What's left?
Summary: Regina doesn't have it in her to kill her father to cast the curse so she doesn't. Snow White cursed her to stay young so she would have to live in her misery forever. Attempting multiple times to take her own life only to be stopped by her father or a worker. One day a very curious 26 year old princess breaks into her castle and finds her laying in unconscious on the floor she patches her wounded mind and stays with her.
Characters:
Regina 33
Emma 26
Henry 70
Snow 54
David 56
Neal 10 (brother)
X
"Regina you are banished, banished to live alone in your misery" Snow spoke strongly, looking at Regina with a steal gaze.
"As long as you're alive in this world, you can't hurt us" Charming added, as snow stepped closer to Regina.
"You saved my life once... And now I've saved yours, so we're even." She looked into Reginas eyes, once again become cold as ice as she spoke. "And if you ever try to hurt anyone in my kingdom again I will kill you" then she walked away, and David motion for the guards to remove Regina.
X
"What happened?"
"Did you get your answer?"
"Your majesty? Your majesty!" The mirror asked from mirror to mirror as Regina storms through the halls of her castle and into the room where he father awaited, lighting candles.
He walked to her carefully, "Did rumplestiltskin tell you what you needed to know?"
"Yes" she walked right by him, not sparing him a glance.
"And?" He pushes.
She stops then, still not turning as she spoke. "I'm not sure I should say... I'm conflicted..." She walked back toward the fireplace, stopping again as he spoke, tears brimming in her eyes.
"How bad is it? Maybe I can help." He offered kindly, one of the many things she loves about him so much. Her father, such a kind and special man, to fearful, she thinks, at times, like when she was a child, all he would do was watch, never help, only clean up the mess afterward, she shook her head, ridding herself of those menacing thoughts.
"I have to cut out the heart of the thing I love most..." She said quietly, hesitantly.
He took a deep breath, "...me..." His scratchy voice echoed in the hollow room.
She turned then, facing him with tears clouding her vision. "Daddy I don't know what to do.."
"My dear... Please..." He raised his hands in a slight surrendering motion, "you don't have to do this"
She shook her head, and walked past him once again, "I have to do something..."
"We can move past this, I know this may sound self serving but you don't need to enact the cure..." He said, looking at her closely.
"But I can't keep living like this! What snow did to me, what she took from me, it's eating me alive daddy, her very existence mocks me. She must be punished" she said, then stormed back to another part of the room.
"Regina..." Henry tried in vain to calm down his daughter. "If the price is a whole that will never be filled why do it? Stop worrying about Snow White and start over. We can have a new life" he said calmly.
She turns to him, "what kind of life, all I've worked for, all I've built will be gone! My power will disappear, they already think I'm nothing" her voice turned to a whisper by the end.
"Power is seductive, but so is love, you can have that again"
She searched his face, what for she isn't sure, maybe to see if he really believes his own words, she isn't sure. Finally, she let her head fall to his shoulder in defeat, the tears falling down her cheeks as he wrapped his arms around her lovingly.
"I just want to be happy..."
"We can be... Of this I'm sure, I believe, if given a chance, we can find happiness, together." He said, rubbing her back in a soothing manor. "The choice of yours."
She pulled back then, looking into his eyes, "I hope you're right daddy..." She lets her head fall back onto his shoulder once again, "I could never hurt you..."
X
"This coronation ceremony is something we have been looking forward to for quite some time, it has been a cause of great joy for our family, and we hope you can share in it as we present to you, our first born child, princess Emma" Charming said as snow held up the blonde baby, everyone knelt in honor of the new princess.
X
Emma was five when she first heard her parents whisper about this so called evil queen. She'd never seen the woman, nor had she witnessed anything evil, so she wonder just how evil she really must be.
"Perhaps she's just given up snow, we must think the best, if not, what shall we pass onto our daughter? To always live in fear of what may or may not come?"
"It's been years David! And we haven't heard to much as a peep from her, don't you think that's a little suspicious? One day she's claiming to take our happiness and the next she just gone, living in her castle with her father and a magic mirror alone?" Snow argues, Emma couldn't see her mother from where she is hidden in the doorway, but she heard her just fine.
"Snow, everything is fine, we shall call upon a spy and send them to the castle, see what she is up to if it will calm you down, you mustn't be so worked up, Emma could see you" he reasons with her, placing a hand on her thin arm.
"Yes, a spy, that is what we should do..." She said thoughtfully before wishing off to speak with head of the army.
X
"You are to enter the queens castle, say you're looking for shelter, will work for your bed and meals. Nothing else. When you're in, you clean, whatever it is you're asked to do, and you look for the queen, see what she's doing, and report back to us." Snow instructed the maiden, she nodded and set off for the castle immediately.
Riding through the darkest of night and arriving at the castle in the wee hours of the morning.
