#also did i give roland and lizzie another kid? you betcha!

[welllpthisishappening]

Suggesting that she hated a single piece of wholly ridiculous, vaguely ancient clothing was absolutely insane. Which was never an appropriate description for Regina Mills. Not once, not ever. Insanity suggested chaos and a distinct lack of plan and for as long as Regina could remember, she’d always had a plan. 

One foot in front of the other, one project to the next. Only, well, that wasn’t a great way to skate. It was a good way to fall, actually. And Regina had never been a very big fan of falling. 

Still, that sweater was a thorn and a prick and several other clichés Mrs. Vankald would be proud of. So, it shouldn’t have surprised her that the stupid thing showed up here: at Killian’s number retirement ceremony. 

——— 

Word Count: 3.3k AN: This is almost solely for @eleveneitherway​ who, I cannot overstate, is the absolute sweetest. Truthfully, I adore her. It’s also part of the prompts I got from that list that I am almost finished filling. They’re retiring Killian’s number. People are feeling emotions. I felt emotions while writing this. It’s also the first time I’ve written Outlaw Queen as, like, the focus and the first-ever Regina POV for me. Which was actually surprisingly fun? Let’s all ignore the fact that Matt would still be wearing 20 while he continued playing. I don’t care. I wanted the feelings. Also, in case you forgot (because I also had to look it up) Killian wore the sweater to the Opening Night ritual in the first Blue Line season. 

———

“In my defense, I wanted to do it.”

Biting the inside of her cheek was an antiquated and instinctual response that no longer resulted in any bit of movement on Regina’s face. Which was good, really. Less because she’d managed to turn self-control into a science over the last few decades, but more because there were too many cameras. Pointed at them and this, and it was genuinely incredible that the New York Rangers organization had not evolved at the same rate. To purchase semi-comfortable seats for a ceremony that was growing increasingly impossible to hear over the roar of several thousand jersey-sporting fans. 

“I am sure you did.”

“I did.” “Not a doubt in my mind.”

Laughter in varying volumes and familiar, tell-tale tones came from several different angles in the immediate area. Shaking shoulders bumped Regina’s, a quick glance to her left confirming her equally antiquated and instinctual suspicions. Henry’s lips were barely visible. Tucked behind his teeth as they were. The toddler on Roland’s lap was not all that interested in staying there, clamoring for Lizzie and her hair, tiny hands tugging on strands that induced brand-new sounds of the vaguely pained variety. 

Emma did not try to hide the movement of her hand. When she pinched the bridge of her nose. 

Tugging his wife’s fingers down with practiced ease, Killian didn’t turn around to the Locksley-filled row behind him, mumbling, “Why would I lie to you? Right now? In this moment?” “You ask questions,” Regina said, “when you’re uncomfortable.” The overall volume of Will’s ensuing snicker was likely simulcast into homes and onto phones across the continental United States, its assorted territories, and most of southern Canada. “A three-peat, Cap.” “Does that make sense?” “No,” Emma replied while Will nearly shouted “Yes,” and Belle’s eyes had been closed for an indeterminate amount of time. 

It was all that sweater’s fault. The sweater Regina’s husband was wearing. At the ceremony to retire Killian’s number. With all these cameras. And all these people, and she hadn’t missed the reaction from all those people when Robin stood up and unbuttoned his jacket. 

Regina was going to burn that sweater. 

Or, well, so she’d planned. She wanted to. Desperately. Years ago, really. What was starting to feel like a totally different life the longer she sat there, in these torture-adjacent chairs while her kids and her grandkids and the rest of a family that sort of snuck up on her did its abject best not to embarrass themselves too completely in front of local and national media. She’d wanted to tear that sweater to shreds and toss those shreds into the sort of blaze that would inspire dramatic documentaries on multiple streaming platforms and over-the-top disaster movies based on those same documentaries with some of the facts skewed solely for entertainment purposes.

Every one of the letters seemed to mock her whenever that sweater appeared, far more often than it should have, stretched across an NHL-ready chest and shoulders that made both her and Killian quite a lot of money. 

Mostly because they were capable of twisting at an angle concurrent with his hips that, more often than not, led to the puck finding the back of the net. 

All I Want for Christmas Is Locksley

It didn’t even make sense. No pithy rhyme. Not even a slant-rhyme. Too many syllables to truly be a call back to the original, and Regina hadn’t grown up in a home that was especially fond of pop culture or its assorted references, but that one felt famous enough that it shouldn’t have been tarnished with a sweater that made a negligible amount of sense. 

