Sorry! Writer's block monster and this is a short chapter, I know but I just wanted to get something out as soon as the WB lifted because it's been such a long break. Again, I apologize and hope that you all continue to read and review. The next chap will definitely be longer :) I'll fix typos later since it's so early ;)

-iiwasalwaysthequeen

"No more babies after this." She winced as he tried his best to be gentle with her, unzipping her boots as her legs laid on his lap.

"You know love, it's due to short dresses like the one you're wearing that we're in this predicament." She cut her eyes in his direction and he shrugged with a smirk. Her expression lost all malice, real or faux, when he pulled the boots from her feet, her very tender and swollen feet.

She pressed her head back against the couch cushion in relief, fiddling her fingers over the modest bump between them. "It was longer before I started renting space to your seed." He chuckled, seeing that she was completely serious and eyeing him as though he was completely culpable.

"How was the lad on your morning walk?" He pressed a thumb into the sole of her foot and she hummed in approval, smiling when he looked up to meet her eyes.

"He has a substitute teacher, Mrs. Tremaine, and he tried to talk me into letting him stay home." She shook her head at his defenses, stating his case until the school bus actually pulled away with him on it. "He may not like her but he has to deal with her. You can't run away from your problems."

"Or curse entire lands." His comment was met by a pillow that she pulled from her side and threw at his face. "It's a lesson we all have to learn love."

"Keep talking and you'll never see your hook again," she teased before enunciating his title, "Captain."

He lifted a brow as he continued to massage her foot. "Oh, we both now the real reason why I haven't gotten my hook back is that two hands," he found a pressure point ans smiled when the relief overtook her features, "...are better then one."

He continued to work on the spot that seemed to pose the most comfort for her before moving to the other foot to find the same point. She was doing fine until he hit a certain spot and she let out a light laugh that was short lived, seeing as he stopped moving at the sound.

"What's so funny?" He smirked, expecting to hear her thought but she just shook her head, cheeks reddening as she denied what he had heard.

He began to work at her foot again and she shook her head with the attempt to straighten her features."Noth-" This time, there was no mistaking the chuckle that escaped her, an infectious sound that had him grinning without even knowing why she was laughing.

He lifted a brow and continued to move his fingers, only linking up the cause and effect of her actions when she erupted once more, covering her mouth as she shook with a laughter that had her eyes tearing. "Are you...ticklish?" He grinned as the responses to his question were gasping cackles as he touched the very point of her foot that activated her funny bone.

Seeing her so undone had him in his own laughing fir, tickling her just to get a laugh as she chuckled uncontrollably, hurling a pillow as best she could when he continued to work at her foot just to see what it did to her. "K-Kill-Killian!" She yelped involuntarily when he hit the spot again and she had no choice but to throw herself down in laughter, having run out of pillows to throw at him.

With a wide smile, he left her feet and planted his arms on either side of her as their laughs subsided into residual giggles and he hovered over her with a smile on his face. She had made his day just by laughing, just by smiling; the unadulterated joy on her face was addictive, something that he wanted to see all day, everyday.

"I love you."

Before she could respond, he reached behind him and she hit his chest as she covered her mouth, not being able to help the laughs that escaped her, hiccuping the first letter of his name as she tried to speak but could barely manage to breathe. "I-I'm going-I'm going to...Ki-Killian." She couldn't get a word out, cheeks flushed as she gathered herself.

"You're going to 'Killian' me?" He asked, chuckling at her broken threats. He wriggled his brows suggestively and she writhed into the pillow beneath him, not being able to contain herself. She just laughed at a comment she normally would've shook her head at but she just couldn't stop laughing. "Love, you must be very skilled with your hands to 'Killian' someone."

X

"Since we're trying to stay on pace with both the individual and couple's sessions, I figured we'd pick a certain topic we'd discuss today." He was tip-toeing around her feelings, she could tell by the way his words came as though each had an allegorical meaning and it was up to her if she accepted them or not.

"Is Snow still pursuing the trial?" It was straight to the point and divergent from what he was talking about but nevertheless, she wished to settle her curiosity.

"I'm sorry?"

"The trial...I know you're on Snow's council and I know she's still talking about putting me on trial. I'm asking you if she's made a decision."

Archie shook his head, pushing his glasses up as he moved to look her in her eyes, assuring her that he was being genuine. If they were going to continue with therapy, that was the one thing he had to assure her of; he was going to maintain an honest relationship in which she could trust him not to divulge any of her information despite him even thinking that it would help her.

"Any more questions before we begin?" She offered a small smile to decline him, giving the go ahead to continue with whatever he had planned. "I want to talk about something you said in your last couple's session." Regina nodded, absently moving her hand around the emerald stone on her finger, only hearing the paper rustling as he turned the page in his yellow notepad. "You said, and I'm paraphrasing, 'The last man that shut me down died.'"

Her cyclic motions paused and the cricket took note, pressing his pad of paper close to his chest as he softened his tone, attempting to approach her as easily as he knew how. "Tell me about that."

