OTA - Everyone's Personal Prison

[st_everybodylives]

The first few weeks she'd explored the hotel, generally enjoying the absurdity of it all. And the Doctor did not come.

Then she spent a few weeks testing the boundaries of their prison. And the Doctor did not come.

Then for a few weeks she tried boosting the vortex manipulator, and while she almost ripped a hole in space time, she hadn't gotten anywhere. And the Doctor did not come.

She wasn't quite sure if she was disappointed, or annoyed. Which, frankly, was annoying.

She was still trying to figure this out when she found herself enjoying the garden on the first truly warm spring day with a book and a carafe of hot tea, tucked into a nook amongst rose bushes.

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[st_oriedqueen]

Almost a month in to her stay at the Madonna Inn, Regina had come to understand her exile in a way that had never been possible in the Enchanted Forest. It had taken Storybrooke, Emma, Henry not remembering her, and Gotham to teach her how to long for what was lost without plotting revenge to ease the pain of it.

The Inn was Storybrooke, done over, where she was trapped as the rest of them, everyone knew who they were, and the people who she wanted to know her didn't. The exceptions were poignant. The (step)daughter who wasn't, the pirate and her mate (this time the pirate shared not-parenting with her child), the wise-cracking archmage who had best never call her dearie, and the man of the wolves.

The world had taught her better than to think it had been arranged like this, just for her--that would be no better than what she had done. She'd simply stepped from one version of her story to another, and likely would continue to do so until she died or got it right. Or Authors tired of punishing the Evil Queen.

The knowledge made her melancholy, but Operation Mongoose gave rise to Operation Phoenix, a quest to rise from the ashes of her life as a better Regina.

It was Operation Phoenix that led Regina outside with a teapot of Moroccan Mint and a copy of Donna Tartt's The Secret History from the gift shop. She'd enjoyed reading once upon a time. It was time to start again.

[st_everybodylives]

River was reading And Then There Were None, it was ironic in a vague sort of way being about people trapped on an island with a killer.

"Not an island," exactly. She murmured to herself, before taking a sip of tea. "But that doesn't mean we aren't all just waiting to be picked off one by one."

Idly she wondered if everyone here was a killer too. Maybe Agatha Christie WAS omniscient.

[st_oriedqueen]

"I'm not inclined to be prey," came a tart but amused response from one table over behind a rose hedge. Regina hadn't been listening exactly, but there were some things you didn't miss. People speculating about the possibility of being murdered, for example.

[st_everybodylives]

River glanced over at the sound of the voice and laughed, flashing the book she was reading in case the woman was familiar with it.

"Nor I. Though as I've learned sometimes you don't get the choice. And who knows, maybe one of us is the hunter."

[st_oriedqueen]

"I mean no offense when I say, I hope you choke on my bones." If she was the hunter, she'd not find Regina congenial or easy prey, but neither, she suspected would this woman be if their positions were reversed. She had that air about her.

[st_everybodylives]

"You assume there would be bones left," she liked the retort though and smiled, turning in her chair to better look at the other woman.

"I'm River. And if you offer me towels I going to throw my book at you."

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina declined to elaborate that she'd stuck in many a craw, although she might have. It was true enough. After all, there was plenty of her life the Story didn't tell, like how she'd held her kingdom against all comers and declined to marry for security.

"I'm Regina. And if you throw your book at me, don't expect it back unscathed."

[st_everybodylives]

"I've read it, so the only loss would be to literary history. This may well be the last copy of any Agatha Christie novel in existence on this plane." Or anywhere, she was still working out if this was a spot outside normal time and space or if normal time and space was just.. gone.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Until someone arrives with one in a handbag. Which is what happened in Gotham." Technically, Regina could transmute it from its ashes, but magic tended to behave oddly with complex objects. It might rearrange the text.

[st_everybodylives]

She hadn't been to Gotham, but then she hadn't been to many places in the universe so the name drop while meaning nothing to her also didn't phase her overly much.

"And here all I arrived with in my handbag was a pair of knickers." And technically they had been in a pocket as she didn't carry a handbag.

[st_oriedqueen]

"Were they your knickers or someone else's?" Because either way, there was bound to be a story in it. For once, it might be nice to hear someone else's story, especially if it had a decent ending.

[st_everybodylives]

"Oh mine, certainly," she laughed and sipped her tea. "I'm not quite sure how they got there, I think I would have noticed if someone came along and removed my knickers. At least I hope I would."

