A Curse Upon Thee 2-12 (Patreon)

Granny’s Diner chimed a warning — melodic and friendly — as Regina crossed the threshold of the diner, the fresh afternoon air replaced by the stagnant aroma of grease traps and burnt coffee grounds. Joy.

The rhythmic clatter of silverware and the low hum of gossip died a sudden death as more than a dozen pairs of eyes turned her way; eyes that remembered her as the Queen who had scorched their fields and executed their kin.Even the old lady Lucas didn't bother to hide her disdain; jaw set tight as she looked her way from behind the counter. 

Not that Regina minded. 

It was all the same to her either way. Regina ignored them all, gliding toward server girl — Ashley or Ella, or whatever the rat-loving princess was calling herself now — was waiting with notepad in hand. The girl was a mess of domestic contentment, her prince no longer disowned and her life finally “happily ever after”.

Despite all that, she still insisted on wearing the apron for some insane reason. Some people are simply born to serve.

“Turkey club,” Regina’s voice was ice; clipped, shaved, and cold. “No tomato. Fries well done. Coffee, black. And quickly, dear. I have a town to... manage.”

Hands shaking, Ashley avoided Regina’s gaze and handed the written order to the silver-haired innkeeper.“David manages the town now, Regina.” The old woman’s murmur carried over as she walked off with the order.“He plays at it, I suppose.” Regina’s fingers thrummed against the laminate. Instead of bothering to sit, the dark-haired woman let her eyes scan the room and landed on the anomaly at the end of the counter.

Sitting right next to Ruby.

Chad O’Donaghue. The so-called "cousin."

The blond was a splash of expensive modernity in a room full of medieval refugees more used to flannel than finery. He sat with a casual grace that made the red vinyl of the stool look like a throne as he leaned in close to Ruby, voice low and practiced, but Regina could hear every syllable. 

“I’m just saying, Ruby,” The young man’s blue eyes — so much like Finn’s, yet with a coldness no one else seemed to track — tracked the girl’s every move. “Everyone here has the same script. ‘It’s a quiet town.’ ‘Nothing happens here.’ C’mon, right?”

He was fishing.

“But people don't just vanish into thin air, and this… this Mr. Gold? I want to meet the man. I’ve been trying to meet him.”“Why?” Ruby offered him nothing but one word and a flat green-eyed stare.“For one, I heard he’s the one who really gets things done in this whole zip code.”

Regina’s right hand began to thrum, a constant twitch born of that new, free-flowing magic that had been leaking into her since the Curse broke.

She reached out, her fingers wrapping around a glass salt shaker to steady herself.

“He’s very private, Chad,” Ruby finally said, her voice tight. “And Gold doesn't take meetings with ‘associates’ from companies nobody has ever heard of.”

“Blue Trumpet isn't ‘nobody,’ Ruby. We’re—”

Crack.

Glass shards and white crystals showered the counter, a cloud of white salt puffing into the air as the salt shaker detonated in Regina’s palm. 

Voices stopped again, every head turned as Regina stared down at her hand. She felt the sting, breath hitching as she let the last few fragments fall from her clenched fist.

No blood stared back at her, skin perfect and unmarred. 

"This shaker..." Regina said, her voice a smooth, practiced mask as she looked around the room. She offered a thin smile that she knew didn't reach her eyes. “These old things must be past their expiration date. Terribly fragile.”

One of the Seven Dwarfs — she couldn't remember his name, only the smell of coal and entitlement — stared at the pulverized glass in front of her. "It's glass, Regina.” A rough hand tightened around his coffee mug as he looked her in the eyes. "Not a damn egshell."

"Doesn’t matter. I'll clean it up," Granny Lucas snapped, stepping between Regina and the counter. She shoved a brown paper bag and a cardboard coffee carrier toward the former mayor. “Your order, Ms. Mills. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. It’s been fixed recently, and I’d hate for you to break that, too.”

Regina took the bag, the paper crinkling under a grip she was desperately trying to keep soft, and marched out.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The drive was supposed to be a reprieve.

Regina steered the Mercedes with one hand, the other shoving a triangle of the turkey club into her mouth. She needed the calories. The magic was burning through her like a fever, leaving her bone-tired and dangerously strong.