"Tell you about...what?" She became guarded, slowing the movements of her hands so that they became more methodic, the twisting of her ring seemingly like a twirling dance rather than a nervous tell.

"Tell me about the man who shut you down. Tell me about your marriage." He had dissected Killian and Mila's relationship, it was only fitting that he do the same here, that the insecurities are sought after rather than allowed to sit dormant until randomly triggered.

"Don't..." She looked up, wrinkling her nose at his words with an expression that he was unable to decipher. "Don't call it that." She was still behind her walls but her eyes seemed to have missed the memo, filling with an untold sadness that he had yet to see from the former Queen. "A marriage is supposed to be something beautiful, it...it's supposed to seal you and your true love together." She paused, saying nothing as she looked passed him, lost in a sea of unexperienced memories and ruined dreams that she didn't want to think of. "That wasn't a marriage."

"What was it?" He probed, not even taking a moment to write down his thoughts, afraid to hinder what she was going to say to him.

Silence sat between them for more than a moment and her eyes fell back to her hands. To the ceiling, To her pinkey, to her middle finger, to the floor, to the ceiling, to her pinkey, to her middle finger to the floor, to the ceiling...

She stopped, muttering a word that he could barely make out. "Hell." She looked up with watery eyes and the hesitation was clear as her voice rose barely above a whisper. "It was hell."

"But you got through it?" He led gently, allowing her to go at the pace that suited her.

"I got through it." But the young girl that entered the agreement, that walked down the aisle in a dress that she felt chained to, she never made it through. She was gone, having lost too much to continue.

"Regina, I know this is hard for you, but I'd just like to get a feel for what your.." He couldn't call it a relationship and he couldn't call it a marriage. "...your experience was like."

"Why does it matter?" She didn't want to talk about it; the past was the past, a box that she had long packed up and sent away. She had no desire to discuss the confines of her 'experience' jut to have the memories come knocking, possibly to knock her down in the process.

"It matters because our experiences in the past always have a way of affecting the present. I've found that it's good to explore previous...experiences while venturing into new things because if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it and if we never learn why we've done things then we're destined to do it again."

Regina's eyes darkened at the conclusion of his sentence, breath tensing. "Nothing like that can ever happen to me again." It was less of a statement and more of a mantra, as if she were saying it to herself and not the red-headed cricket she sat in front of.

He nodded, not wanting to hit a nerve. "It's just..you said that you didn't want to hurt him, Killian, Captain Jones. You said you'd leave him before you hurt him."

"I would-"

"But Regina, what I want you to understand is that you don't need to hurt anybody. This time can be different."

"Do you know what you're saying?" She questioned, her voice teetering on the air of frantic. "Of course this is different, it has to be different-Every time I was beneath him, I could barely breathe, Every child I lost was just another mar that he could hold against me and I was nothing more than an inadequate replacement to stand in the shadows of a woman long gone." She took a breath, knowing within herself that she wouldn't be able to take much more of the session if it continued in this direction. "I wouldn't be in this relationship if it were anything but different."

"Eva?"

She struck pale. "What?"

"Queen Eva, I take it that she's the woman you're talking about?"

"Who else would it be?" Her question has him leaning back against his chair, pondering the similarities.

"I think you've conquered more than you know."

She was defensive; she was hurt. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You allowed yourself to fall for a man that had lost a love." He shrugged, setting his pen and pad down so that his hands could join in front of him. "If you weren't strong enough to deal with that part of your past then I doubt you would have thrown yourself into a situation so blatantly similar." He lifted a brow, eyeing the Queen as she shifted, deep in thought. "Have you even thought about Killian comparing you to Mila, other than wanting to protect you?"

She shook her head, the voice that came from her being smaller than intended. "He never made me feel like I was a replacement."

For the first time in a long time, she was special.

X

Her session had ended an hour ago but she was nowhere to be seen. He had called her but she never picked up the phone and he'd heard her voice-mail more times than he would have liked. Minutes from going out the door himself, the woman he searched for walked through it and he sighed in relief, standing on the top three steps as she closed the door behind her.

She pressed a hand to her forehead as she spoke, barely above a whisper. "Can you pick Henry up from the bus stop?"

"Sure, love..." He could never deny her like that, watching as she closed her eyes to ward off the tears that she didn't want to succumb to. "Has something happened?"

She shook her head a he approached her, eyes moving from him to the floor as she attempted to contain herself but was failing just as miserably as she had that morning. The only difference was the intent of the tears in her eyes, the reason behind them.

"What's troubling you?" With a gentle tone, his thumb flitted against her cheek and she could do no more than accept what she knew.

"You're nothing like him." To admit that was her undoing, what undid the string to unravel her emotions and allow the tears to flow from her eyes. This was different, it would always be different and that alone comforted her beyond compare.

When her head fell against his shoulder in sobs that stole her breath, he knew who 'him' was; he was the only other person that he had been compared to in regards to their relationship and telling by where she came from, he was surely a factor in her tears.

But if she had to cry to get to the other side of her breakthrough, or her redemption, then he would hold her until there where no tears left to cry.

She was that special to him.