A/N My first "Once Upon a Time" fic. Set after the end of the "Queen of Hearts" episode. This is my interpretation (after shouting "WTF!" several times) of what may have happened after everyone left the pawnshop. Enjoy!

The little bell above the shop door has stopped jingling moments ago, though the sound continues to echo between her ears. For Regina, it's the only sound she'll ever hear now when she looks at her son. At Emma. At Snow White. It's the sound of them leaving her, alone and unforgiven.

She hastily swipes her face under the pretense of resettling a stray strand of hair. Gold still stands behind his glass counter, watching her, and she will not – will not – let him see her cry (though he has countless times when she was younger, but that's his own secret.)

Regina inhales sharply, drawing herself up, pulling the tears back into her and tucking them deep down where they belong.

The air around her changes then. It is no longer hazy and yellow, filled with dust motes and streaks of the setting sun. It is alive. Electric blue. It crackles and pops before turning deadly calm. Before the lightning strike.

Gold senses it but makes no move the stop it. She deserves this. This one time, she deserves to have her rage.

When she unleashes it, it's short – she's still drained from the incident at the well – but it is powerful.

The cymbal-crash sound of glass cases shattering replace the jingling bell in her head. Her mouth twitches up. A victory, but one that is short-lived, for when the last little shard falls to the floor, when the pawnshop returns to a vast nothing of silence, the bell rings again.

Regina's shoulders slump once again. Her chin lowers. She allows the strange warmth on a cold cheek as a tear escapes and slips its way down.

She turns to Gold, a question burning on her wrinkled brow. The great, unanswerable question: WHY?

For a moment, she is the lost adolescent girl, hardly able to pronounce the name of the monster she turns to for help. She is the young woman frustrated when a spell goes wrong. She is the child wondering why her mother never holds her.

He looks at her – not as Gold the Businessman or the Dark One imp – but as Rumplestiltskin the Poor Spinner, as Rumplestiltskin the Weary Immortal whose weathered and beaten brow has seen enough of human nature to know. It just is, his tired, heavy eyes answer.

Free will – the ability to choose – makes fools of everyone. Even he is not immune.

"Regina…" he says softly, reaching out and tilting her chin up.

She twists her head away from his touch. Her mouth tightens. "I know what you're going to say, and I don't need to hear that right now, Gold."

He sighs. She is the student refusing to listen. (He is the fool who thinks himself a wise man.)

"I'm afraid it's true, my dear. All magic comes with a price. Even good magic. And, oftentimes, good begs a much higher price."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

I did, he wants to say, countless times. But now's not the time to squabble over specifics. Instead, he counters with: "If I had, would it have made any difference? Would your choice have been any different? No, it wouldn't have, because you did it for your son. For Henry. And he will remember it. He may not understand it now, but he will remember."

Regina stares at the broken case separating them. She is struggling with something. Gold can see it. After countless years of selfishly committing acts for her sole benefit, she's forgotten what it feels like to act selflessly.

"…But it hurts…." Her voice is a whisper. "Does good always punish us like this?"

Us.

He flinches at the word. It implies they are one in the same. The peasant in him likes to think he is nothing like her. The imp knows better. But as for now, in this moment, Gold allows himself to admit they are the same.

Her eyes flit up to meet his. She's waiting (desperate) for an answer.

"It's…difficult to say." He chooses his words carefully. "There are many variables – "

"Quit mincing words, Gold." Her voice has regained some of its lost authority.

"I'm not. What I say is – "

His eyes catch on something. An object at the front of the shop, above Regina's head. She turns, following his gaze, and finds it. It is a drawing. A portrait. A framed portrait of a young boy hung above the shop entrance, well beyond the eye level of visitors, visible only to Gold at his daily perch behind the counter.

" – is true," he finishes with a whisper.

Regina turns back to him, a quizzical expression on her face.

Gold drops his gaze and starts busying himself by conjuring the broken glass into solid panes once again.

"Only humans deal in the absolute," he mutters, limping from case to case. And fairies, he thinks bitterly.

Regina steps forward. She should be the one repairing the cases, and begins to say as much, but she and Gold both know how diminished her powers have been since the curse broke – not to mention she used most of her energy stores destroying his displays. Instead, she presses her lips together and rests against the counter. As she watches him re-fit the glass panes, she thinks she can manage a conjuring spell. One simple conjuring spell….

Two tumblers of scotch appear atop the newly repaired counter. The glasses are simple, nothing like the etched Waterford crystal she prefers, but anything too elaborate and she most certainly could not have summoned the whisky to fill them.

"Rumplestiltskin," she says.

He looks up, hearing his name, briefly forgetting where he is before realizing it is not a summons, merely an address using his real name, his proper name, to get his attention.

Regina faces him, holding out one of the tumblers.

"What's that for?" he asks, slowly limping over.

"It's…a..." she hesitates. Not a peace offering – such a thing would be too lofty to hope for or propose. And she will not allow herself to call is a gesture of gratitude for allowing her to smash his displays in a fit of emotion or for allowing her to show such emotion without passing judgment….

"It's an understanding," she concludes and hands him the drink. She picks up her own and raises it in a toast. He does the same. "No deals. No contracts. Just…an understanding. From one sorcerer to another." And from a mother to a father, she adds silently.

"Cheers to that," he says softly, clinking his glass against hers.

The pawnshop is quiet. The echoes of the bell have faded, temporarily at least. The sign on the front door is still turned to "Open," but no one is coming in. Mr. Gold and Regina sit at one of the glass cases, a makeshift bar, and sip their scotch. The old light bulbs in the antique lamps scattered around the shop give off a dull amber glow, adding to the illusion the shop truly is lost in time. Perhaps it's true. Nothing in this shop belongs to this time, this world.

The pawnshop and the two creatures within stand in marked contrast to the bright diner lights and raucous celebration a few blocks down at Granny's.

A celebration neither is invited to despite their efforts to help it come to light.

A celebration that continues to be robbed from them time and time again.

They drink their understanding in silence.