She accepted she was in love.
No…more like she was aware she was in love.
Of course, whatever love means. After all this wasn't the fairytale land, where your knight in shining armor would gallivant on a horse and sweep you through your miseries, into a life of comfort and hope.
So it wasn't how she felt when she loved Daniel though – free, intoxicating, safe.
It was the opposite of safe if she were being honest.
The love she felt swell inside her, terrified her. More terrifying than even the darkest nights that she spent under Leopold hoping that dawn would lift up the pain that surged through her entire body, and along with it freedom - until the next nightfall crept in.
Now, she went to bed with desire and woke up with yearning and a renewed sense of hope. This made no sense actually, because the one who she loved, loved somebody else and hoped for someone else. Her love was happy and for the first time in 29 years, knew what family and unconditional love really meant. Something whose warmth she never got to bask in, in spite of having it all, once upon a time.
She constantly fretted if it was selfish of her to wish that someday she would be loved back? Shouldn't you be happy if someone you love already loves and is loved back? Hoping for a happily ever after only means she is again trying to script what the future must be. She didn't want that. For once she wanted that people would choose to be with her, choose to act the way they desire and choose to love her because they want to and not because they must.
It was why she never had the courage to even hint about it to anyone. Well who would she have even spoken about it too anyway? It wasn't like she had any friends in town. The bug was her only available option if she wanted to talk to someone (but she couldn't trust him again); everyone else was too fearful and suspicious of her to even try anymore. Not that she could blame them; after all, she did terrible things and acted in unkindest of ways – even after the curse was lifted.
Yet she had hoped that she would be given a second chance, well thirty-fifth if you were 'actually' keeping count. Only because she had been trying really hard, and anyone who knows what an addiction is, would know that the hardest thing to do for an addict was to accept that they need to change for 'themselves', which is what she had done.
Without holding on to any crutch.
This wasn't for Henry, because of Henry, or by Henry.
This was for HER.
It wasn't to get him back in her life. This was only to keep her in his - in any little way she could. For that she knew she had to change, be a person who isn't driven by vengeance or revenge and to stop feeling victimized. If she thought about it now, all she lost was her lover that night at the stables, her future she murdered herself when she decided to go down the dark path of controlling the endings of others.
She however couldn't deny that part of wanting to be a good person again was because of that night – the night she can never forget – when she was dropping her son off at Mary Margaret's after an evening of playing chess, talking about dragons and baking a chocolate cake. Catching the glimpse of those green eyes staring thoughtfully into space, cell phone nestled between her shoulder and ears, while her hands were busy ruffling the dark hair of the man whose head was resting on her lap.
She wasn't sure why but she wished those dark locks in which those fingers were playfully entwined were hers. And without any realization, she began running her fingers through her own hair with a sort of yearning, she had only felt during the night of her wedding to Leopold, while imagining Daniel softly touching her cheeks and whispering her name as if the wind had carried it all along to her ears.
She wasn't sure how long she stood there, until she saw a pair of perplexed green eyes stare at her with a look that while it held no contempt, also held no love or warmth. Just indifference.
That was the night she knew, like she had on the night of the curse, no matter what the outcome, she was destined to be alone.
It was Henry - lazily plopping himself over the man's stomach - who had first caught sight of her still at the door (which had led those green eyes to trail his, thereby noticing her) leading to a half-hearted dinner request from Neal (who she barely even looked at), spurred on by Henry's persuasive, pouty appeals.
Mary Margaret and David seemed to throw around looks that suggested they'd rather burn their dinner than have her gatecrash their 'family' routine. She thought a minute or two about staying, not just to spend some more time with her son, but also to probe at this sudden foreign feeling that clenched her heart every time she looked into those green eyes.
However, it was the jaded look in those same green orbs that made her politely turn down the offer and walk out, tears brimming in her own dark brown pools threatening to erupt before a glaring Ruby would walk past away. A few blocks down as her tears had begun to freely chart a course through her cold cheeks, she tossed a box into the dustbin at the corner of the bend and hastily embraced herself for the lonely night ahead.
She remembers cursing herself for even hoping that at least Henry's other mother would have seen her differently. Yes, strange are the ways of the heart, for she now saw the woman not as a threat or a problem in her life, but as the mother of her son and the one person who could readily crush her own heart without even having to reach into her heart to do so, just like she done moments ago.
She had gone to bed that night, gulping down two glasses of whiskey, hoping to drown away the sting she felt in her heart. Alas, she realized as she woke up the next morning was that kind of magic didn't exist in this world, but being the true champion of resilience that she was, she had hoped tonight would put an end to all this momentary fancy she felt for a certain annoying blonde.
However, 289 nights had passed after that night. The warmth that flooded her chest at the thought of those green eyes…never did.
Regina, the cold hearted cruel evil queen for once had been at the receiving end of a curse – the curse of having fallen in love with a savior called 'Emma Swan'.
Perhaps that was her punishment after all. A curse that in this case would only lead to the Evil Queen being broken…
Yet she smiled like a total buffoon. No longer would she ever be alone. For her heart was no longer empty and dark; it was blessed to have been blessed by love.
She was aware she was in love.
No...more like love had (once again) accepted Regina Mills.