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_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?"