AN: SO, I had this idea stuck in my head for a while now and I wanted to finally write it. This is my first time writing a dragon queen fic (though I do rp as the both of them) and I hope I can do this ship justice. The first chapter is supposed to be vague so don't worry if you're a little confused by it. All shall be revealed in due time lol. I'm also ignoring the rules of biology and saying that science is more evolved and that Lily is both of theirs biologically. Rating may change but we'll see. This is unbetaed so mistakes are mine. Enjoy and let me know what you think

"I can't take this anymore. I'm done. It's over."

"You can't just leave. What about Lily? What about me? What about us?"

"I'm feeling suffocated here. I can't breathe."

It was the same fight that they had been having each night for the past month. But it seemed like they're fighting was only getting worse and worse. She couldn't even tell why the fighting had begun. Why they were really fighting, but the more that they fought, the more frustrated and angry she got at her wife.

They used to be so happy and in love.

But now, she didn't even recognize the woman who stood before her. Hell, there were some days she didn't even recognize herself in the mirror either. She could never explain how their fighting had changed them. But it had. They were already very unrecognizable and it had only been a month of fighting. At this rate, she was sure they could never go back to who they once were. Before all of this. The constant fighting.

They were fine before this. The only thing that had changed was that they had welcomed a daughter. Their little girl, Lily. Neither of them thought that she was the cause of their fighting. She was only a month old after all. And was definitely someone who was loved and wanted by the both of them.

At least that's what she thought.

No, she wouldn't entertain those thoughts. This fight, whatever it was. It was between them and them alone.

She probably just wasn't a good wife to her anymore. Wasn't supportive like she should have been towards her. That's why they were fighting, she reasoned with herself. It was the only reason she accepted. It had to make sense.

And yet, it didn't explain the tears at night that escaped while she was trying to sleep. She could hear her wife crying beside her as well. At least she seemed to be just affected by this as herself.

Fighting and crying. Would this be her life for as long as she lived?

They had promised each other forever when they made their vows those five years ago.

She still meant it. But her wife? She wasn't quite sure anymore.

She didn't want to ask her. She was afraid of the answer if she was being honest with herself. To think that she had done something that caused her wife to stop loving her. To know the only thing she was good at was pushing people away.

She wouldn't be surprised. After all, it had happened before with the woman she was with before she met her wife. That other woman just stopped loving her and left without another explanation.

The world seemed to turn dark that day and the only time she felt light in her life again was when she met her wife.

They bumped into each other, quite literally, spilling coffee down each other's shirts. They both had this fire in them and it came out in full force. They yelled at each other, causing a scene. Embarrassed, they apologized and she had offered to by the other woman a fresh cup.

She said she was running late for a meeting, and that they'd have to have a rain check.

To her surprise, there had been flowers sent to her on her lunch with the invitation of drinks, an offer she couldn't refuse.

The two women had much in common and they hit it off. She never used to believe in love at first sight, but was becoming more and more convinced that love at second sight was very real. She never felt this way before and she knew that maybe she'd finally found her match.

They already had the same kind of fire inside of them after all.

The more time that they spent together, the more that she was convinced that this was the woman for her.

Surprisingly, she wasn't the one to propose. She had the ring all picked out and the speech all written out. But her wife beat her to it.

The proposal wasn't anything special, just a question asked while they cuddled on the couch. But it was her wife's style and it fit them so much better than the lavish one she'd been planning for the next night. She said yes without a moment's hesitation and then told her about her own plans to propose.

Her wife made her read her the speech she had planned anyways.

But that was then. When life was better and they were happy.

It's the moments like that that keep her up at night now. She cries over those memories now when she thinks back on them. Especially after a fight and tonight, she can already feel the tears start to well up. She pushes them down. She won't cry in front of her wife. She's too proud for that.

However, she doesn't know how to fix them. To get them back to the two women in love. But the sad part is, is that she doesn't even know if she wants to anymore. Not if this is the woman her wife is going to continue to be. The one that yells and starts fights and wakes up their one-month-old daughter. But that doesn't seem to bother her. At least it doesn't stop the fighting between them.

