No Happily Ever After

by Erin Griffin

Fandom: Once Upon A time

Pairing: Remma/Swan Queen (Emma/Regina)

I don't know where this came from...

Regina's nostrels flared with anger. There was no need to ask who she had just encountered. Mr. Gold smirked as he waited for her under her precious apple tree. "That-That-" Regina began, but she didn't have the heart to insult Emma Swan. She knew how the sheriff was, and the woman always had the power to get under her skin, both good and bad.

"This misery between you can end... You know that," Mr. Gold said. Regina glared at him. This wasn't the first time they had this conversation, and the look on the man's face told her this certainly not a subject he could drop.

"I can't tell her. YOU know THAT," Regina shot back. Her glare was less severe, and now she just looked sad.

"I do not understand. What is so wrong with her knowing the truth? About you...? About Henry?"

Regina put her hand up to her apple tree and plucked the reddest one, mostly for something to do with her hands. "That's just it. She's only here because of Henry. She's probably only staying to spite me. The only way I can keep her here is to antagonize her because..."

"You still love her." There was something aikin to pity on Mr. gold's face, and Regina couldn't bare it. She turned away from him and placed a hand on a branch of the apple tree, partially for added support. "She could stay for you as well. If she knew that Henry's conception wasn't an accident, but planned-"

"I can't do that." The mayor turned back to the man, her eyes almost in a shocked expression. She shifted from one foot to the other, but didn't continue.

Mr. Gold shook his head, and it was obvious that he was slightly irritated. That woman could be so stubborn! He would wager that Emma was no different seeing who her parents are. Still, he decided to take a different approach."I am the closest you have to a friend, Mayor Mills," he said softly a moment later.

"You know I loved her. You know I did, and the time I spent with her was... magical, really. But then you told me-"

"I tell you a great many things, not all of them true," Mr. Gold said, his voice somewhat mischievious now, but Regina ignored it. She knew he was right when he had found her and told her who Emma really was and what she could do to her. That was why she left when Emma was five months pregnant, erasing her memory of her and planting another of a one night stand that never happened.

"She cannot know about what I really am and what is happening here in Storybrook. She is not my happily ever after, anyway," Regina said sadly, as if this realization was a new one that shook her at the core.

Mr. Gold took a step forward, leaning on his cane. He tilt his head before he asked, "What makes you say that, Dearie?"

"True Love's Kiss," the mayor responded simply.

"She didn't fall in love with you, she fell in love with whoever that woman was she met 12 years ago. Were she to know who you really are-"

"No. She's not my Happily Ever After, and there is no possible way I could be hers," Regina said firmly.

Mr. Gold shook his head slowly. "I hope that belief is enough to make things easier on you, Your Majesty." The man then turned and left Regina's yard, leaving the woman to watch after him blanky as images of a young Emma Swan who once loved her, not caring that there had been that age gap between them. Regina loved her then and she loved her now, but how would the blonde feel knowing that once upon a time, she loved a monster? Regina held the apple in her hands close to her chest and shut her eyes tightly as a tear fell down her cheek.

"I'm not her Happily Ever After, but I want her to be mine," she said to herself. The only answer she got was the sway of her apple tree as the wind picked up slightly. Soon she was forced to go into the house to check on Henry, the only precious thing in her life now.