"Halt, in the name of the queen, state your business here" the dark knight commanded when she reached the entrance.
"I- I'm looking for a job, I'll work for a bed and a meal, anything..." She said, tilting her head for sympathy.
"Follow me to speak with the queen." He says and takes the lead of her horse.
She was lead to a dark room she assumed to be the thrown room, and she saw a beautiful woman sitting in the chair stoically. This woman, this must be the queen. She'd never seen the queen herself, but she had heard of her beauty, although the story's were nothing compared to the sight of it herself.
"What do you want?" Her majesty snapped harshly, but she could hear and sadness beneath her words.
"I come in search of a job, I will work for you, and all I ask for is a bed and meals... Please your majesty, I have nothing else..." She pleads.
The queen looks at her hesitantly, but after a moment she stands and nods, waving her hand.
"Very well, you can be my personal maid"
X
Eliza had been working for the queen for a week now, and found nothing, the queen spent her days in her bedchambers alone or with her father, some days she would go out to the garden and sit next to an apple tree, but nothing suspicious or evil had happened, the only thing she had found strange was the small cuts the lines her majesty's inner arm, many small cuts that looked to be self inflicted, and some days, while doing to laundry she would come across clothes covered in blood, she never said anything about it, she knew better.
Until one morning, she was instructed to wake the queen for her breakfast, but when she went to her bedchambers she found it empty, so she continued into her bathing room where she found the queen, in a horrific state. She immediately screamed for aid as she rushed to the queens side.
Regina sat, naked, in the bath tube, the water still warm, but no longer clear, instead stained a deep red. One wrist hanging outside the tub with a large gash and blood still dripping from it, the other was settled at her side submerged in water, preventing it from closing itself. Her eyes were closed, her skin pain as a ghost. But the faint rise and fall of her chest was the sign she was still alive. Eliza pulled regina out of the rub, grabbing the nearest cloth and wrapped her up in it, screaming again for help as the Knights and Sir Henry rushed in.
"Regina!" He screamed, falling at her sides, he pushed the wet hair from her face. "Get her into bed and fetch a healer. Now!" He shouted at the Knights.
One pulled into his arms and carried her to the bed, setting her small body down and rushed out.
"You, maid, help me wrap her wounds" Henry instructed pointing to her wrist. She nodded and wrapped the gash with the white fabric before turning to Henry.
"Why would she do this...?"
"She isn't happy, she thinks the only way to be happy is in death..." He sighed, shaking his head and looking lovingly down at his daughter. Eliza looked to, laying here, unconscious, the queen looks to innocent, so young, pure, and helpless.
"Why would she think such a thing?"
"People like you" he said suddenly, pointing at her, "King David and Queen Snow sent you, I know, and she found out yesterday, and that is why she did this, she'd done it before, I was hoping she would've gotten over it, but you triggered that fear and that distrust that lives inside her constantly."
She stood then, backing away slowly. "I had no idea she would hurt herself... I didn't meant to cause this... I was just doing my job..."
"Leave now maid, and never return, she could've killed you, instead, she almost killed herself, and that would kill me" he said, pointing at the door and she rushed out.
X
"Queen snow! King David!" Eliza screamed, running threw the castle.
"What is it Eliza, what did you find?" Snow is the first to emerge.
"The queen, she is no threat, she wants not to hurt you, i swear it" she panted slightly, catching her breath.
"Tell us of what you saw" David said calmly, motioning for Eliza to sit.
"I spent a week being the queens personal maid, I brought her meals and cleaned her clothes. She wore small cuts all up the insides on her arms, and some laundry nights I would find blood covered clothes. Yesterday I went to wake the queen for breakfast and she wasn't in bed, I found her in the tub, but the water was red with blood and she was white as a ghost, she'd cut her own wrists because she found out I was a spy. Sir Henry said that she has tried to bring upon her own death before. That she feels, fears, she will never find happiness. She could've killed me your highnesses, but instead, she attempted to kill herself. I could not have lived with that guilt" she spoke, and by the end she was nearly sobbing in snows arms at the queen rubbed at her back.
"I am truly sorry you had to see that Eliza, I didn't know she felt that way, all this time, I thought the worst..." Snow said, a slight tremor in her voice. "I must write to her at once..."
X
Henry sat at Reginas side until the moment she woke, her eyes heavy with sleep and pain.
"D..daddy...?" She whispered hoarsely.
"Shh sweetheart, rest, I am here, the maiden is gone. You are safe..." He said, brushed a stray hair from her face.
"I..I'm sorry daddy... I just... I can't... I don't know..." She mumbled incoherently.
"Sleep darling, nothing to worry about, I am here with you, always"
X
Regina,
This is for all the trouble my maiden spy has caused you, a poison of youth for your father, from the blue fairy, he will stay young as you have, please accept my apology for the spy.
Snow.