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina laughed and--just for a moment--allowed herself to think the spell that would let her take River's knickers without her knowledge. She didn't indulge the possibilities for after, because it was the wicked magic she craved, not the woman. "Were they the pair you'd had on or a spare?"

[st_illunsmeared]

Phryne hadn't been avoiding River Song. She'd simply been too busy, yes, of course, that was it. Too busy to track her down. Truthfully Phryne avoided apologies at the best of times, and Jack aside, these hardly qualified. Still, she couldn't avoid anything for long in this blasted hotel, and much though she didn't like making the, River Song was owed an apology,

Today proved so boring that she actually sought the other woman out. Anything purposeful was better than aimlessly investigating her fellow guests, and the Mills woman who Dot had told her all about had gone outside as well. Two birds, perhaps, although not at the same time. That would be a gathering of hens, and she didn't do hen parties.

She went first to River Song, rested her hand on the back of an empty chair. "May I?"

[st_everybodylives]

She glanced up at the other woman's words, and half smiled before she remembered she was probably still a bit in the dog house for kissing the other woman's mister.

"If you'd like," she said after a brief consideration. "Though I do hope we aren't going to be required to be traditionally catty, and roar at one another. He kissed me. It was rather enjoyable, but I don't intend to repeat it nor I suspect does he. And if I had even a shred of conscience I'm sure I'd feel badly but that just isn't who I am." Which was about as close to an apology as anyone who wasn't the Doctor would ever get out of River Song.

[st_illunsmeared]

Phryne laughed and all but flung herself down into the chair. "Not at all. I came to apologize myself. It was beastly of me to act like a cuckolded wife when I knew perfectly well the cause." She gestured languidly with her free hand, dismissing it, more or less. "Even if I hadn't, I'm generally not the possessive type. Admittedly, Jack's something of a special case, but even so."

[st_everybodylives]

"We all have special cases." Though she was peculiarly hard to make jealous she too had a special case. "And if you apologize I'm going to leave. I had at least one gentleman who was under the influence apologize for kissing me. My pride was stung at that, I will admit."

[st_illunsmeared]

"Fair enough. I don't enjoy admitting I was wrong, so it's just as well you're not a stickler for it." She flashed River a smile, glad to have that put behind them. "I had a similar experience, although the poor thing is so hung up on Kitty, it was actually sort of sweet."

[st_everybodylives]

"Mine was quite possibly the most mortified man in history, and he truly felt that he'd taken advantage, he sent apology cards and tea." She gestured at the pot she was drinking from. "You you like a cup?"

[st_illunsmeared]

"None for me, thanks." She'd had several pots today already. "But do tell me you're joking," Phryne mock-pleaded and then shook her head. "You're not. Married, gay or virgin, do you reckon?"

[st_everybodylives]

"Not a virgin, the man was far too skilled with his hands for that. Gay possibly, though I don't think so. And married, definitely." She tossed her hair and sipped her tea.

"Of course so am I and that hardly phased me, but I do know there are some for whom monogamy is paramount."

[st_illunsmeared]

"Almost everyone in my era." Jack, obviously. Phryne found herself more inclined toward monogamy than she had ever been, but only as a matter of preference. She was less interested in the man with the skilled hands than River's domestic arrangements. "Is your husband monogamous?"

[st_everybodylives]

"It's rather more complicated than monogamous or not with he and I." Her relationship with the Doctor was so far outside the realm of normal, everything became complicated.

"When we're together we're together. And when we aren't, well... who's to question? Neither of us is the sort of settle down in one place for long." A night on Darillium was quite the longest stretch for her staying put in one place.

[st_illunsmeared]

"All in all, a remarkably sensible arrangement," Phryne said approvingly. It wasn't unlike what she'd want with Jack under different circumstances, but... "But when stuck in an inn with a very small population for the foreseeable future, it leaves a bit to be desired in the way of freedom."

Alcuin's love as thou wilt offered a good deal more, although for as unconventional as Phryne could be, she couldn't honestly say she had particular desire to love anyone who wasn't Jack.

[st_everybodylives]

"I suppose it's all in how you look at it. I knew a man who waited thousands of years for the woman he loved."

But then her father had been exceptional.

"And she gave up everything to be with him. I can't imagine either of them loving anyone else, it was always them, from childhood til death. It's a rather lovely thing to witness... but I don't think i could live it."

For all that she loved the Doctor, loved him enough to alter time and space if she could, she wasn't built for the life her parents had.