♛ (yourqueen) wrote in welcomethreads, @ 2013-07-23 18:21:00 |
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Regina didn't greet Belle. As a rule, she didn't greet people not worth her notice.
Instead, she said as she came through the front door of the library, walking directly to the elevator, "Stay close to me and don't touch anything."
Rather than open the elevator by hand, she made a gesture across the doors. She spared a glance to the controls - they had been jury-rigged, probably by those scheming fools that had earlier taken her magic, to be operational by one person. To let Hook pull himself back up after she'd thrown him to Maleficent? To let her think her magic was still working to keep the elevator moving after their device - whatever it was - had taken her abilities from her?
The gears squealed in protest as they worked the elevator doors open. Each sound jabbed into Regina's permanent, low-grade headache, which had begun the day the first strangers had come into her town and now buzzed behind every action she took, like background radiation. Her tension manifested itself in the twisted purse of her lips, the way her hands jabbed themselves into the pockets of her long, dark coat, waiting for the doors to open fully; she ignored Belle as though the young woman were just another cart of books.
She had been telling the truth - for all that she'd kept Belle caged for more than twenty-eight years, she had never wanted to hurt her, never wanted Belle dead. For one, Belle was useful, and Belle was also not her enemy. She did share a few irritating traits with Snow - blinkered bullheadedness being one - but Belle had been less interested in destroying Regina and much more interested in kissing away Rumplestiltskin's wickedness, which posed no threat to Regina at all. There were no past offenses on Belle's saintly record to inspire Regina's habit for revenge. There was no strangle-hungry twitch in Regina's hands when she saw Belle's guileless face.
(Of course, that might change after all of this.)
"After you," Regina said curtly, freeing one hand from its pocket to gesture into the now-open elevator.