A Thief and a Queen

What Child is This?

Hazel's cries woke Regina. She rolled over, groaning when she saw her clock reading 3:30 AM. Beside her, Robin shifted. "I'll get her," he said, voice thick with sleep.

"No," she croaked, patting his arm. "You've taken this feeding all week."

"Because you were up early and home late. You needed the rest."

She smiled, sitting up. "And I can sleep in in the morning. So let me go and you get some rest. Got it?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," he sassed, giving her a bright smile. He closed his eyes as Regina wrapped herself in her robe. Before she even reached the bedroom door, his soft snores filled the room.

Regina padded down the hall to the nursery, walking into the room they had hastily thrown together when Emma had accelerated little Hazel's entrance into the world. Over the past couple months, though, the family began to properly decorate the room for her. The walls were painted a light pink and an apple tree had been added by Robin when she wasn't home. Henry had written parts of everyone's stories in fancy gold wording around the tree, which had touched Regina when she saw it. Roland's contribution was the little plaster sign with "Hazel" painted on it in childish lettering that hung over the girl's crib. She herself had added a roaring lion on the headboard as a tribute to Robin.

Hazel's cries died down to whimpers when she saw Regina, who picked her up. "I know, baby girl, you're hungry. Let's go downstairs and I'll fix that, okay?" Regina soothed.

Once the bottle was made, Regina carried Hazel into the living room. She clicked on the Christmas tree and let its multicolored lights illuminate the darkened room. Regina positioned herself on the couch so that Hazel could watch the lights, which they learned since putting up the tree fascinated the young girl.

As Hazel watched the tree, Regina watched her. She was three months old and starting to settle into her looks. Her eyes had stayed blue, clearly her father's rather than her mother's. Both Regina and Robin had been relieved about that, though guilty that they had doubted if they could love her if she had Zelena's eyes. There were a few more things that they could trace to Robin but not much they recognized from Zelena. And Mary Margaret swore Hazel had Regina's smile and nose. "It's possible," she had said. "You're her aunt so she could have some traits from you."

But her hair puzzled everyone. When they had left the hospital with her, Hazel had brown hair that had seemed closer to Robin's color than Zelena's. When they returned from the Underworld, they had been surprised to find it had darkened drastically. Henry had held her and said, "It almost looks like your color, Mom."

It did seem to be closer to Regina's color out of all of them. She and Robin had watched the girl sleep that first night back and tried to figure it out. "Maybe there was a gene somewhere between either you or Zelena for black hair and it became prominent," Regina suggested.

Robin had frowned. "What does any of that mean?"

"It just means..." Regina sighed. "I don't know. It just makes the most sense."

There was one other theory but Robin didn't want to entertain. Emma had voiced it though, ever blunt: "Robin, are you sure you're Hazel's father?"

"Yes," he replied, terse.

Emma dropped it but Regina could feel Robin's anger continue throughout the day. That night, he had vented to her. "She is mine. There are too many similarities."

"I know," she said.

But Robin wasn't done. "I feel horrible to admit that some part of me would like to think she isn't mine because then we could get that witch out of our lives for good. But then I remind myself that I can't let that sweet girl fall into her clutches. She's not fit to be a mother."