"I don't think I can do this. I can't give you what you want. What you deserve." Looking at her aches like a knife in her stomach, but she owes her this. Look at her while she ruins her life, again. "And you shouldn't have to wait for me." Her eyes sting, and Mal's already crying. "You'll wait and that's not fair. I've already taken-"

"I don't care about that."

Of course she doesn't.

"That's why I have to end this." Regina shuts her eyes. Tears burn, then run hot down her face. "I can't be what you want."

"Regina, no."

"You should be happy."

"I am happy."

"No, no you're not, you won't be. It'll eat at you and it's just better if we stop now before-"

"You ruin my life?" Mal raises an eyebrow.

"It's not funny."

"If you knew the length of my life, dear."

"That's just the point. I'm not ready, I may never be ready for another child, and if you stay with me, you won't have that. You'll have to wait until-"

"You're gone and I replace you?"

"Yes."

Mal shakes her head, eyes liquid with tears. "Oh darling, it's not like that."

"You should be with someone who wants to raise a child with you. Someone who wants that now. I already put you in a cave for thirty years."

"And I don't care about that. I don't care about your darkness or your evil. I look at you and I see Regina, the woman who stormed into my castle, the woman who grew into her powers and then grew into her heart. You are astonishing."

She reaches forward, touches Regina's cheek, brushes her tears. "Letting you go will not change how I feel about you."

"I'm beginning to think nothing will." Regina leans into her hand, then kisses her. Her chin trembles and her resolve falters. She could let Mal talk her out of this. They could spend their lives together. Mal's patient, she'll wait for her, one day, she'll give in, she'll let her magic go and there will be a child. A little sister for Lily and Henry. A baby Maleficent finally gets to raise. She deserves that, but Regina can't give it to her. She's too tired, too broken. She loved Roland and he's gone, wanted to build a life with Robin and he suffered. Mal's already died once. Staying with Regina will only hurt her; ruin her chance at happiness.

Mal releases her cheek, takes a step back. She tilts her head. "I'll collect my things."

And it's over.

Regina can't watch her face, can't listen to her remove her things from their bedroom. She shuts her eyes, lets her magic take her far away before she changes her mind.

Before she's weak, once more.

Henry worries that he shouldn't talk to her, but that would be ridiculous. Mal lived in his house, helped him with his homework. He can't ignore her existence.

"Talk to her like you always do," Regina tells him, trying to be neutral. To be brave. "I broke up with her, that doesn't have to affect her relationship with you."

They have coffee, after school. Mal walks him home and stops, ever so politely at the gate.

She never walks to the door. Never pushes. Never demands Regina change her mind. Maybe that's what she wants. Mal to demand she reconsider, but she won't. She's patient.

Too patient. Too soft and suffering.

They still have to work together. Budget meetings are quiet, full of shuffling papers and hands that don't touch. Regina can't even sit at her desk because she remembers Mal's hands on her thighs, and laughing.

Mal's stopped drinking coffee. Three weekly meetings go by and she only has green tea (which she never liked before) and Regina shouldn't wonder. She should ask. This is her friend, her lover: the woman whose heart she broke.

She doesn't ask. She stares, watches Mal's face, studies her perfectly tailored suits and wonders if she'll wear something softer when she's pregnant. A month passes, dreamy and grey in the bleak end of winter. She sits by the fire on her own, reading books where the pages don't change. Henry brings her hot chocolate (no cinnamon, no chili) and the leaves turn to spring before her heart is ready to let go of the cold.

Mal, Emma and Lily eat together sometimes, and she passes them in the street. They smile, Mal nods to her and it's all very polite. Very calm.

She hates it. Regina wants to run to her in the street and scream. She doesn't. Grabbing Mal's shoulders and shaking her won't help either, but she wants to know. Is she pregnant? Did it work? Can she get pregnant here? Does she need something else?

After two whiskeys, she gets it out of Emma. Mal tried, three times before she gave up. She can't get pregnant like a human. She didn't think she could but-

"She tired. Guess she picked up on that hope thing from Henry." Emma swirls her drink. "She'd tell you this herself, if you asked."

Regina stares at the floor, her chest tight like iron. "I can't."

Emma raises her eyebrows, half choking on her whiskey. "That's bullshit."

"When did you become an expert on my relationships, Miss Swan?"

