"Sheriff Swan." The honeyed voice dripped with menace, a poisoned dagger wrapped in lace. "I passed some hoodlums on the way here loitering near the park. See what you can do about that, won't you?"

The Sheriff in question cocked an eyebrow, a slight smirk on her lips though her eyes were wary and tight.

"Really, Regina? Hoodlums?"

"Hoodlums, delinquents, punks, thugs...call them whatever you like, I want them gone."

"You came all the way down here just to tell me to scare off some kids? I'm sure you could have handled that on your own."

Regina rolled her eyes. "Of course not. I came to tell you to stay away from Henry. I know you walked him to school this morning."

Emma, who had half-risen from her desk, sat down again heavily. "Regina, please, we don't need to do this. Henry needs us to get along, not fight each other. You don't like me, fine, I get it. I can deal. But Henry..."

With a few short, purposeful strides Regina backed Emma up against the desk, smiling as the blonde's eyes automatically flicked low, a pink tongue wetting trembling lips.

"You don't get to talk about Henry. You don't get to see Henry. He is my son, and I will do what is best for him, and that's certainly not you." She leaned back slightly, appreciating the sorrow flicking across Emma's face, reveling in it as she did everything she'd created in Storybrooke. "You will never be a part of his life."

"Regina-"

"This conversation is over, Sheriff. Have a nice day." Her voice was low and mocking as she paused in the doorway. Always, always the last word. A time to twist the knife just a little more, to finish the engagement by asserting her power. Her mother had taught her that.

XxXx

The slamming door was generally a sign for Mary Margaret to start hiding the kitchen appliances, but even as she hurried to the kitchen – "I'll make us some cocoa, Emma, go ahead and sit down." - she knew today was different. Emma wasn't spewing curses and reaching for hand tools. She simply walked in, sat down at the kitchen table, and pressed her forehead to the cool wood.

"What happened?"

"Regina..."

"Again?" Mary Margaret gently placed her hands on Emma's shoulders, coaxing her into a more healthy sitting position, but the other woman didn't seem to appreciate, or even notice, the gesture. Her eyes stared fixedly at the printed wood-grain, cheap particle board pressed into service by some cut-rate mega store. Fake, like everything else in her life lately. Emma swallowed.

"She told me to stop walking Henry to school."

"Oh, honey. I'm sure she didn't mean that."

"She blames me for taking him away."

The kettle screamed.

"You did what you had to do." Mary Margaret said, pouring the boiling water into a mug that read '#1 Teacher'. "He's already in counseling with Dr. Hopper as it is. I wish I'd never given him that book."

"It doesn't matter. It would have been something else."

Mary Margaret nodded, placing the hot cocoa in front of the blonde, the smell of cinnamon wafting gently, comfortingly. "Sometimes – sometimes people need an escape."

Emma's head hit the table once more, narrowly missing the mug, which Mary Margaret quickly removed to a less precarious position.

Sobs hitched Emma's breath, ripping from her throat in waves that tumbled and grew into a dissonant, keening wail. Seated across the table, Mary Margaret could do nothing but wait.

"I'm losing her, Mary Margaret."

"Emma-"

"No! Every day, I think, today will be better. Today she'll come back to me, to us, but every day there's less of her there. She didn't even remember at all today."

"She remembers. She was still wearing her ring when I saw her today."

Emma unconsciously reached a hand to finger the ring she wore around her neck. It matched the small ring that the Mayor wore on her ring finger. Their wedding ring. "I don't think she even knows why anymore."

"When did this start happening, Emma? Maybe Dr. Hopper could..." She trailed off. Of course Emma would have thought of Dr. Hopper immediately, but Mary Margaret hated feeling useless, hated feeling that there was nothing she could do to alleviate her friend's pain but offer her and her son a bed and some chocolate.

Emma looked pained, familiar tears filling her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. "It was just after we lost G- just after we lost the baby. Gina was in the hospital for two weeks before they said she could come home with us. She always hated hospitals; her mother put her in them often enough." Mary-Margaret nodded; the story of Cora Mills was a familiar one to Storybrooke residents, although not one that was discussed in public. Privately, she was more than happy to let that bitch rot behind bars.

"I thought that she would start getting better once we got home. Regina and Henry and I, we're a family. I though we could get through anything together, I even thought she was getting better, at first."

Mary-Margaret smiled sadly. "You always did want to save her."

"She and Henry would read the fairy tales together in bed and she'd do the voices for him. I heard them laughing, once, when Henry said Dr. Hopper should have been Jiminy Cricket."

Emma clutched at the still-warm mug of cocoa, taking deep gulps and letting the liquid burn her aching throat. It would make it harder to talk, perhaps what she had wanted. Not what she needed.

"She started losing time about a month later. Little things. Coffee, or bringing in the mail. Henry's lunch. She stayed at the office longer, and her moods...she was always changing. I didn't even know what I was doing wrong, but she always seemed to be mad at me for something. I even wondered if she was cheating on me." She laughed, a derisive snort. "I think that would have made me happier. When she forgot our anniversary I finally figured out what was going on. That's when I met the Evil Queen."

"The what?"

"The Evil Queen. At least, that's what Henry calls her; it's from the book. I talked to Dr. Hopper about it, and he thinks it's an alternate personality that Regina created to keep herself safe from her mother. She's everything Gina couldn't be when she was a kid. Strong. Protective. Angry."

"And now this alter has come back, because of the stress? Oh, Emma. What are you going to do?"

"What can I do? She refuses to see the doctor. She hates me. She thinks I've turned her son against her and that the whole town is a filled with people from fairy tales that she cursed here. You're Snow White, by the way."

"I-what? Emma, you need to get Regina to a hospital."

"Don't you think I fucking know that? I. Can't. She hasn't done anything to suggest that she's a danger to herself or anyone else, which is all the fucking law cares about. Even if I were to take her right now, she'd be out in three days and I wouldn't even -" Emma seemed to deflate, her anger spilling out as she slumped in the chair. "At least when she's fighting me I get to be with her."

XxXx

Across town, Regina stood at her bedroom window, deft fingers playing with the ring on her left hand. She knew every inch of this town, she had built it after all, and she didn't need to concentrate to know where Snow White's apartment was. That bitch and her whore daughter were probably there right now, planning to turn her son against her, but they would not win. Not this time. The loss of her love flared up in her chest, as pure and as painful as if it had been only days or weeks instead of years. Love is weakness, Regina. Perhaps she had thought her mother was right, then, but now she knew love would be her strength. It would give her the power to do what must be done to secure her happy ending.

The Evil Queen planned her revenge.