AN: so this is set after 4x11, but Robin and Marian are still around and so is Gold. Robin choose to stay with Marian and Regina moved on, she and Emma are friends and have been for a while. No Queens of Darkness (just Maleficent, but with a slightly different background).

Forgive me for I have sinned

Regina got off the car, after she dropped Henry at school, heading to Granny's to get her usual morning coffee, when she saw a small crowd gathered around the town clock, everybody staring at the hours hand.

She got closer as she saw Emma Swan standing in front of the crowd, her back to the tower and her hands up, a slightly uncomfortable expression.

"There's nothing to see here, you can go back home or to work and carry on as usual."

She took a few more steps and everybody started turning towards her, whispering.

"What is happening here?"

"As if she didn't know already" Grumpy replied bitterly.

"The clock is still again" answered Emma with a polite smile.

Regina's gaze moved towards the clock, finding the time to be still indeed.

"We checked the clock's mechanism and stuff like that, but it's seems it stopped out of the blue without a reason" Emma added.

Regina looked around, seeing all the eyes on herself.

"I see. And of course I am the first person to be blamed" she smiled sadly. "After everything I've done, it's nice to see nothing has changed."

She held Emma's gaze for a few minutes, then she turned around and headed for the diner just as she planned minutes before.

"Regina, wait!"

When the blonde caught up she just snort without slowing down in the least.

"Sheriff Swan, I assure you I have nothing to do with whatever is happening to the clock. You can ask Henry if you want to. I spent the whole weekend with him."

"Regina, you know that's not what I was thinking. I believe you and I'm on your side."

The black Jimmy Choo's that Emma had been staring at came to an abrupt halt when Regina suddenly stopped, turning to face her.

"On my side" she echoed her words. "Just not enough to let the town know you were. Who's ever going to stand beside the Evil Queen in public, anyway? Like mother, like daughter."

Emma was confused by Regina's words, but she shook her head the second she moved, following her again.

"We need to find out who did this, figure out what happened."

"No, Sheriff Swan, you need to find out who did this. I'm not even the mayor of this town anymore, so I really don't see how could I help. And of course, aside from that, there is the fact that, well, I do not want to."

An high pitched laugh echoed in the streets, between the houses, inside the cars.

Regina knew that laugh all too well. She froze in her tracks.

She turned around quickly, standing between Emma and the cloud of black smoke forming between them and the clock tower.

"Look at that. The Evil Queen bending to her own peasants."

Regina took a deep breath. It couldn't be true.

"Luckily for you, I have come to your rescue, are you happy? I just had to stop time until I cannot reach what I want. We shall be together again very soon, my friend" she laughed again and then, for a moment, everything stand still, the witch faked a gasp. "Oh, no, wait. I think the only thing in this whole town that I am actually going to keep to myself" from the dense cloud the figure of a woman started to emerge, a long cane in her hand, made of nothing but smoked, rushed trough the air until she was close enough to Regina that she could whisper the last sentence "is your heart."

She disappeared right after that, nothing but black smoke left.

"Very soon the darkness will fall, Regina. You made a terrible mistake, bringing Aurora with you."

The cloud exploded, the smoke rushed into every street, every house, everywhere in the town. The voice that just moments before echoed in the square could now be heard in every corner of Storybrooke.

"I am coming to get what I need and then I am going to fix every wrong that has ever been done to me. If it's the last thing I do."

A moment after, the smoke was gone.

Regina kept staring at the sky, wondering how was it possible.

She trapped her, she was damn sure. They had been on the same side a long time before, but once Regina found herself casting the fist curse, she trapped her in a cave and made certain there was no way out for her to find. And, sure enough, she was still in the cave, it couldn't be otherwise.

She marched to the clock tower, Emma right behind her.

"Where are we going?"

Regina didn't answer.

Emma understood that things were really messy, because she didn't even point out that while Regina was going somewhere Emma was merely following without permission and sticking her nose where it didn't belong. She must have been really worried about the woman in the cloud, because she didn't protested at Emma's presence not even once.

"Why are we going to the library?" she was confused when they got into the tower, but it didn't last for too long. She figured it all out when she saw Regina heading for the elevator. "Oh, please not that thing."

"We need to go down there. Into the tunnels" she finally spoke, opening the elevator with a firm gesture of her hand.

Emma didn't like her previous encounter with the dragon down there and she surely would have liked to avoid a rematch. But judging by Regina's tone she didn't have much of a choice.

They went in, and while they started to descend both of them stayed silent.

"So" Emma started "what did you and Henry do this weekend?"

