Chapter Text
The air in the Enchanted Forest felt different upon their return, thinner, somehow, as if the land itself had exhaled after holding its breath for too long. Snow White stepped forward first, her bare feet sinking into the familiar soft earth. The forest smelled of moss and damp bark and the ghost of memory.
It was home.
Scarred by the curse and time, yet so hauntingly familiar.
She had imagined how it would be to get back here, they even tried with the beans. A fresh start to rebuild her family and reconnect in peace over their lost shared years. However, Snow never thought she’d be back home without her daughter and grandchild.
They were all wearing the clothes they left the land with, making it all even more dreading. She glances at Regina’s pained expression and immediately understands why. She knows what memories this land entails for the older woman. She knows what being back here, in the Evil Queen outfit, feels. She was ripped away from her happiest moment of being reunited with Henry to total despair and a twisted reminder of her horrible past.
At the edge of the clearing, Aurora and Phillip waited, looking in awe at the large group.
"How have things been since we left?" Snow asked the couple as she reached them. "The Ogres?"
Aurora's shoulders straightened with pride that was entirely her own. "Defeated. We're restoring our kingdom and our lives."
"Congratulations." Snow's smile came without effort.
Aurora blinked, then laughed, startled. "Is it that obvious?"
"You're glowing," Snow said simply.
Behind them, the sound that could only be Regina, A low, precise exhale of discontent. "Why is she pregnant, and I'm the one who's sick?"
Phillip stepped towards the leaders of the homecoming group. "You and your friends are welcome in our kingdom. Whatever you need."
Charming's hand found the small of Snow's back. "Thank you. But what we need is horses. We have our own kingdom."
"Our castle was destroyed in the curse," Snow reminded him, remembering her last visit to her palace with Emma after they fell into Jefferson’s hat.
Hook's voice carried easily from somewhere behind them, dry as salt-wind. "Well played, Your Majesty, you laid waste to everything quite thoroughly."
Aurora lifted her chin. "Not everything. Her castle still stands."
Regina's mouth curved into a smile that was more proprietary than warm. "Of course it does. I protected it."
"Technically," Charming said, and Snow could hear him choosing his words, "the castle doesn't belong to her. It was Snow's before she took it."
"To be fair," Regina said, with the particular smoothness she deployed when she knew she'd already won the point, "I married into it."
Snow turned beaming. Never a good look on Snow, it meant she had an idea Regina would definitely not like. "That you did. And now we're taking it back." A beat. "And you're coming with us."
Regina stared at her. "You can't be serious."
"Everyone out there is frightened," Snow said. "They're confused. They need to see that we've come back, and that we've come back together. United." She held Regina's gaze without flinching. "You're coming with us. I know you don't like it. You'll learn to."
There was a long moment. Irritation, calculation, and something that might in another woman have been called resignation, but in Regina was more like a decision made behind closed doors, all passed in a short minute on the woman’s face, yet she said nothing. Which was, Snow had come to understand, its own kind of answer.
Charming said his goodbyes to Phillip and Aurora. The group turned toward the forest, toward the road that would take them to Sherwood Forest, entailing a shortcut to Regina’s castle.
They were nearly at the tree line when Snow realized she couldn't hear Regina's footsteps.
She turned.
Regina had stopped.
She stood at the edge of the clearing, perfectly still, her face tipped upward at the sky. Not searching it, exactly. Not the way a person looks when they expect to see something. More of the way a person looks when they're listening for something.
The sky above was pale and empty. A few high clouds. Nothing else.
A moment passed. Then Regina lowered her gaze, found Snow watching her, and said, "What?" in a voice that made the question sound like a warning.
"Nothing," Snow said. She turned back to the path.
✦
The path to Sherwood forest was hauntingly familiar. After all, Snow has spent years being chased through them. She knew the angle of the roots, the soft spots, where the canopy thinned, and where it closed overhead like a held breath.
