A Thief and a Queen

A Special Connection

This is set in my "Reunited at Last" verse, taking place later in the Enchanted Forest timeline where Robin and Regina are together and Diana is only a few months old. It'll give some more clues as to what happened between Snow and Regina in this verse and one of the reasons why Snow is so against Regina. However, you don't have to read "Reunited at Last" to understand this.

My third entry for Inspired by OQ Week, inspired by a manip by darthraydor that can be found on my Twitter.

Regina paced her spacious bedroom, humming softly as she rocked her daughter. Diana was wrapped in a beautiful pink blanket made from the softest material Regina had ever felt. She cradled the girl, watching as the sun began to set over the horizon. Her nerves grew frazzled as a knot formed in her stomach.

Her husband should've been home already.

She looked down at Diana, who stared up at her with bright blue eyes. Regina tried to smile for the little girl, even if she was too young to know anything was wrong. "I'm sure your papa will be here soon."

Diana just yawned, continuing to worm her little hand free from the confines of her pink swaddling. Regina chuckled, though it did little to alleviate her worry. She knew Robin was a hands-on leader and had made her one. It came as no surprise that when a village called on the royals for aid, he had jumped to go help them himself. She would've gone with him had she not given birth only a few months earlier and was only just returning to her regular duties. Between them and Diana's nursing schedule, she couldn't leave the palace and it made more sense to send her just as capable husband.

Regina glanced at the door, expecting him to open it. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that Robin knew the woods like the back of his hand. It was nearly impossible for him to get lost. The village he had gone to wasn't that far from the palace anyway, but there had been a lot of debris from the last storm so it may have taken longer than expected to clear. If that was the case, she knew he would easily find a place to stay the night or be able to make camp. After all, a year of life in the palace wasn't going to undo all the years he spent living in the woods.

Part of her still worried. If she were honest, she had expected for them to find Snow and Charming by now. This time, the people were working with her rather than against her—though now they wanted revenge against Snow while all she wanted was reconciliation. She wanted to sit down with Snow and have a good conversation with her, a difficult one she knew they needed to have. The rumors about Rumpelstiltskin possibly courting Snow as a student concerned her. Her fear was that she had sent her stepdaughter down the same path she had walked so she wanted to stop Snow before she went too far, like Regina had.

However, if Snow was walking that path, would she still do something to hurt Robin? Would she try to take another love from Regina? Or would she just capture him and hold him for ransom?

No, Regina decided. Snow was still a good person at heart, just someone who had been poorly prepared for the overwhelming responsibility. She had been failed first by Leopold, who taught her to fixate on the superficial aspects of ruling and didn't show her much else as he believed her husband would handle that, not her. Then Regina had failed her, determined that the princess would never sit on the throne and so didn't see the need to teach her how to govern well. While Snow had then failed her people, she was not an evil person. She would not harm Robin just to get back at Regina.

She then worried that Rumpelstiltskin wasn't recruiting Snow at all but biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to try to get Regina back as a student. Manipulating a situation to cause the death of the man she loved was definitely something he would do. He knew it was a surefire way to get her back—she had gone dark after the death of her first love, how much darker would she go if her soulmate was taken from her tragically as well?