All of their fighting so far has led to nothing. Not really. All it ever is, is hurt feelings and empty threats that her wife is going to leave. They go to bed angry and that's when the crying begins. But they are both too hurt to actually comfort each other. She's still surprised they even still sleep in the same bed. They'd have the room for her wife to go somewhere else to sleep. She likes to think that the fact that her wife doesn't is a sign that they still have a chance to be together. That they can still fix this.

When really it's probably because they are both too stubborn to cave. They both love their bed and it's theirs. One little fight (or thirty) doesn't have the power to change that. Besides they've found that they don't end up sleeping well if they're not next to each other. Hearing the other's heartbeat and breathing has always been a comfort for them both. She doesn't want her to leave her, but doesn't know what she needs to do to get her to stay.

It's only a matter of time before those threats are real, but she's all too glad when her wife is still there in the morning.

They both apologized the second that her wife hands her, her coffee mug. There are soft mutterings of an "I'm sorry" that wasn't said the night before. They put it behind them, or at least that's what she thinks and then she goes to work.

She makes it a point to send her flowers every day around lunch time. The same ones she got after their first meeting. She doesn't like to think about how her flowers always ended up in the trash by the time their fight got into full swing. She just wants to keep showing her wife that she loves her and that she is sorry for whatever it is that she had done to cause all of the fighting in the first place.

And it's always the same. The fights start the second that Lily has been put to bed. It's always something small that ends up escalating into something much larger. She doesn't understand how they've trapped themselves into this cycle and is determined to get out of it. She hated feeling so powerless in stopping these fights and wanted to only keep their family together no matter what it took.

At least that's what she had planned before tonight's fight.

It had started just like all the others, but it turned once her wife sighed and sat down on the couch, refusing to even look up at her. No, there was definitely something different about tonight's fight. What, she wasn't sure and she was sure she'd find out soon enough.

But from the beginning there had just been more bite behind her wife's words. Like she was trying to provoke her. They said even worst things to each other than they ever had before and she just had a feeling that maybe this was it. They were finally done for.

Her wife just sat down and kept repeating that she couldn't do this anymore. She refused to look up at her. It was then she noticed that her wife was crying. Hurt in a way she'd never seen before.

Instantly she snapped out of her anger and knelt before her. She apologized and claimed that she didn't mean what she had said. Her wife just shook her head. She then explained that she wasn't crying over the fight, she'd stop listening anyways. When asked what she meant, her wife simply just said that she was tired and not feeling like herself and that she needed some space to think.

Her wife was going to sleep in the spare bedroom tonight.

Even though her heart broke, she knew it was probably for the best. They just needed some space to breathe and maybe they could figure this out in the morning. Her wife had agreed, giving her a smile even. She promised that she wanted them to work out too.

Something still didn't feel right when she went to their room to get ready for bed. She didn't know if it was because her wife wasn't in there with her, doing the nightly routine she'd come to love, or if it was something else entirely. But there was just a feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her something wasn't right. She didn't want to dwell on it too much though because it would keep her up that night. There was a part of her that wanted to curl up beside her wife in the other room once she was asleep. Because then maybe she could sleep that night.

But she decided against that. She would give her wife the space she would need. And they would talk in the morning. She had trust that they would be fine for some reason. Maybe it was just that she didn't want to think about a life where her wife wasn't there with her. They still loved each other, at least she still loved her. This was just some hurdle that they were going to have to get over, some storm that they had to bear. But once it was over, she was sure that they'd come out even stronger in the end.

She was going to continue to fight for their love until her wife told her that she no longer loved her. Then, maybe she'd finally let her go. But until her wife said those words – and she hadn't, not even when they said every other hurtful thing to each other – she was going to continue to fight and have hope about them. Maybe she was foolish to want to do so, but what else could she do?

She stared up at the ceiling, still not finding sleep even hours later. This was ridiculous. She should just talk with her wife, and actually, talk with her and figure out what was going on. In all the fighting, that was the one thing she realized was missing from her marriage. Talking.

She was going to fix that because that was the one thing that she could do. She got out of bed then. But before she could leave the room, she heard the most devastating of sounds. One she truly hoped she never had to hear in the middle of the night.

The front door slamming

Even though she ran after her wife, trying to stop her, it was too late. She knew that she had to face the truth.

Regina was gone.