Regina rolled her eyes, refusing to have small talk with the woman beside her. It was the only weekend Henry spent with her since he moved back into the mansion. Their agreement was that he spent the weekends with the Charming's, but those two days Snow and David decided to get some alone time and Emma had to babysitter little Neal, so Henry stayed home, happy to spend some time with his mother without having to go to school in the morning. The watched movies, one being Henry's all time favorite Lilo&Stich, he showed all the comics he had been reading and Regina helped him study for a test. The normality of the previous days had been almost perfect.

Almost.

She was Henry's family, but so was Emma, they both could see that when he wasn't with them both he was always missing something.

"Focus, miss Swan" was the only answer. "We might have to use magic, you need to be ready if we have to cross that bridge."

"Ah. Funny" she snorted. "As you command, your Majesty" she whispered.

The elevator opened up. The first one to step off was Regina, chin up, shoulders straight, and Emma was never going to understand how the hell she could have that much confidence while walking on five inch heels. On the other hand, Regina had so much composure doing pretty much anything.

She was the fist one to get into the cave, Emma right behind. They were both ready to face whatever was waiting there, but that was the problem after all: there was nothing to fight.

"Empty."

Emma didn't realize why that single word said so quietly had been enough to make her wish she could hug the people she cared about one last time.

"She ran away."

"That explains the black smoke."

"We need to find Aurora and your parents."

Emma nodded, following her when she started to walk again.

"You know, for someone who doesn't want to help you're going through a lot of trouble" a soft smile played on her lips.

"Shut up, miss Swan."

"Regina."

The name was said firmly. The brunette turned toward her, looking into her eyes.

After Neverland, after the Snow Queen, after everything they faced together, she could acknowledge it was a little weird to keep calling her that.

"Emma" she corrected herself.

They became friends, thanks to Emma being so stubborn and making Regina trusting her again after she brought Robin Hood's nearly deceased wife there from the past.

Emma remembered perfectly the moment Marian returned and the way Robin rushed to her side leaving Regina to deal with the pain. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right everybody gave up when it concerned her, just because of her past. Emma was never going to do that, she was going to keep fighting so that Regina could have her happy ending, whatever it was.

When the left the library, the crowd standing in front of the clock tower had doubled.

As soon as she saw them, Snow walked toward them.

"What happened? We heard the same voice all over the city. And the clock is standing still once again."

Emma turned to look at Regina.

"She's back."

Snow looked at them frowning, moving her gaze from one to the other, not daring to ask the question on her mind.

"Maleficent."

They had gathered pretty much the all city into the town hall. Regina was standing by herself, only Henry was beside her. The hall was filled with worried whispers, everybody with a different hypothesis and not even one of them willing to keep it to themselves.

When Snow got up and began to talk, suddenly they fall quiet.

"As most of you might have heard by now, the tower clock is still again. We are stuck once more."

Whispers filled the room again, until the woman cleared her voice, and the noise stopped at once.

"A lot of you have been asking who is responsible for this and some of you jumped to the wrong conclusions very quickly" she not so subtly looked in Grumpy's direction, but the dwarf just shrug his shoulders. "Anyway, shortly after that the one actually responsible came clean showing herself to the whole town. So is with great sorrow that I have to announce to you all that Maleficent is now free."

Nobody dared to speak, not even a whispered word.

"We do not think she will fight against us very soon, nor we think she is going to disappear forever. All that we ask is that you return to your homes tonight and to your works tomorrow. There is no need for panic right now."

"So we should just do nothing at all" Ruby cut her off.

"Looks like the thing we tried with the Snow Queen. And Cora. And Pan" Belle listed. "It didn't work out so well the other times."

"Maybe we should be the ones to go after her this time" the Blue fairy said calmly. "Trying to achieve a compromise, to avoid a battle and victims."

"If we can even find her, I think that going against her might just mean there would be some victims anyway" Aurora stepped in. "Believe me."

"So we let her choose where to start and who she can kill first?" Grumpy cut her off. "I say we stay together until we find her."

The room was quickly filled again with confused noises.

Snow and David looked at each other, clueless on what they should do at that point to please everyone.

The one to stand up and to step in was Regina.

"If I may, I just want to point out that going after Maleficent, while it might be the only effective weapon to gain her surrender, might also be very dangerous and quickly turn into our own painful defeat."

For several second the room was utterly quiet.

"Well, you heard her" Grumpy immediately chimed in. "If the Evil Queen says not to go seek Maleficent, there is no doubt that that is exactly what we ought to do."

Regina rolled her eyes, snorting. Henry got up immediately, ready to defend his mother.

"If you don't want my advice, at least hear sheriff Swan's answer."

"My answer to what?" Emma asked, take off guard.