And, really, that was it. The rub, as they say. Mrs. Vanklad, too. The sweater was a perfect cliché that did not make sense—was covered in letters that, upon further inspection, during a season-opener in a year her memory could no longer quite lockdown, were not perfectly straight, surrounded by candy canes that frayed with alarming regularity despite never seeming to run out of string, and she hated it. In the depths of her very being, even as it became more and more clear that the sweater was there to stay, another bullet point on a list of stupid jokes made by stupid people that she loved more than she thought possible. 

Despising a sweater was impractical. 

Only, well, Regina was possibly a little threatened by the sweater for reasons full of childhood disappointment and adolescent trauma, and far too much early-adult tragedy. 

Life was a line, she had been taught. For as long as she could remember. Point A to the next, a trip through the alphabet that could only deviate upon completion. And then it just progressed to Greek letters, anyway. Carrying on was a lifestyle drilled into her by necessity and what was frequently described as motherly love instead of popular early 2010s trends, and Regina followed instruction. Followed the plans and the lists and ignored the bumps and the disappointment and all that undeniable loss, until—

She sat at a dining room table on Thanksgiving in a downtown Manhattan brownstone that made something in her chest ache as soon as she walked inside, and she recognized the precise look. Of cautious optimism and patented suspicion of anything good in Robin Locksley’s gaze. 

When he looked at her. 

Directly across the dining room table. 

It didn’t make sense, either. Regina was already running out of letters for plans and projects, and she wouldn’t learn any Norwegian letters for another four years, when Liam thought it would be hysterical to teach Roland certain sayings on the ice, and she’d never wanted… this. 

All that motherly love, proclaimed loudly and perpetually as it might have been, had also done a fairly effective job of souring her on the role. But there was this guy. With his eyes and his quiet certainty and equally painful backstory, and, she was only human, so the overall muscle tone of his upper thighs coupled with the precise way his ass looked in dress pants helped, too. 

She liked him. She liked his kid. She liked the general concept of them. 

Loved it, eventually. 

Without reservation, mostly. Old habits and all that. Another Mrs. Vankald-approved cliché, Regina knew. Even if she was also perfectly aware of the exact way Mrs. Vankald would tut her tongue in exasperation over emotional hangups and lingering fears, and Mrs. Vankald was a questionably good mother. 

To all of them, no matter what their last name was or their tendency to get on the ice. 

She’d squeezed Regina’s hand exactly three times before kissing her on the cheek and telling her she looked beautiful on her wedding day. Answered the phone whenever Regina called with questions about whether or not kids noticed vegetables mixed into fruit smoothies and how often she wanted to kick the shins of various four-year-olds for daring to bump into Roland on the ice. She was frequently reminded that they were all four, and none of them could skate that well yet. 

Her kid went pro. 

Like her husband was a pro with all the requisite merch and ridiculous merch, and she’d hated the sweater because it was a reminder of poorly-stitched chaos and a distinct lack of control and it was incredibly, undeniably, ugly as sin. 

A cliché hat trick. 

She wished Mrs. Vankald was there, and she probably, definitely, absolutely should have expected the sweater to show up at some point tonight. 

Old traditions died hard deaths that rarely lasted amongst this group. 

Without reservation, mostly. 

“So, then,” Belle said, pulling Regina back to the present, “you’re saying you knew this was going to happen, Cap.” One of Killian’s shoulders lifted. The kid standing on his thighs wobbled slightly, drawing quick, jerky movements from two sets of arms on his other side. “Deep breaths, the pair of you,” he told both Peggy and Jeremy, who did not look even remotely pacified as their daughter continued to balance, before glancing over that still lifted shoulder, “and I had a general idea.” “Liar, liar,” Emma muttered. Gasps that would fit almost perfectly into the context of Regina’s wholly imagined disaster movie seemed to echo between her ears for their most impressive dramatic effect. 

“Swan.” She kissed his cheek. Several people aww’ed. Not all of them were sitting in the Rangers-provided folding chairs. “Taylor’s had it for years.” “No shi—,” Roland said, before cutting himself off. Wide eyes filled with the same sort of guilt that came after multiple instances of sneaking Matt onto ice he was too young to be on with skates that were too big for his feet met Regina’s. 

She bit her cheek again. Twice. Once more for good measure. 

“But,” Emma added, voice dropping as the cameras moved for yet another seat pan and reaction shot, “Rook said he said he forgot he had it, stuffed it into one of his closets—” “Rich jerk,” Chris grumbled.

Lizzie tugged on the back of his jacket. “Are you not getting ten percent of your brother’s contract?” 

