The Queen Who Plays
cursed
assault
corporal punishment
WILD CARD
Title: The Queen Who Plays
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Robin/Regina, Emma/Regina, Hook/Emma, hints of Tink/Regina, Henry, Charming Family Ensemble
Rating: G/K
Summary: Regina is pulled away from her reflection, and perhaps, eventually, her curse.
Word Count: 1712
Written For: HC-Bingo: Cursed, Assault, Corporal Punishment, and Wildcard (Living without the person you love) and FFFC r22.04: Karma
Warnings: Slight AU, Future Fic
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
She used to think she was cursed. She knew it to be true for the longest time, but these days, she's finally beginning to wonder if that darkness has lifted. The Mills legacy, however, has certainly left her with enough karma to be cursed for an eternity, if she were to live that long. She used to want to live that long. She used to want to make the entire world bow down to her.
But that was before Henry actually began to touch her heart again. She well remembers that day in the Enchanted Forest when Robin managed to persuade her to keep from burying her heart. Sometimes she thinks she should have gone through with it. After all, she had ended up losing him just as she had Daniel, perhaps not as tragically but still painfully nonetheless. It seems that every time she opens her heart up, she gets hurt again.
But then, too, if she had locked her heart away, she would never be able to feel the love she does for Henry. She would have never grown close to her son again. She would have never been able to make a family with him and his other mother, even if Swann did end up marrying Hook of all people. It was a marriage that had not exactly been painless for Regina, not that she would ever admit it. To love was to allow oneself to be hurt, but then to not be loved? That was a curse that made life not worth living.
She has imagined what it might have been like, what it would have been like if she had never been able to love her child, and Henry is her child even if he is Emma's flesh and blood. He is their child, the destined child to resolve the disputes of the centuries, to finally bring together the Charming and Mills households. Regina knows her mother had barely been able to stand him, but her father, her true father, would have liked him. So, too, would his other grandfather, Snow's father.
He is quite the charming lad, but even when she'd had him in her life as a baby and then a little boy, something had still felt missing. Regina looks around the deli now. Emma is whispering back and forth with Ruby in the corner while Snow and Charming almost make out in front of her. Henry's off with his girlfriend, playing the little arcade game Regina convinced Granny to add to her establishment when she'd realized her son had wanted to play it. She could have bought it and had it installed at home, but she very much disliked the idea of turning any room in her mansion into an arcade. Besides, installing it here had given her hours to be able to watch her son, both alone and with his sweet, little girlfriend, without him always knowing.
He is truly the brightest spot in her life, and it helps her just to be able to watch him shine some days. And shine that boy does! He has saved the entire town numerous times, and the whole world a couple of times. He's made the impossible happen many times, including helping his mothers and even his one still living father, the diabolical Rumpelstiltskin, find love. He has... He has saved her life for, even alone, Regina still wants to live.
Her gaze shifts back to Emma as Hook, as load and voracious as ever, enters the small establishment. The boisterous Pirate has a way of making any room feel like a barn. Regina has never been able to understand what Emma sees in him, but perhaps that's because at one time she had began to picture an all-together different future for her family. She had actually considered, once, proposing to Emma so that they could raise their son together.
But she doesn't love her. She does not love Emma Swan. Her heart belonged to Robin after Daniel, and both have stolen from her by Fate. Deep down, Regina knows she deserves this fate: to be alone in the midst of a great, thriving family, to be alone while everyone else around her is loved. She's never deserved to be loved, and if she has Henry or anyone to truly love her, it's far more of a miracle than she's ever deserved.
What she truly deserves is the worst of corporeal punishments. She very much deserves to be stripped of everything for which and whom she's ever cared. She's killed so many, slaughtered thousands and left millions more hurting. She is the reason they are here, and she is the reason they have all felt pain and grief. She's the reason Daniel's dead, and Robin could have lived a long and happy life with Marian in the Enchanted Forest if he had only chosen his first wife.
Instead, she thinks, looking down at the ring on her finger, he chose to wed her. He chose to love her. Their time together had been short, but it had been glorious! She had never known such happiness as she had with Robin, and while she had been with Robin, Emma had found Hook or rather, had found herself falling in love, with the charming Killian. Regina sniffs disdainfully. As though that Pirate could ever actually be charming!
