Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time? Far from mine, most regrettably. But one can dream!

Summary: After devastating information comes to light, Regina ends up receiving comfort from the most unlikely of people. A slightly different take on 3x09.

Patchwork Princess

Infertile.

Dr. Whale's voice rattles around in her brain like a razor, cutting off nerve endings until Regina Mills, née the Evil Queen, rather feels like a shell of herself. Her vision goes tunnel, and her limbs stiffen save for the trembling of her fingers, and those she curls into fists so as to hide the tumult that one innocent word causes her.

Infertile.

Who would have thought, so many years after casting the curse, that Rumpelstiltskin would be right. Perhaps she should have paid that imp more mind, when he proclaimed that all magic came with a price.

Infertile.

This was one price Regina hadn't even considered caring about - until now. Until Owen. Until she finally discovered what might, possibly, fill the hole that had been festering in her heart for so very, very long.

Whale looks up from his clipboard with sad eyes, just as a little gasp issues from behind. Regina whirls, only to come face to face with the one person she never wants in a room with her when receiving devastating personal information. Scratch that, she just does not want Mary Margaret Blanchard in the same room as her, ever. Yet here the meek schoolteacher is, wearing the same countenance as Whale. And suddenly, something in Regina snaps - because despite having stamped out every bit of Snow White that she possibly can, that shadow of her past comes flickering back in Mary Margaret's eyes as the small woman looks upon Regina much the same way a small princess regarded the Evil Queen, one foggy morning of an execution gone awry:

With pity.

How dare they. How dare they.

Regina makes to speak, perhaps spew an insult Mary Margaret's way, but is horrified when all that happens is something more resembling a sob than actual intelligence. This, of course, only serves to further her companions' sympathy kick.

"Regina-"

"No," the aforementioned mayor manages toward her doctor. Or maybe the situation. Definitely at Mary Margaret.

This may not be an execution per se... but it's a life sentence of the terminal sort.

She has to get out of here. That is the foremost thought in her mind, and it is so powerful that Regina can barely put one foot in front of the other before she is running, shoving past Mary Margaret with the flowers in her hand and escaping on through the room with the coma patient whose vase still touts fresh greenery from the afternoon previous.

Oh, to be loved by someone; loved so fiercely that it even transcends the confines of a curse meant to make its victims forget. Mary Margaret can't seem to stop coming to stare upon the beloved she does not even know is hers, day in and day out.

Certainly, she will never be granted love like that, Regina laments bitterly. How will it ever be hers, now?

Infertile.

She continues to jog blindly, apathetic about where her course takes her so long as it is far from the curious gazes of the townfolk, and most importantly, far from a hospital room containing the results that will haunt her for the rest of her miserable life. Because that's what it is, isn't it? Misery. She had thought bringing everyone to this new world without their happy endings would in turn make up for the one they so ruthlessly stole from her; that somehow enacting revenge on Snow White and her people would give Regina the satisfaction she needed to move on.

It's fallacy to believe anything could have been that easy for her.

Regina stumbles, quickly realizing that she's plumb out of Storybrooke to cover. She's not at the sign but she's as good as, because somewhere out beyond the miles of ocean before her is surely another invisible line no one here can cross - not even the caster of the curse herself. Regina Mills is just as stuck as everyone else in this wretched hell that passed as a quaint tourist locale.

She sinks onto a bench, breathing deeply - in, out... in, out - while pulling her jacket tightly against her body. It is fruitless trying to protect one's self from the chill that seems so pervasive here on the docks, though. It seeps into Regina's very bones, choking the woman from the inside out. She cannot tell if the shivering that follows is because of the air or repressed emotions struggling to break free. Probably both.

"Miss Mills? Are you alright?" A soft voice, so perfectly prim and bell-like it is almost sickening, accompanies a hand that rests itself on Regina's shoulder. Oh hell no.

If she were anyone but the Evil Queen, Regina might have found it within herself to feel impressed by the woman who was once her stepdaughter, for having been able to track her mad dash from the hospital to here. She might even have been immeasurably pissed off, under normal circumstances. But Regina is merely hanging on by a thread, and that is a dangerous place to be, because it means maybe she isn't in control right now. And that frightens her, quite a lot, so she falls back on what she knows best:

Spite. With one quick shrug, Regina has separated herself from Mary Margaret. She ignores the strange response in her chest at having done so. "Save it," the surly mayor scoffs.