"Who was the only person Maleficent threatened this morning, miss Swan? The only one Maleficent is interested in, whose heart she wants to steal, the only one in danger?"

Emma hesitated. She wished, more than anything, she could lie or avoid the question. Because she knew what Regina was trying to do. She didn't left her any choice, she could do nothing if not answer, all the eyes lingering on her left her no room to lie.

"You, Regina."

"So you see" she finished like it was obvious. "You can go back safely to your houses, to your jobs, go on with your lives just as Snow suggested. The only person in this room that is in any danger at the moment, is me. I bet nobody will be willingly going after Maleficent now."

A long minute of silence followed Regina's sentence. A smug grin formed on her lips.

"That's what I thought."

"Doesn't change anything to me" Ruby stood up. "Regina is one of us now, she deserves our protection, she helped us defeat Cora and Pan and Ingrid. It's our turn to protect her."

"Miss Lucas, sit down" Regina whispered, her attempt to keep them all away from a suicidal mission was just about to get blown up by a little girl in a short skirt. It was so very frustrating.

"Ruby, you fought a war against her. How can you forget that so easily?" Ashley asked.

"I didn't forget the war against her" she chimed in fiercely. "But I didn't forget the three I fought beside her either. If you aren't willing to protect her, you shouldn't be so eager to get her help when she's the only one who can save you."

"Fighting now is still a mistake, Ruby" Snow told her. "We can take shifts to protect Regina, we can organize groups and start looking for Maleficent, but we are not going to start another war."

"I do not need your help. I can manage perfectly fine, thank you very much" Regina cut off her speech. "I can find Maleficent, make a deal with her and none of you will be getting their hands dirty this time."

Snow shook her head no, but Regina wasn't willing to negotiate.

"Snow" she said firmly. "I have to do this. I have to. I'm not proud of the things I did in the past, the pain I've caused, the people I've" her eyes fell briefly on the boy next to her, reminding her that it wasn't the moment to confess all her sins. "The people I've hurt. I will never be able to fix every mistake I've made. If I was to live ten other lives, not even then I could be again the good person I once upon a time have been, the one you've met all those years ago. I can't go back. But I don't want to have innocent blood on my hands anymore. Maleficent is my problem, let me fix that, let me have that chance. It's the only one I'm going to get. It's the only chance I have to redeem myself."

Without another word she gently squeezed Henry's shoulder, guiding him out of the town hall toward their car.

Once they were inside, he took her hand.

I am proud of you, mom. I'm so proud you want to be good. But you have to know you are not alone. We are never going to let you do this."

"What do you mean, we?"

Henry smiled as someone knocked on the driver's window of Regina's Mercedes. She lowered it just to find Emma standing there.

"I won't give up on you, Regina. I've told you. We won't give up on you" she corrected herself, stepping aside to allow Regina to see Snow and David standing behind her.

Henry's hold tightened on her hand.

"We are a family, mom. Nobody gets left behind-"

"-or forgotten, I know" Regina got the quote right away.

She wasn't used to how things had changed yet.

"We want to help too" Ruby's voice caught their attention.

Next to Snow and David there were Ruby and an Asian girl Regina remembered seeing only once at Robin's camp.

"I dealt with Maleficent once before" she said. "With her curses and her victims. I want to help you the way you did with Emma and Snow when they came back from the Enchanted Forest, if it's alright with you" she took a step forward. "My name is Mulan."

Henry's face light up.

"Mulan! You're like my favorite princess ever!"

"Hey" Snow protested.

"Sorry, grandma" she whispered, realizing his mistake. "But Mulan was the best warrior in all of China" he kept going with his voice lowered so much he could barely hear himself.

"Thanks, Emma" Regina said. "I know this is because of you. Even if I will have to put up with the two idiots."

"Hey" Snow protested a second time. "You do realize I am still here, right?"

Emma smiled to the woman in the car, watching as she turned the Mercedes on, just to see her stop a few feet ahead.

"And, miss Lucas, please wear a skirt that cover at least your underwear, if you must be there. The woman wearing men clothes and the impulsiveness prince can come, as long as the secret teller stays home."

Emma smiled, finally recognizing her Regina, waiting for the nickname she was gonna give her.

"Mulan, you are welcome as well, of course" she finished, before taking off again in the direction of Mifflin Street.

Emma snorted incredulously, raising her hands to her waist.

"So I'd be the woman with men clothes? I do not-" she looked down, to her black boots, her tight jeans, her with shirt and her leather jacket. After all, her clothes surely weren't as feminine as Regina's usual outfits. She rolled her eyes, snorting again as she heard Ruby laughing. "Not. One. Word."

AN: Let me know what you think, this is my first story and english is not my first language so I apologize for any mistake. Thank you very much!