“Twelve,” he and Claire said simultaneously. Matt was sitting on the bench. There was a game after this, and Regina wouldn��t be able to think about that for at least the first fourteen minutes of the first period. Twelve percent was a coup. 

“How many closets do you have, Toph?” Peggy pressed, trying and failing to pull Maddie away from her dad. He winked at her. 

Coughing into a microphone was not particularly subtle.

But neither was the sweater, really. Or deciding who got to speak first at this seemingly endless ceremony by staging a mini skills competition in that same downtown brownstone. Only in the living room, this time. There wasn’t enough room around the table. 

Regina’s current working theory was that it might have been a two-fold competition. 

Lifting her eyebrows at Robin’s bemused expression while he watched them with what could only be described as perpetual fondness, the edges of Regina’s mouth proved too determined. To lift and curve, a smile stretching her mouth and lifting the muscles in her cheeks, and he didn’t wink at her. He didn’t blink, even. Just kept watching—her, specifically. Waiting, that’s what he was doing. What he’d been since the table and the dinner and the family recipe for broccoli casserole that was far better than the bread pudding. 

Waiting for Regina to catch up. To him and this and them, the optimism and the belief, a quiet and steady sort of reassurance that altered the plan with an entirely new list of goals and objectives, winding and twisting, bouncing between up and down and high and low, contract negotiations to wins and parades and could-have-beens, and realizing when it all was enough. 

To know when it was ok to want. Beyond your means or what you’d been told you could want. What she’d been told, specifically. 

Regina was never going to let him give that sweater back. 

To Killian or Emma or Rook’s kid with his admittedly impressive number of closets. Even if she was sort of curious how— “Did he suddenly remember where he stuffed the sweater, then? Save us all with fashion, such as it is, in the nick of ceremony time?” Regina asked, and it would be impossible to believe that Emma’s eyes actually got brighter. Only it was that sort of night. Life, maybe. 

“A girl whose name Rook did not know or would not report found it. Was looking for something to wear after—” More gasps. Hands over mouths. Bugging eyes and arms twisting to grab phones out of pockets without any regard given to the entirely unacceptable timing of that specific reaction. “Well,” Emma shrugged, “you get what I mean. It is not all that serious, or so several sources claim both on and off the record, mostly because the nameless girl who I’m sure is real nice found it, Tay was not cute about her laughing at it—” Everyone within a 15-year age range of Taylor, who was on a business trip that weekend and couldn't sit in one of the boxes upstairs with his parents, mumbled idiot under their breath. 

Emma nodded once. “He said it was an important memento in New York Rangers lore, presumably got even more weird about hockey than any of us normally are, and here we are.” “Here we are,” Regina echoed. “Does Aurora know it’s not serious or has the invitation designer on retainer already been contacted?

Will wasn’t particularly quiet, sing-songing his “Making jokes is a flashing neon sign of all that bottled up emotion, Your Majesty. You getting sentimental on us?”

Fluttering fingers appeared between the seats in front of her, and she didn’t look before she grabbed them. Chris squeezed. Tightly. Three times. 

That was probably a coincidence. 

Timing up perfectly with the undeniable buzz of his phone and one last pointed cough. 

“You guys good?” Robin asked mid-speech, unable to keep the laughter out of the question or the smile off his face. Wide enough to rival whatever was somehow still stuck on Regina’s. “Put your phone on silent, Toph.”

Roland and Henry more or less collapsed. 

“I wanted to wear it,” Killian repeated, “but—” “Mom wouldn’t let him,” Chris whispered, and it wasn’t a whisper when Peggy added, “and it didn’t really fit all that great, either.”

Killian finally handed off his granddaughter. To slump in his chair, just enough to serve as a laughter-inducing response while still avoiding total farce. It was touch and go, though. Will was going to fall on the floor, Belle burying her face in the neck of whichever kid she was now playing chair to because there were too many kids, and that was good and great and the sweater was starting to evolve into some sort of thing in Regina’s mind, a marker and a memory and Robin looked at her first. 

Again. 

When he said, “You’re not guaranteed anything in this game. It’s weird how that works, actually. Infuriating sometimes. You should get what you want, after all of it, right? You work your whole life for the moment to dig your skates into the ice, to hear all those sounds that have been the soundtrack of an entire career, and you hope it’ll work out ok. Plan for every possibility. With coaches and nutritionists, athletic trainers who—” 

He lifted a hand toward the boxes, another flash of smile that left Regina wondering if it was, in fact, possible to float upward solely on the force of all her bottled-up emotion. Like bubbles out of a champagne bottle. 