She waits, hoping her stern greeting is enough to send the little schoolteacher scurrying, but there aren't any receding footfalls to tell of flight. No, Mary Margaret's warmth is still at her back. Regina can picture her moon-faced visage now, all pinched with indecision and always, always lacking the sense to keep out of things that did not concern her.

"What are you doing here, Miss Blanchard?" Regina finally spits out, when it is clear she is not going to be rid of the woman any time soon. She supposes she shouldn't expect otherwise - Snow White had never been able to help herself, she was a natural born meddler and it appears even a curse hadn't been able to squelch that out of her. Shame.

"I'm sorry I followed you, but you just... you looked like you needed a friend," Mary Margaret says quietly.

"I definitely do not need a friend," Regina parries, but she is vaguely alarmed when her sneer fails her, and her voice sounds weak even to her own ears. The wind's fault, surely. Then she really wants to protest, when Mary Margaret sidles around the bench and claims the open spot beside her. Still, something holds her back. Something she doesn't truly understand until Mary Margaret speaks again, this time with a gentle smile Regina's way.

"Oh, that's not true. Everyone needs a friend, or at least someone to vent at."

Regina sees Snow in that moment, in the tenacity that has snuck through the cracks, and she is more than shocked to realize that what she feels towards Mary Margaret is companionship. Not of the amicable kind, certainly - it could never be with her, not after what Snow White did to Daniel. But being with the bane of her existence is perhaps preferable to being alone with her pain, Regina thinks with chagrin. At least for right now. Snow's company is, after all, not the worst tribulation Regina has ever endured.

They sit in silence, Regina too aware of Mary Margaret's presence and the fact that the schoolteacher seems almost to be waiting on her to make the first move. What does she want, pleasantries?

Mary Margaret sighs and Regina fiddles, flicking nonchalantly at invisible pieces of lint on her sleeve. If Mary Margaret wants venting, she is out of luck. Regina has decided not to complain about her insistence to stay here, but that does not mean she is going to pour her heart out for Snow freaking White, either. One go around with that tattletale was enough, thank you very much.

Maybe Mary Margaret senses the unexplained tension that subsists between them, because it is she that breaks first, choosing to stare out at the great beyond rather than Regina and that suits the other woman just fine. "I may not know what it is exactly that you are going through right now, Regina... But I think, at the very least, I can appreciate some small part of it. That deep, aching loneliness, when you have no one close to you to speak of - no family - well, let's just say, it's no stranger to me. And I, too..."

Regina glances at her companion out of the corner of her eye; she seems to be struggling with words, eyebrows crinkling and mouth working until she stumbles onto the right phrase. "I know what it is to crave for a child."

The child?

Gone, it was in the wardrobe, and then it was gone.

Regina shivers, this time born not of the cold or her current dysfunction, but of things past and things to come.

Their child is the key, memory Rumpelstiltskin leers from the bars of his cell, in a land far away and yet not far enough.

They are still ten years out, but when it used to be twenty-eight that number seems almost risible.

Regina does not like to ponder much, about what that might mean, so instead she just listens to Mary Margaret. Not that this alternative is any easier to stomach, when it is clear the woman beside her is not finished with their current topic. It is as though eighteen years worth of bottled secrets and hidden desires are toppling free, and Regina wonders with just a little disdain when the tables turned. She did not start out this temporary detente with the intention of becoming Mary Margaret's confidante. Still, even Regina is taken aback when she hears what Mary Margaret chooses to reveal next.

"In his pawn shop, Mr. Gold... he... has a mobile, all dainty and crystalline with the most beautiful unicorns hanging off the strings, so realistic they look as though they could be dancing when the breeze hits it just the right way. And sometimes I go in there, pretending to browse, when really... I just want to stare, stare at that perfect mobile." Mary Margaret sounds breathless; enchanted. But her sparkling grin soon vanishes and she licks her lips, continuing in what Regina assumes is a tone of self shame. "I've never bought it, though. I don't know what holds me back, but I just... I can't. I look at it and I feel... sad. Once upon a time, I bet that mobile held value for someone. It is too exquisitely crafted to be anything but special, but they gave it away and that's heartbreaking. So buying it as my own, for a story that isn't at all mine but still seems to affect me... and for a baby that doesn't even exist no less..."

Mary Margaret sucks in sharply, and Regina catches her swiping at her eyes. "Well. I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm crazy. Regina, I honestly think I am. I get nightmares a lot - flashes during the day even - of... of people I've never met and places I've never visited and snippets of dialogue I can't ever remember hearing. They aren't real. And yet... and yet..."

