Author's Note: I blame this one entirely on last night's insomnia; no sleep, no beta.
I.
The first time Regina Mills sat down in her large dining room table alone, it was the night after she had enacted the curse and condemned everyone who had caused her misery and pain to live without their memories and happiness.
After years of having people cooking her meals for her, preparing her first meal on her own had been… eventful. She wasn't familiar with this world's appliances, even though the curse had given her the knowledge about them and their functions. She found a recipes book inside one of the kitchen cabinets and set herself to do some beef steak with mashed potatoes. Seemed simple enough.
Looking down at her plate, comparing the food on it to the one in the book's picture made her efforts seem pitiful. Her mashed potatoes ended up little more consistent than soup and her steak was so undercooked she could still see the red tendrils of blood on the sides as she cut down a piece of it.
But the lackluster quality of her dinner did not deter her from enjoying this moment.
Even though she was surrounded by the silence inside the huge manor, accustomed to the background noise of servants moving around her now long distant palace to please her every order, Regina smiled.
She felt a sense of triumph knowing that they had left the land of happy endings far behind now. That not so far away from her new home, Snow White (or Mary Margaret, as she was renamed by the curse) would be having her meal on her own too, without her Prince Charming. Without her happy ending.
II.
The second time Regina Mills sat down in her large dining room table alone, it was just a few days after Emma Swan had come into Storybrooke.
Her arrival in the sleepy town had Regina riled up. Her presence was affecting Regina like no other had in more than 28 years. No matter what Regina liked to show, Emma Swan staying in Storybrooke had brought change into a town that had (literally) stopped in time.
Although much had changed since her first night in Storybrooke. She had found Henry (which now seems no more than just fate's way of always catching up to her, always making sure she would not get her happy ending) and she had loved him like she hadn't dared love anyone or anything since her (Daniel's) heart had been reduced to ashes quite literally in front of her eyes.
Quickly her relationship with Henry had stalled and much like most things in Storybrooke, Regina felt like she was living the same day over and over again, feeling her son grow more and more distant without really knowing why.
Until Emma Swan had shown up at her porch.
Since then, everything had changed. Her days no longer felt dull, taking pleasure in the almost daily fights she has with the woman. Her feelings no longer felt like a distant memory she could no longer remember, even if these days the only thing she felt was rejection and pain.
It was only natural for Regina to blame Emma Swan for every time she felt the pang of rejection when she looked at her son's eyes. It was natural for her to blame the woman for her first dinner alone in 10 years.
Unlike her first night in Storybrooke, Regina found no reason to smile. She could sense her victory fading away, just like her feeling of satisfaction had faded not long after they'd arrived to Storybrooke.
Slowly, piece by piece, Emma Swan was bringing happy endings back to everyone in town and in turn, taking the happy ending from the one who had cursed them all in the first place.
The silence inside the manor that night only served to confirm Regina's fears that indeed, Emma Swan was to be her undoing.
III.
The third time Regina Mills sat down in her large dining room table alone, it was just short of an hour after she promised Henry she would try her best to redeem herself.
The aftermath of Emma breaking the curse hadn't been like Regina had imagined. They didn't return to Storybrooke, and even though she felt the soft crackling of magic in the air, she knew that magic worked so very differently than it did where she had once been able to use it to bend everyone else's will to fit her desire for revenge.
However, the moment Emma Swan had touched her arm, a surge of powerful magic had taken over her, enabling the portal that had led Emma and Snow White back to Fairytale Land.
The kind of magic that had passed between Emma and Regina was like something she had never felt. It overwhelmed her in its intensity, so pure and untainted by the darkness of revenge and pain. Regina wondered if this was how True Love's magic felt like.
It was Regina's surprise that had allowed her a moment of distraction that had led to Emma sacrificing herself to save Regina. The woman really was full of surprises.
At first, Regina thought she'd be happy to be rid of the nuisance that Emma Swan had become in her life. She was finally free of the obstacle that stopped her from getting Henry's love back. But when the calm settled in her mind, she felt the irrevocable change in her feelings for the woman.
It was this new surge of feelings that had allowed her to break down her walls for once, in front of her son and James, to let Henry know she would do anything to deserve his love, even to give up the one thing that still allowed her some control over her life, even if now it felt useless.
Regina was willing to let go of this little boy who she loved so much, letting him take her heart with him, if that meant his forgiveness. She could only hope to see once again the kind of unconditional devotion she had once seen his eyes, when he was just a toddler who loved to follow her around the house, so eager to please her and to learn from her.
As she sat down on her usual seat by the dining table, a plate of her now perfected steak and mashed potatoes, Regina let herself hope that change would come again and let her have any semblance of a happy ending that she deserved.
IV.
The fourth time Regina Mills sat down in her large dining room table, she wasn't alone at all. She was sitting in her usual seat at the top of the table but at her right side sat Henry, on his usual (or what used to be) seat too and to her left, for the first time, Emma had joined them.
Being stuck in Neverland with the woman for almost two weeks had been the biggest challenge yet to their tenuous, convoluted version of a relationship. Getting Henry back had seemed almost impossible at times, and it was then that they had found most comfort in each other. The camp where they had settled felt like it was just theirs, Snow and James huddling together on one side and Hook almost always leaning against a tree in the far off side of camp, leaving Emma and Regina in a somewhat comfortable silence.
Sometimes, Regina swore she felt Emma leaning instinctively closer to her. The first nights she had shied away but by the end of the week, she had accepted Emma's quiet comfort as if all that had happened between them was gone. But Regina couldn't forget. Holding onto that sliver of hope that Emma had given her, that, perhaps, her happy ending wasn't as unreachable as she thought, her redemption just a possibility away, and then having that ripped away, along with Emma's hesitant but warm smiles, her shy invitations but most importantly, her trust and belief in the possibility of good inside her darkened soul.
But then Emma would smile at her, look at her with soft eyes or even put a comforting hand on the small of her back, trying to appease the unspoken but ever present fear both mothers felt for the safety of their son, and in the warm light of the small fire, Regina would let herself forget and deep inside, she would forgive and give way inside her heart for other feelings. Feelings other than anger, jealousy, rejection that came so easily to her when she looked at Emma Swan, had now given way to an attachment, even a predilection for the woman's presence that multiple times her mother had reminded her was just another weakness of the heart.
However, and as Regina looked across the dining table just in time to witness Emma making a funny face towards Henry's direction, her love didn't felt like a vulnerability to be hidden away anymore.
Instead, Regina felt like embracing all the love she felt for these two people sitting with her, as they share a plate of Henry's (and it seemed, Emma's too) favorite, lasagna. She asked what was so funny, and getting the full explanation from Henry, with some interjections of "He's the one that started it!" from Emma's part, both of them offering her vibrant smiles, Regina thought about all those years when she had deprived herself of this, out of fear.
Regina knew now that, as long as she kept her heart open for this, for love and shared laughter with her son and the woman that had saved them both, she wouldn't have to fear for her happiness no more.