Summary:
Rumpelstiltskin re-casts the curse to give his son a happy ending.
Warning:
Mentions of drug and alcohol abuse.
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It had started when Ruby had gone to the Library to check on Belle and had discovered her best friend lying dead on the floor and heartless. Ruby had immediately called Emma, the two idiots and Neal and they had raced over to Gold's shop to inform him of the terrible news.
What they found inside Gold's shop was something they had never expected.
There was Gold, holding a piece of parchment identical to the curse that Regina had burned in one hand and Belle's heart in the other.
"Papa, what have you done?" asks Neal
"What I do I do for you Bae. I sacrifice my Happy Ending, so you can have yours," answers Rumpelstiltskin.
And with that he dropped Belle's heart into the fire.
Green smoke billowed out of the fire and spread, racing through the shop and spreading rapidly throughout Storybrooke.
Once again the town was cursed.
Their memories of the Enchanted forest taken from them once more.
But one person was cursed to remember everything…
…Regina
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Regina blew into her freezing hands trying to get some warmth into her almost frozen hands and pulled her worn and tattered coat closer. What little layers of clothing she possessed and the newspaper she filled her clothes with doing little to hold back the Maine chill.
Her attention returned to 108 Mifflin street. The white house mocking her.
Inside sat Neal, Emma and Henry enjoying their family dinner.
The perfect happy family.
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"She's here again," mutters Neal looking out the window at the woman across the street. Emma knew with out looking who he was referring to.
Regina Mills; Storybrooke's resident drug addict and alcoholic, she was homeless and penniless and yet she still refused charity. Emma couldn't help but feel sorry for her.
Years ago her mother had murdered her fiancé Daniel. Then her mother died in a prison riot and finally her father died of a heart attack.
Everyone Regina had ever loved had all died.
And the poor woman had turned to drugs and alcohol to try and lessen the pain. The bright and up coming Equestrian and Show Jumper, who had been rumoured to have made it onto the American Olympic team, reduced to a mere shell of a person.
"She's here every night. Can't you do something Emma, tell her to move on," asks Neal.
"She's not doing anything wrong, and besides she doesn't have anywhere else to go," argues Emma. "You do know that she sleeps in the cemetery beside her father's grave. I know because I've found her there so many times, almost frozen to death,"
Neal looks down at his dinner embarrassed.
Emma stands up immediately and goes into the kitchen grabbing a tupperware container, the leftovers of dinner and her favourite red leather jacket.
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Regina looks up as Emma approaches.
"Sheriff Gold, what can I do for you?" Regina asks.
"Here, It's a little burnt but still edible," says Emma offering the tupperware container of food.
"I'm not hungry," lies Regina.
"You're lying," says Emma simply placing the container on the ground next to Regina and sitting down beside her.
"Why do you come here every night?" Emma asks breaking the silence.
For what seemed like eternity Regina was silent, "just wondering, daydreaming, about…families and children," Regina admits watching Henry finish his dinner and head into the lounge room with his father. Emma feels her heart break for the woman beside her.
"Why don't you ever let anyone help you?" begs Emma "Why do you refuse help? Are you trying to punish yourself because what ever you think you may have done to deserve this you don't! Please, let down your walls and let me in, let me help,"
"I don't think your father-in-law would approve," comments Regina, Emma turns and sees Neal standing in the front door of their house watching them like a hawk. Even from this distance Emma could see how tense Neal was.
"Screw Neal's dad, Regina, don't be afraid to ask for help, and I'm here if you need me," says Emma.
"You should go back to your family Sheriff," says Regina, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice but failing. Emma knows there is no point arguing. Regina is the most stubborn person she knows.
Many nights Emma would have to drag her out of the cemetery and into the town's community centre, and then sit there for hours until Regina would finally eat.
Other nights she'd find Regina over dosed on whatever drugs and alcohol the brunette had gotten her hands on. Those nights were the worst. Twice Emma had found Regina chocking on her own vomit, almost dead.
Emma knew her Father-in-law Gold was Regina's supplier but she could never pin anything on him, he was too slippery. And then she'd wind up in a fight with Neal over trying to arrest his father.
Emma knows deep in her heart that she should be doing more for this woman, for some reason Emma felt a connection to her. Emma didn't believe her father-in-law that it was merely pity, Emma knew it was something… more. But until Regina let her in, there was nothing Emma could do.
So reluctantly Emma stands and pulls off her leather jacket and drapes it over Regina's shoulders and begins walking back to her husband and son before Regina can argue and give the jacket back.
"Thank you," says Regina, for caring she adds silently.
Emma offers her a sad smile and returns home.
Regina pulls Emma's jacket closer, savouring what little warmth lingered from the blonde and took a bite of Emma's lasagne. Regina couldn't help but smile as she tasted the kick from the red pepper flakes Emma always added.
Regina's attention turned to the brown leather bound book of fairy tales beside her. Regina had found it days after Rumpelstiltskin had re-cast the curse. She had been tempted many times to leave it for Henry to find. But she never could bring herself to let go of it.
She couldn't bring herself to break the curse.
She couldn't bring herself to destroy Henry's happy family.
'He deserves a real family, not an Evil Queen for a mother,' Regina thinks to herself.
So here she would sit, night after night, watching her son grow up.
With out her.
End