Mary Margaret turns beseechingly to Regina. Her viridian depths are wide as saucers. "The worst one - I hear her, sometimes. An infant. She screams and she screams but I feel so helpless because there's nothing I can do. I can't comfort her."

Regina is having trouble tempering her features. She wants to be stony and she wants to be impassive, but something in Mary Margaret's confession has evoked indecipherable emotions inside her.

She got away...

It is the same voice, all laced with joy and agony but mostly joy, and yet... not the same at all. Snow White had an eternal optimism Regina made certain Mary Margaret lacked.

Regina resurfaces from the throes of a war-torn nursery with a strained query, though she has a good guess at what the answer will be. "How do you know it's a 'her'?"

Mary Margaret again seeks out the sea. Regina can tell her mind is miles away from the distant expression on her countenance. "I don't know. I just do."

Neither talks again for many interminable moments, each lost in their own melancholy musings. Regina is a conflicted mess; she wants so much to hate the woman next to her, but in light of recent events she cannot help but think that maybe, just maybe, there resides deep inside herself some modicum of regret.

Perhaps there are some things simply too cruel to steal, even from your own worst enemy.

Regina's reverie is snatched swiftly away when Mary Margaret laughs, shaking out her close cropped hair with a renewed spark of life in her eyes.

"Listen to me, I sound like a blithering idiot! I guess the point I so thoroughly veered off topic from is that, I get feeling like your world is crashing down around you at the prospect of a child-less future. It's why I became a teacher... I think." She chuckles. "Been one so long I hardly remember my exact reasons, now. But for some people... it's just innate. They're meant to be caregivers. I am. And you, Regina."

The aforementioned mayor gapes. "M-me?"

"Yes, you! You can try to hide it all you want but I know you'd make a great mother."

Regina just mouths, flabbergasted, trying to coax out the lie lurking in the sentiment but Mary Margaret's face is tender, sweet, and above all - genuine.

"Don't lose hope, Regina. There are other options. You can still be a mother, if not in the way you were expecting. There are so many wonderful but unloved children out there who need a home. Maybe yours is exactly what they are looking for. You could give them everything."

Everything... everything she never had.

And then it hits.

Her? The Evil Queen? A mother?

The notion is foreign. Outlandish! Comical, when you line the titles up...

And yet it is accompanied by a rush of warmth so fierce it threatens to knock Regina clean out.

She did try, once, to be a mother - mother to the very same woman who now perches so perkily beside her, doling out the most encouraging compliments Regina has received in a long while. She failed in that role, but she was a different person, then. Fresh with grief and practically a child herself, Regina was thrust into a life that wasn't truly her own. Back then, motherhood had been a millstone. Something to be feared, and eventually, despised. But what if this time... if it was of her own choosing...

Regina exhales and it is shuddery, but she has stopped trying to keep up appearances. She flounders visibly for a beat, trying to make sense of the jumble of possibilities currently flooding her mind.

"You say some people are innate caregivers. That it's meant to be. What if, in the same way, some people... some people are innately bitter. What if their lot in life is to never find real happiness?"

"I would say..." Mary Margaret hesitates and then she stands, going to smooth out her skirt before gracing Regina with the most blinding of smiles, "that - with all due respect, Madam Mayor - you are wrong. Everyone has a shot at happiness: not because it is found, but because we make our own."

And with that, the charming young schoolteacher bids a still reeling Regina pleasant farewell, leaving the mayor to the mercy of her thoughts. Mostly they are a blur, but one is steadily gaining ground and sprouting wings:

Infertility. It is not the end all be all for Regina Mills. No, it is just the beginning. She will be a mother - a great one, even. Not necessarily because Mary Margaret says so, though the fact that the statement arrives in spirit from Snow White herself brings odd lightness to Regina's heart. No, it was truly Owen who did the most for Regina, because it was he who showed her, proved to her during his short stint in Storybrooke, that she had potential. He had been the first patch in the hole Rumpelstiltskin foretold of, and now Regina realizes -

She is finally ready to complete the mending process.

So tonight, perhaps a trip to Mr. Gold's is in order. Because if there's one thing the imp is skilled at - aside from making deals - it is acquiring the impossible.

And maybe, somewhere along the way, Regina will acquire her happy ending in the process.

FIN