It was ultimately why she hadn't fought David when he suggested Henry stay with him. She was a danger to her own son, as much as she hated even thinking that. If she even hugged him too hard, she might snap his ribs. 

I have to control it. The sandwich tasted like ash yet she kept chewing. I have to be better. She was already trying to be better, kinder even. 

And she was definitely making at least some progress. If she’d been so flush with magic to this level back in Misthaven, she’d have destroyed anyone who ever looked at her like these people dared to.

Suddenly, she slammed on the brakes. The Mercedes screeched, tires smoking against the asphalt. Her turkey club slid off the seat, scattering bacon and lettuce across the floor mats.

There, shambling across the street in the shimmering afternoon heat, was a man.

Dark haired hung limp over his face, the tall figure wearing a tattered vest that Regina recognized even all these years later. "Daniel?"

The man turned his head just a fraction as Regina gaped through the windshield. Her mouth fell open further as his profile stood out even clearer; a jawline she’d kissed too many times and the same brow she’d shed tears over — visible in the light of the afternoon sun.

Yet, that wasn’t all. 

Skin the color of ashes surrounded eyes that looked sunken and darker than she’d ever seen them stared back at her. Her own eyes wide, she pulled over to the side of the road as quickly as she could, breath coming in ragged hitches. 

A short few seconds later, Regina threw the door open, stumbling out into the street. “Daniel!”

She ran to the spot where he had been, her heels clicking frantically, but the sidewalk was empty. There was no one in the shadows of the library. No one in the alley. The man had vanished as if he were made of the very fog that had brought the memories back.

She stood in front of the alley, the smell of burnt coffee and Maine pine suffocating her.

“I’m not crazy,” she hissed to the empty street, her hands curling into fists. “I know what I saw. I know that face.”

There was only one man in Storybrooke who trafficked in the resurrection of the dead; one man  possessed of the clinical ego to meddle with the line between life and death.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

"Whale!"

Regina’s voice echoed off the damp, concrete walls of the hospital basement. The air down here was different—colder, smelling of formaldehyde and copper and a sharp copper tang she knew too well.

“Whale? Where are you, you miserable little graverobber?”The once-queen threw her shoulder against the heavy steel door and — with a grunt — shoved her way into the auxiliary lab, eyes taking all of a second to adjust to the clinical lighting. Answer m-!”

She froze in her tracks, words dead on her tongue as she stared at the figure slumped over in the center of the room. “...Whale?”A groan was her only answer, yet it was all she needed as the doctor rolled over. 

Regina swallowed as she took in the shredded white lab coat, most of the thing soaked  through with an impossible amount of bright, arterial blood. Yet, it was the left side of his torso that made Regina recoil. “Your arm…?”

It was gone.

Gone.Not severed cleanly, but ripped away; the stump a jagged ruin of muscle and bone.

Regina gasped, a rare moment of genuine shock breaking through her composure. But as the horror settled, it only confirmed her suspicion. "What the hell happened to you?" 

"Oh... don't pretend... like you didn't know.” Whale’s glazed eyes rolled back to look at her as he clutched the stump, words a wet rattling wheeze of laughter. "Only reason... you're here."

Regina’s eyes narrowed as she stepped over a puddle of red.. "So you did it? You brought him back?"

"Yes," Whale whispered, head lolling back against the leg of a surgical table. “I mean... I tried. I thought I had it. The heart... the enchanted heart, it should have been enough with the magic back like this.”

"What?" Regina’s voice dropped to a terrifying whisper. "You used a heart on Daniel?"

"It’s never worked... so well," Whale groaned, his face contorting. “Whale, talk to me,” she demanded, grabbing his collar and hauling him up until his feet dangled. “Is it Daniel? Is it really my Daniel?”"He was... he was even worse than the others."

"What do you mean, Whale?”“It’s a monster!” Whale screamed, tears mixing with the blood splatter on his cheeks. “He’s not a man, Regina! He’s a Revenant! I gave him life, and he gave me... he gave me this!” He gestured weakly to his missing limb. One hand grabbed the injured man by the collar, dark magic wrapping around the other as she held it to Whale’s face. “Explain!"“I… I just did!”

"You turned him into a Revenant," Regina hissed, mind racing as she let him fall back. A Revenant wasn't a zombie; it was a vengeful corpse that retained the memories of its life, but curdled those into a burning need for revenge against the ones who had wronged it.

