insults had.
“She’s batshit insane,” Grumpy mutters under his breath.
“You’re telling me,” Granny shakes her head tiredly.
Snow giggles innocently at all of these exchanges, but particularly at the loaded look that her husband and former stepmother share, both resigned to their fates.
Defeated.
And Snow White only smiles at them, simply triumphant.
—
Snow and Regina ride with the hunting party all the way up to Hangman’s Fork—where there used to literally be a gallow for traitors to the Queen—but now, there are only flattened trees, rotted undergrowth, and two roads that diverge down a curse-destroyed wood. Regina, impressively regal on her black horse, her spine ramrod straight, rides ahead on the left path, while Snow briefly remains behind to say goodbye to her husband. When they pull their horses a few paces away from the Merry Men, David reaches over to place a hand on her arm.
“I’m still not okay with you doing this,” he murmurs, his frown so gentle and involved. He looks a lot like Emma in the moment, and the uncanny resemblance stings more than it soothes. “You’re pretty sure yourself that it’s going to be dangerous there—the question isn’t if but to what horrific extent.”
“Which is exactly why I’m going,” she says firmly, nodding towards the darkly dressed figure some ways ahead of them now. The Queen is wearing her hair in an elaborate twist today and her riding costume is intended to provoke rather than be functional, but still and nonetheless, Snow thinks about a young woman with a long braid down her back and an uncomplicated radiance in her eyes. She thinks of how painful it must be to know that she’s going back to the place where it all began.
And powerfully, it hits Snow, too, that this will only be the second time she’ll have returned to the Mills Estate since she and her father visited all those many years ago, since the King had proposed to Regina, since she had stumbled upon Regina and Daniel in the stables, since she had told a new friend’s secret to Cora Mills. She'd been on the grounds only once after that, when the Evil Queen had revealed what happened to her first love and entreated her to eat that cursed apple, so she could avoid the same fate.
Her stomach vaguely flips, and she’s pretty sure it’s not from any degree of morning sickness.
“I… I have to be there for her,” she finishes, her voice coming out as little more than a croak. “You know how she’s like these days.”
So careless, convinced that she’s doomed.
“And what about her?” David demands, his tone taking on a slightly harder edge, even as he reaches over to gently brush a stray curl behind her ear. “If it came down to it, would she be there for you?”
Snow hears the echo of their conversation from this morning in this particular set of questions.
She owes us that, at least.
Regina owes them.
And she wonders—not for the first time today—what sad and indefinite shadows lurk behind the hollows of her husband’s eyes. He’s not thrilled about this baby; he’s haunted, and he’s looking at her, and he’s looking at Regina, like they’re both ghosts from a bloody history.
And perhaps they are, all three of them. Perhaps their twisted past will forever be present with them, the darkly arranged specter that reminds them of just how fragile this all really is… but Snow is Snow, and the pillars of her convictions are immutable.
She has to believe that it’s possible to not only live with that fragility but to move beyond it—to let the past go so as to strive towards an infinitely brighter future.
“I… I think so,” Snow says, a little tentatively at first, but then, with more certainty, adds, “I know she would.”
The woman who gave up her own happiness so that Emma and Henry could have a good life is not the same woman who had tried to kill her over and over again for nearly a decade. She's far from the same girl who saved her from that runaway horse all those years ago, too, of course, but there's just enough of a resemblance there to give Snow hope that maybe, just maybe, she'll cross paths with that uncommonly kind stranger once again.
They both look up at Regina now to see that she’s staring back at them with clear impatience. Comically enough, her steed is just as restless as she is, stomping around a little in place.
“Go on then, and I’ll see you this evening,” Charming finally sighs, leaning down and pressing a kiss against her forehead. It’s a movement that’s made awkward by the tall bow slung across his back and his body’s clear unfamiliarity with how to move around with it.
“After your hunt, yes?” She purses her lips, watching him carefully as he scrambles to recover his balance on his white horse, his cheeks a little flushed.
“Yeah,” he breathes unconvincingly. “Mhm.”
Gods, he’s such a horrible liar, but Snow is generous. She graciously lets the moment pass and tells Robin to make sure that her husband doesn’t accidentally shoot himself—(“I’ll do my best, milady”), and in return, the archer wishes her good luck with the tempestuous Queen—(“I’ll make sure she doesn’t misbehave.”)
And then, feeling Charming’s eyes on her back the entire time, she rides onwards and catches up to Regina, so that their horses are side by side, one blindingly light and the other so perfectly dark.
Complementary opposites.
The horses.
Them.
"Regina," she nods.
"Snow."
The Queen searches her up and down with those perpetually calculating eyes before finally regarding her with what can only be classified as a feral smile.
“Do try and keep up, dear. I won’t ride easy on you.”
“Is that a challenge?” Snow raises a brow, a mischievous smile tugging at her lips.
“It always is.”
And without waiting for a reply, Regina breaks her horse into a full-speed gallop, not bothering to look behind when Snow so closely follows.
Perhaps she’s finally learned to expect it from her.