A screeching black creature burst from the canopy in a rush of leathery wings and chittering fury, and Snow had her bow raised before the sound fully registered. Her arrow flew and caught, but barely, a graze, and the thing pivoted midair with a speed that shouldn't have been possible and dove again.
"We need cover!" she called out.
“No.” Regina refused to duck; she stood her ground while everyone else moved, one hand raised with fire gathering at her fingertips. “I don’t run from monsters; they run from me.” The monkey twisted, faster than the spell, dove again, seized Regina's arms with its clawed feet, and lifted Regina from the forest floor.
Snow grabbed at Regina, trying to keep her from being taken away. The creature’s claws tore through Regina's sleeve. Blood welled bright and immediate against dark fabric, yet it lost its grip and fled skyward. Snow and Regina stumbled together against a tree trunk and stayed there for a moment, breathing.
The creature returned screaming again.
"It's too fast!" Snow exclaimed.
"I'm open to suggestions," Regina replied as she Snow pushed her aside to get cover.
"Get down!" The voice came from the trees. They dropped. An arrow sang overhead and struck the creature squarely, and it shrieked and retreated into the high branches, and then it was gone, and then there was a man at the edge of the clearing with a longbow and an expression of careful neutrality.
He extended a hand to Regina. "Milady." Then his eyes went to the blood already darkening on her sleeve. "You're injured."
“It's Your Majesty," Regina said, pulling her sleeve down over the wound with practiced efficiency. "And I'm fine."
"A simple thank you would also suffice," the man said mildly.
"We didn't ask for your help."
“Well, I appreciate your help.” Snow interfered, taking the man’s offered hand to get up.
"I'm Robin. Robin of Locksley." He gestured to the men materializing from the undergrowth behind him. "These are my Merry Men."
"Snow White," she said, and watched recognition cross his face.
"At last." Something warmed in his expression, not awe exactly, but genuine interest. "There was a time when our wanted posters graced the same walls."
One of his men, large and broad, with a particular wariness, was watching Regina, his hand near the hilt of something. "If you're really Snow White, why are you traveling with her?"
"Her?" Regina repeated, in a tone of such precise and dangerous calm that the man took a half step back without appearing to mean to. "Show some respect. Or at least restraint at the buffet."
Robin's expression flickered briefly toward something that might have been amusement. "Before you cursed this land, we spent many years running from your Black Knights."
"Well," Regina said, smoothing her sleeve over the blood that was already drying, "I'm sure you deserved it."
A distant shriek echoed from the canopy above, not close yet a reminder that the creature isn’t gone either. Snow's attention snapped upward. "We need to warn the others. Can you lead us through the eastern path?"
"Of course."
✦
The Dark Palace rose above the trees. Even from a distance, a barrier was visible. Shimmering in the air around the palace, a particular green of foreign magic.
Regina moved ahead of the group to touch the barrier. Snow watched her reach the edge of the palace grounds and raise one hand; the shimmer flared at her touch. Crackling, recoiling. Regina's expression hardened into something that looked like fury, Snow thought, on top of something more complicated.
"A protection spell," Regina said. "Someone has taken the castle."
"Can you undo it?" Charming asked.
"If I could," Regina said, with the particular patience of someone explaining something obvious to people who ought to be keeping up, "I would already be inside."
Snow studied the shimmer. It pulsed, faintly. "Who would do it?"
"I don't know yet." Regina's voice went quiet and precise, which was more dangerous than when she was loud. "But I'm going to find out."
Robin stepped forward. "My men and I can offer shelter in Sherwood while you determine your next move. Food, cover, and a canopy dense enough that nothing flying will spot you."
Charming glanced at him, then at the barrier, then at Snow. Snow gave him the small nod. "Lead the way."
Regina didn't follow immediately. She stood looking at the barrier for another moment. Then she turned, walked, and didn't look back.
Snow did.
She looked back once at the palace, at the green shimmer, and at the empty sky above it.
Then she turned to leave too.