“Hey, A,” Robin continued, “I still do all those oblique stretches you were always harping about.” Regina could only imagine Ariel’s answering shout of liar was nearly identical to the cry that came from both Will and Killian. She shook her head. In response to Emma’s questioning stare. 

“Could bounce quarters,” she added softly. 

Will scoffed.

Robin’s eye roll could only be noticed by those especially in tune with eye rolls more generally borne from fatherly exasperation and their collective inability to behave in public. As much as carpet-covered ice in Madison Square Garden warranted that description. 

“I’m the only one the sweater fit,” he announced, “and I soundly beat Scarlet at skills because my one-timer is still more impressive.” Definitely not acceptable for public consumption, then. Any of them. The next cough was an obvious attempt to get back on track that only marginally worked. No one in the crowd noticed. “Anyway, the point is, you come into this league with a plan. With objectives and desire and it’s great to try that approach, but it never works. Nothing ever goes according to plan. Sometimes it sucks, and you’re bruised and your oblique exercises feel kinda like torture—sorry, A. And you’re on the road, and you miss your kids, but—”

He still didn’t wink. Didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Just kept leaning against that podium with those letters on that sweater stretching across a chest Regina was certain she could describe in minute detail and waited. For her. To lift a finger, rest it below her left collarbone and tap. Three times. 

She scrunched her nose for good measure, too. 

Because plan zeta was simple, straightforward, and a rather massive undertaking: Live happily ever after. 

He grinned. 

“Sometimes, the chaos is worth it. It’s impossible and unpredictable and it’s got the sweetest wrist shot I’ve ever seen. Finding the back of the net, and winning us games, and we kinda won, didn’t we, Cap? In that grand-scheme, lifetime sort of way.” Killian sat up straighter. 

“Cap’s one of the best guy’s I’ve ever known. I’m not even upset my kid modeled his wrister after Cap’s. It’s ridiculous how good it is, that’s why. But I could stand up here in this sweater that,” he raised his voice, “seriously only fit me, and list off everything Cap’s accomplished because it’s also ridiculously good. But we all know the facts and the stats and the records, and the moments. Plus, it’d probably only embarrass him, and it’d scandalize Matt. Hi, Mattie.” Stick taps came from the bench, a quick salute, and ducked head of curls in desperate need of a cut. Emma was crying. Belle was crying. Regina was not. “So, forget Cap’s numbers for a second. Retired or otherwise. Think about what you were doing during those games. Watching on TV or listening to the broadcast, holding your breath just like we were because you can plan and you can hope, but you never really know, and you’re never promised, and that makes it better. To find your way into this. Into everything we’ve all gotten from this team, and these people, and sometimes the plan sucked anyway. So you take what you can, and you skate as fast as you can, and I’ve never seen anyone skate as fast as Cap. I think we both get credit for, like, at least, like, a third of Rol’s career goals, don’t you?”

Killian beamed. 

Roland cursed. Several adults admonished him. For doing it in front of so many children. 

And the tears still didn’t come. Not when Killian had to stand in front of that shaky podium with a voice that matched, ignoring the notecards Regina knew he had to tell Emma, specifically, that he’d never been able to dream this life or this career, or when he put his jersey over his button-up, or even when that same jersey in a monstrously large size lifted into the rafters. 

Because Regina had. Planned for success and victories and far too many closets in a house all her own. 

Except, well—

That house became a home, eventually. 

With mess and mistakes and wonder that she welcomed with wide-open arms. Once she realized it was ok to want it. So, no, Regina didn’t cry. Not during the ceremony or immediately after. But then. There was a game to play and a box to sit in, champagne to drink, and she’d never been much of a runner. 

Obvious exertion was undignified when the plan was steady and laid out at her feet, and she didn’t think. Shoving her bag into Henry’s somehow expectant hands, Regina dodged other kids and grandkids and phone calls to Taylor demanding the name of the girl and the longevity of the relationship, and Robin didn’t stumble. Didn’t even flinch. 

Arms wrapped around her middle instead, barely a huff of an exhale against the crook of her shoulder and the side of her neck, feet just a few inches off the ground. They were older now, that’s why. 

He kissed the tears off her cheeks. 

Kissed her lips, too. The bridge of her nose. The jut of her chin. Back to her lips until Regina tilted her head and opened her mouth, traced her tongue along another decidedly familiar line as her eyes closed and her heart stuttered, not entirely sure if she imagined the happily ever after, baby pressed to her temple. It didn’t matter. It was true all the same. 

She bought a frame a week and a half later. To put the sweater in, hanging it on the wall in her office. 

At home.