"When your ex started being my Friday night dinner date." Emma downs the rest of her drink and sets the glass on the table. "I'm not complaining, she's funny. Sad."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"She needs someone with magic." Emma pours another inch of whiskey into her glass and downs it fast while Regina stares at her own. "Which, makes it a pretty short list." She stands, looks Regina dead in the eye. "I know whatever happened is hard, and whatever you're feeling is harder still, but whoever wants to be a mother should get a chance to be one. You know I-"

Regina crushes the glass in her hand without thinking. Her skin's untouched, it's a cute little trick, and whiskey makes her palm smell like smoke.

"Regina? Hey, I didn't mean..."

"Good night, Emma."

"Would you talk to her?"

"And say what?" Regina rubs her hand against her dress, no longer caring about the whiskey. "I want her to be happy, even if that means raising our child without me? I'm not that selfless."

Emma reaches for her shoulder and other than Henry it's the first contact she's had with a person in weeks. Regina aches to lean into her, to cry and scream and release her frustrations.

But it's not Emma she wants to hold her.

"I don't think she wants it without you."

"Perhaps." She paces in front of the fire. "My actions took one child from her, trapped her underground and took thirty years of her life. I made you kill her."

"That wasn't your fault."

"I made the turnover, I put Henry in danger, I got Robin killed."

Emma rubs her shoulder, takes a step closer and Regina should take a step back, pull away and pull herself together, but Emma grabs her, hugs her tight. "Robin wasn't your fault. Maleficent dying wasn't your fault. Neither was Daniel."

Being held makes it all worse, and her heart rushes up into her throat and it hurts so much she can't breathe. She doesn't cry as much as she breaks, shatters like crystal. She barely makes a sound, but grief and regret vibrate through her.

Emma stays until Regina can breathe, then goes home to Henry and Lily and movie night and maybe Maleficent's there, arguing about special effects the way she does with Henry.

Not counting the fairies (fairies and dragons aren't compatible) there are four people with magic in Storybrooke: Zelena, Rumplestiltskin, Emma, and Regina herself. Mal wouldn't ask Zelena, and her relationship with the Dark One has never been that antagonistic, but never cordial either. Which leaves Emma, sweet, heroic Emma who wants to make everyone's lives better.

And Regina.

She spends a morning in her office trying to decide how she'll cope with her ex having a baby with her best friend. Emma peering over Maleficent's shoulder at the little blonde baby and Mal beaming with pride.

She's the one who can't drink coffee because she's so tense she's nauseated, and her thoughts crawl over her skin like rats. Mal should be happy. She deserves that baby, that promise of a future. She deserves everything.

Yet Regina can't think of her and a child with Emma without her fists clenching. She should be happy. She wants to be happy, but she can't. Can't even put away the spellbook where she found the spell the most be using. It'll be the full moon in two days and that's time, when the light is sweet and silver.

It's not like they're having sex. It's purely a donation. Nothing intimate. Emma's just doing what she does, giving back the happy endings. Returning what was stolen.

Even Lily's happier about i than Regina is. She laughs with Mal and Emma across the diner while Regina picks up her food. She sits next to Regina on the bench in the park and they eat ice cream and talk about the classes Lily's taking online.

Everything's fine.

Everyone's happy.

Henry drops the box of chocolate frosted donuts on her desk three days later. "You need this."

Sitting back in her chair, Regina smiles at him and it's the first genuine emotion she's felt since he went to school that morning. This is easy. "Thank you."

He sits down in front of the desk, donut in hand in a moment. "But, you're not hungry."

"I'm not."

He studies her, a hint of chocolate frosting on his lip. "It's not too late, you know."

"Too late for what?" Now she can't look, because even her son is on the other side.

"A happy ending." He sets his donut down on a napkin. "This is the climax, when the hero has to make a choice between what she thinks she deserves and what she wants, but it's not too late. Trust me, I'm the author."

"It's not that easy."

"You don't want easy." He tilts his head towards the spellbook. "You want something a little more complicated."

"It's too complicated."

He shrugs. "Only if you stop believing."

She could snap at him, because believing has lost her everyone she holds dear at one point or another, but this is Henry.

"I came back," he starts, leaning back with a smug look. "I came back from New York, and the dead, and Neverland. I love you, and you've never lost me. Maybe she's like that. Maybe you could be happy again."

"I'm not unhappy."