"I thought..." Whale gasped, his grip on his stump tightening, blood dripping from between his fingers. "I thought if I gave you... what you wanted... if I proved I could do it... you'd help me get home! I thought it… it would… finally work here."

“Idiot”. Regina looked at the pathetic, bleeding man on the floor as his eyes slipped shut. "You absolute, arrogant idiot."

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The hospital hallway was a blur of movement as orderlies rushed Whale toward surgery. Regina stood by the vending machine, her jacket stained with coffee and blood, mind a frantic loop of Daniel and the stables.

“Regina!”

The heavy double doors of the wing swung open, and Mayor Charming marched down the hallway, sheriff’s badge glinting on the lapel of his jacket reflecting the fluorescents. He stopped in front of Regina, his jaw set in that stubborn, heroic line that she had always hated.

"What did you do to him, Regina?" The man demanded of her as he stopped bare inches from her, hand resting on the hilt of his sword — Regina honestly surprised they let him wear that in here. Judging by the averted looks of all the people in the hallway, people were definitely in a more curious than cautionary mood. “People saw you go down there. Now the town’s doctor is missing an arm.”

"And why do you think I did anything?” She raised an eyebrow at Charming’s implication. “And why are you even here, Charming?"

"When the town's beloved doctor happens to be found bloody and missing a limb in the presence of the Evil Queen, people tend to inform the Sheriff.”

"And the Mayor?" Regina countered.

"...and the Mayor, yes.” David jaw set. “I think we can set titles aside for now."

Like you didn’t just call me Evil. Regina rolled her eyes. "Fair enough, but I don't think Whale is anyone's 'beloved' anything. He’s a bottom-feeder with a God complex and a magicked-up degree."

“Regina! Tell me what happened!”

"Fine.” She threw her hands up. “Besides, this isn't even my fault. The overeager mad scientist did it to himself. He tried to play God with forces he didn’t understand, and the patient decided he didn’t like the bedside manner.”

David froze. “The patient?”

She leaned against the wall, her voice dropping into a flat, clinical tone. "Daniel is back.” For the first time, her voice trembled. “Daniel?” David blinked. “Your… your Daniel?”“Yes, my Daniel, you blond idiot!”“...sorry, continue.”"He’s Daniel but he’s not... he’s not the man I loved. Whale tried to bring him back for whatever idiot reason he had. I can only assume you blondes share the same idiocy. Your daughter certainly has it in spades.”“Regina!” “Fine.” The former mayor took a breath. “Whale turned Daniel into a Revenant with his airheaded mistake. And he’s acting exactly like you did when you came out of your coma, David. He’s confused. He’s operating on muscle memory and the last, most violent thoughts he had before he died."

David’s face paled. "Where would he go?"

Regina stared into the middle distance, her mind conjuring the smell of hay, and the moment a heart was crushed in a mother’s hand. "The stables. It’s the last place he remembers. It’s where he died."

David’s face went pale. “The stables? Why there?”

“Because it’s the only place he remembers being happy! It’s the last place he saw me!” Regina started to move toward the exit, but David grabbed her arm. “And what made you ever think you had the right to touch me?”

“Regina, wait.” He let go, hands raised as Regina eyed him with a sneer. “You can’t go there alone.”

“Try and stop me, David.” Her sneer only widened. “I’m not letting a mob of frightened peasants handle him.”

“It’s not just that,” David shook his head, thick with a new kind of dread. “Henry is at the stables.”

Regina stopped dead. The thrumming in her hands spiked, the air around her growing heavy and hot. “Why? Why is Henry there?”

David looked away, a small, pained smile tugging at his lips. “I've been teaching him how to ride. He wanted to learn.”

“Really?” Regina’s voice was small again, a smile on her face.

“Yeah,” David nodded. “He told me he wants to be a real knight. Like his... like his grandpa.”

That smile fell away as she stood there in the sterile, white-tiled hallway, staring at David Nolan as the word grandpa echoed in her head, a twisting knife of familial replacement. 

But it was eclipsed by something much darker.

Daniel was at the stables. And Henry — her Henry — was standing exactly where the stable boy’s heart had been broken.

"Get the car," Regina whispered, her eyes flaring with a purple light. "Now."