Title: Fate

Disclaimers: I don't own any of these characters. Just playin' with them a bit.

A/N: Short something that popped into my head. Has nothing really to do with the show, 'cause if it happened then the show would sorta be over-ish. Anyway. I'm crazy, but that's okay. (Also, I wrote it in 's editor, so if there are any glaring grammar mistakes feel free to say so, just don't be a dork about it... :))

It was all Henry said, over and over and over. That Emma was brought to the town, born, to do something, to break the curse, blah, blah, blah. Emma lay in her mother's house, sort of, although Mary Margaret didn't know it, and Emma wasn't sure if she believed it. She lay there and stared up at the ceiling. It was all so crazy. She'd just been living, trying to make a living, while kicking some butt here and there to relieve her tension. But now there were clocks that started ticking when she arrived, a guy that Henry was sure used to be a Cricket, but before that a guy, another one, the cricket's friend, that was the maker of Pinocchio, and some short guys that were supposed to be Snow White's dwarves? Red and Granny owned an inn (although Emma was glad Granny wasn't dead or eaten), and there was the Sheriff. Emma was ninety nine percent sure that she didn't want to know what his story was, or who he was supposed to be.

Then, there was Regina. The Evil Queen. Emma had never known her mother, hadn't really ever had a proper mother. In general Emma had very little mothering to compare any other mother to. Could Regina really be that evil as a mother as Henry claimed she was. Henry was well fed, seemed like a great kid, and when he had gone into that old mine... Emma had seen fake grief, fake caring, fake everything in her line of work. Regina's fear, her panic, none of it had been fake. Evil Queen or not, she loved Henry with all her heart, even if she didn't seem to know how to show it. That, and she was gorgeous.

Emma sat up in bed. Maybe that was the answer. If she believed Henry, maybe she was brought to the town to break the curse. According to Henry Emma was then supposed to enter into the final battle with the Evil Queen. But, Emma had a thought. One that Henry may not have had. He was a child. He still trusted implicitly. He didn't realize yet what one of her early mentors had pounded into her head. Everyone lies. So, what if the prophecy was a lie. A lie to get two people who could save everyone in town to be at each other's throats? Or knowing the unsavory people in this town, maybe even just a lie to get a helluva laugh.

That was how Emma found herself on Regina's front steps. Emma was crazy. Insane. Jumping into the Charles in the middle of winter would have been sane compared to what she was about to do, but her feet wouldn't move. She couldn't make herself go back to her car. She just hoped and prayed that it was late enough that Henry was asleep. She knocked on the door. Ringing would only wake the little troublemaker.

A pissed off looking Regina came to the door. "Have you found my child again?"

"No. I'd like you to hear me out. Please."

Regina stared at her. "Why? Are you going to file papers with me now? Use the mine incident, your heroics, get custody of my son?"

Emma frowned. "Why would I Ms. Mills. I..." She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. "I'm sorry. We started on the wrong foot. Your son's fault, my fault, and your fault as well. I'm not here to take him away Ms. Mills. I gave him up once already. Would it be nice to get to know him a little, sure, but... you're his mother. He's happy, he's alive, he's very well fed, he's smarter than he should be, and he's safe. You mostly seem to be a bitch of a woman, and a hard nosed mother, but I could see it yesterday, you love him more than you hate me. So. Please. I want to start over."

Regina had listened in silence, and after a long pause she stepped away from the door and gestured that Emma should come in. "And how do you propose we do that Miss Swan?"

"I trust you, and you trust me. And we interact as adults should, not characters in a fairy tale drama." Emma held out a hand. "Hi, I'm Emma. Your son came down to Boston and found me. I gave him up when he was just a kid. Which, yes, in retrospect I've wondered if that was the right thing to do. He thinks that you're The Evil Queen, Mary Margaret is Snow White, and I'm her daughter." Regina gasped, but Emma kept going. "Now, maybe it's true, maybe it's not. If you were the one who brought all these people from story book land to Storybrook Maine than all you really want is a happy ending of your own. You think that's Henry." Emma paused for a moment, this was the part that might get her cursed, or turned into a frog or something. "I think it's me."

Regina blinked and waited for Emma to continue. When she didn't the dark haired woman shook her head. "I do believe that you're crazier than my son."

Emma took two steps forward and put her hand against Regina's chest. She felt the Mayor's heart do a double tap beat. "Tell me that when we were fighting at the old mine you didn't just want to kiss me. Tell me that and I will go away. Out of this town, and leave you and your... cursed people right here. Never able to leave. Henry will hate you, everyone will hate you, and you'll be stuck here even when Henry decides to leave. Because, he can, he wasn't born here. He can leave and never come back Regina. Tell me that you didn't feel something and I'll go."

Regina quirked one of her amazing eyebrows, "Why would the daughter of Snow White... the most perfect woman in the land... according to every fairy tale there is about her feel something for me. The Evil Queen."

Emma grabbed the back of Regina's neck and brought their faces a hairs breadth away from each other. "Because this is real life. Tell me."

Regina jerked her head away and turned around. Her arms around herself. She was silent for a long time and then spoke without turning. "I can't. Because I did. I'm not gay, I sleep with..."

"...the Sheriff?"

Regina turned. "How?"

Emma smirked, "I may not be a real cop, but I've got good eyes. So. If you want to, kiss me."

Regina took one step towards Emma, then another. Then stopped. "I..." She shook her head, "I can't."

Emma's smirk morphed into a smile, "But you will. You think that you're soulless, that you don't deserve the love of anyone, even your son. I'm going to show you that's a load of bull crap. You're gonna kiss me and want me. And we'll both get our happily ever after."

"I don't think." Regina frowned, "I don't think that fairy tales work that way."

"This one will."

Regina woke the next morning with the hangover that ate Boothbay to the ringing of her front doorbell. Henry beat her downstairs and had a confused look on his face as he brought a basket inside. "I don't get it."

Regina took it from his hands and tried not to bark at her son, "Get ready for school, I don't want you to be late." He trudged back upstairs and Regina looked in the basket. Inside sat a gigantic bottle of Ibuprofen, a bag of Dunkin Donuts coffee and a note. She opened the note. It read, 'Next time, more water before bed. E.'

On the outside Regina groaned. "Great, a stalker." But, just underneath the cold layers she had cultivated over many eons, a little spark jumped just a bit at the fact that someone she wasn't related to, someone not named Henry, cared just a little about her.

A/N #2: Okay, okay, y'all convinced me. I'll continue this. I'm not sure how yet, but I have some ideas. So, now it's set as incomplete again. Oof, wayy too many unfinished fanfic stories on my plate. :)