"Hey, think fast," Henry calls.
Regina looks up and catches a small, round ball that's spiraling toward her face. She clutches it in her hands, her sharp fingernails slightly scratching its brown surface. "Henry, what -- ?"
"New game, Mom," he says, panting, as he rushes up to her. "Granny bought a new game! It's like a bowling game, only the balls bigger and you're actually shooting hoops instead of striking down pins."
Regina blinks. "Enjoy," she draws out the word as she offers him his ball back.
His face falls. "I was hoping you'd join us."
"Perhaps another night," she says and tosses him the ball. She doesn't want to hurt her son -- she doesn't like telling him no on anything that will not hurt him or endanger her ruling --, but she is not about to play a game of filthy ball in this establishment that, honestly, isn't very much cleaner.
"Come on, Henry; I'll play with you!"
Regina sniffs and turns back to her chilled cup of black coffee. It had been piping hot when Ruby had originally brought it, but she doesn't have a stomach for much of anything tonight. Of course the Pirate would see a weak link in her relationship with her son and grab at the opportunity to look better in his eyes and those of his fiancé, a fiancé who could have been hers... But she is glad, truly, that Emma is not. Whatever she had once felt for Swan had been nothing more than a budding fascination from the fact that Emma had opened up to her and was indeed Henry's biological mother. They could still raise their son together, and were in the process of doing that very deed, filthy Pirates notwithstanding.
"I've got a better idea," Emma says, but Regina barely pays attention to the Sheriff's words as she stares into the darkness of her coffee. She picks up her spoon and swirls it around, making ripples through the dark liquid. She pours a dab of milk into the coffee and continues stirring it. Watching the milky white substance swirl in circles inside the black liquid, she cannot help comparing it to Robin's once-bright presence in her life. But she is alone now. And she is meant, Regina knows deep down, to die alone.
"Regina!"
Emma's exclamation yanks Regina's gaze up to her. "What?" she snaps, and ignores the faces that both Emma and Henry make. They want to play with the Pirate, after all, not her, and besides, Queens don't play. At least not with balls. They toy with people's hearts, souls, and very lives instead.
"Come on, Regina," Mary Margaret calls to her as well, clearly seconding her daughter's stance. "Come play with us outside. It's a nice evening."
The weather outside is nice. Winter has finally ebbed away, and Spring is clearly in the air. Still the outdoors holds little interest for Regina when she can sit here, clean and calm, and --
"I could make the game a little more interesting," suddenly offers a musical, lilting voice that Regina has not heard in quite some time.
Regina turns to her right, and for a moment, everything else seems to fade away. She hasn't seen her old friend in a very long time. Perhaps it's the moonlight filtering in the open window, but Tink seems almost to be glowing tonight as she sparkles in her green dress. Her wings flutter, and she smiles warmly at Regina. "How about a little pixie dust to spike things up a bit?"
Regina opens her mouth to speak a snappy retort, but Henry's voice cuts over hers, "Please, Mom! You never play with the family!"
"Fine, fine," Regina says, shaking her head as she stands. But to Tinker Bell, she whispers, "That Pirate has best not assault me with his loud and filthy ways -- "
Tinker Bell smiles, and Regina swears she can hear a bell tinkling as she whispers back, "I promise you I won't allow that. A Queen doesn't play with ruffians, but she does encourage her son's happiness."
Regina sighs, but she has to smile as she watches Henry with Grace, who actually seems to be good for him. "You're right. She does." And as long as she has Henry, anything else is well worth conquering. Hook cannot keep her from her family. No one can, and as Mary Margaret chooses to step in place beside herself and Tink, rather than staying with David and Emma, Regina can't help thinking that perhaps that family is growing in good ways.
"I'm on your team."
Mary Margaret's eager words take Regina by surprise. "My team?"
"Why, of course," Tinker Bell says, "we must have teams. I'm on yours as well, Regina."
"And me!" Henry exclaims, bounding up and bouncing a bigger ball in his hands.
Regina smiles. Perhaps getting dirty tonight won't be so bad after all.
The End