He laughs and tilts his head so much like Mal that her eyes sting. "That's crap, Mom."

"Henry, language."

"You're miserable and everyone knows it. Especially Mal. She misses you."

"She's free this way. She doesn't have to wait for me."

"That's not how she sees it." He finishes his donut, reaches across the desk and pats her shoulder. "See you for dinner, okay? Think about it. Maybe talk to her. When's the last time you actually talked, and not about budgets? You miss her just as much as she misses you."

"It's not that easy."

"You're a hero, Mom. You don't need easy. What you need, is a little faith." He grabs another donut and winks at her. "You're allowed to be happy. Even if it means I have to babysit."

The smell of chocolate and sugar makes her stomach churn in his absence. Her hands tremble when she sets the donuts aside and grabs her coat. The cool air will help, and even though it's her fourth cup of coffee and she should really stop, she wants to hold something in her hands.

Her meandering path takes her to Granny's then the docks, and the sea at least understands the cold grey misery in her heart. Henry's right, and she's known that since Mal moved her things out of the bedroom. This is wrong, being apart, doubting, being afraid, but she can't stop herself. It's the same self-destructive spiral of loathing and rage she's been on her entire life.

Of course she should be lonely.

Miserable.

"Emma said yes."

Regina shuts her eyes, sets down her coffee and wipes unshed tears from her eyes.

"I thought she would."

"The moon will be full tomorrow night, and I should be thrilled." Mal's presence at her side is so familiar that she takes a step closer without thinking. They should stand together, hand in hand, facing the sea and the storms and whatever else the world has for them.

"I know how much you want to have another child."

Mal looks at her hands, her long fingers tight on the wood, then meets Regina's eyes. "I said no."

Regina's heart thuds in her ears. "Why?"

"Because I want your child, not one on my own." Taking a breath steadies her. "I was alone with Lily, and it was bittersweet. You were missing. I want to rectify that as much as I want all the rest of it. I want to hear her cry and pick her up and watch her learn to smile, but I want that with you. I want you."

This is what she feared. Mal putting her before what she wants. Mal making the wrong choices, foregoing what her heart has ached for. This is what terrified her so much she made Mal leave. Her chest clamps down but at the same time, she's freed.

Mal knows. She has to know it's not fair, not right, what she'd be giving up. Regina takes a breath and trembles, hand at on her stomach.

She doesn't want to say it. "What if I can't?"

"Then I won't."

"No, no, that's not fair."

Mal laughs, almost crying, and the outburst makes Regina turn to stare at her. "What?"

"My heart doesn't care about fairness." Mal moves closer and they're too close, sharing the same air.

Regina's palms go slick against the damp wood.

Mal reaches for her hair, brushes it back, touches her chin. "I love you, Regina. You."

"But I can't be-"

Hushing her with a finger on her lips, Mal sighs. "Let me decide what I need." Mal's lips brush her cheek, too hot.

Regina shuts her eyes. She doesn't break.

At least, not on the outside.

"I said I needed time."

"And?" Snow's fingers hover on her cup but she doesn't drink.

"She's immortal, Snow. She said something wise and witty about having all the time in the universe, and I walked away."

Snow's cup clunks on the table. "Why would you do that?"

"Why?" Regina's asked herself the same question, over and over until she can't look at herself in the mirror. Maleficent loves her, and Regina loves her back, fierce and unforgiving. "You know why."

"She's not not Robin, or Daniel." Snow reaches out, seeking her hand and Regina grabs for her like a lifeline. "You just said it. She's immortal. She came back from the dead."

"She wasn't really dead." What Snow understands about dragons could be written on her coffee cup. "She doesn't die the way you or I do." Or Robin.

"Then that's good! She'll be here, you won't lose her." Snow's thumb rubs her hand and Regina needs that because she can barely breathe. Can't sleep since yesterday when she let Maleficent kiss her before she walked away. Her dreams were warmth and laughter and she woke up covered in sweat.

Snow's other hand wraps around Regina's trembling one, holding her tight. "Why are you so afraid to be happy?"

Blood rushes in her ears, but Snow's question remains, echoing in the empty pit of her stomach. Why are her hands shaking? Why does her coffee taste of metal? Why can't she breathe?

"Everyone who has ever loved me has suffered. You know that most of all."

"We forgive you." Snow lifts her hands, kissing the back of her fingers. "Maleficent forgives you too."