A/N: I'm expecting this to be a novella length exploration of Regina's duality. It'll be dark, gritty and emotional. It'll deal with Regina and who she is with the Queen stripped out and how you can't be who you are if you surgically remove the pieces of you that brought you to the person you now are.

This chapter features a non-graphic sexual situation with a female OC. There are warnings for assholish manipulative behavior (which might for some border on dub-con...just to be safe) and depression/self-loathing. It also - for those who prefer to be forewarned - has mentions of Regina's rather negative perception of Emma and Hook as a couple and it discusses her grief over Robin and her guilt about the way that he died (for her).

Timeline wise, this takes place four months after the finale. Hook is a part of this story - it starts with he and Emma together since I'm trying to stay somewhat roughly within the canon of the aired show - but while I am trying to be somewhat character-respectful, this just isn't his story or "happy ending" and he will eventually work his way through and then out. Robin is, of course, spoken about, but is dead (part of her journey will be coming to terms with his death and her perceived role in it, and how she struggles to understand him sacrificing himself for her).

So yes, in case you're at all concerned, this is an eventual romantic SQ piece (it's as slow-burn as a short story can be) but at its heart, it's about Regina spinning out due to how lost she feels and the people who love her the most (and the ones she equally loves the most) reaching out for her and grounding her.

The house is quiet tonight.

Quiet and dark.

Because Henry is spending the night with Emma and presumably also with her often-over practically live-in boyfriend. Regina finds that she has to try hard not to think about that last part. She finds that she has to fight like hell not to think about the seething anger which she still feels towards Emma's unkempt apparently immortal pirate and his ability to - like a cockroach - survive anything. She has to fight not to wonder if Henry prefers to be with Emma and Hook as opposed to the mercurial mother who can't seem to pull herself out of the miserable depressive funk that she's been stuck in for several months now. Either way, he's there and not here (and she hates herself for how much she missed him and how empty she feels when he's not around - when they're not) and so all there is left are cold white walls and soft yellow lights.

It's been like this a lot as of late (she's been like this a lot), and she knows that it's her fault that this is happening - knows that it's completely her fault that she's struggling as badly as she is.

Because Henry's absence is only part of the problem. Yes, it's becoming more and more of a struggle to find ways to cope with the echoing thunder of her silent far too-big house when he's away with Emma or his grandparents, but she's a strong and resilient woman (or at least this is what she likes to tell herself whenever the depression gets too heavy) and she has spent a very long time keeping herself busy and entertained and even company when no one else had wanted to. She knows how to manage - and how to survive - better than most people ever will.

So it's not just Henry and it's not just the silence.

Not just, anyway.

It's the cold bed that used to have two people in it instead of one, and it's her broken heart which isn't as shocked as it should be about its most recent injury, and it's the emptiness that's swirling around inside of her, too. It's the bitter unyielding reality that's crashing down and in on her and the tragic truth of there being nothing besides dark shadows to keep her company.

It's been four months since Robin's senseless death. Snow would vehemently insist that it wasn't such – Snow would claim that Robin's sacrifice for Regina had given it purpose, but try as she might - and she has tried so very hard to find some kind of redeeming quality in his loss - Regina finds that she is utterly incapable of seeing how a good man trading his life for a woman like her could ever make sense. And so it has been four months since a good man's soul had been obliterated and body lowered into the cold hard ground, and two children were left without a father. For months of carrying around loss and guilt and so much searing regret.

It's been four months since the Evil Queen had been torn out of her because in a fit of desperation and fear and the frantic need for hope and a future, Regina had rashly decided that it had been the only way to save both herself and others from the karmic retribution that had followed after the Queen like a faithful dog. Robin had died because of her, Regina believes; like so many of the witless stubborn heroes who follow her around, her beloved archer had thrown himself into the path of damnation for a woman who had ill-deserved his love.

And yet, she had received that love, anyway.

She's not sure she will ever forgive him for that.

Regina looks down at her glass, down at the amber liquid within it. She swirls it around, watching the flickering flames from the fire reflecting off the glass. She thinks it funny that though so much has changed about her in the last four months, her affinity and tolerance for alcohol has not. It's been four months since that night on the roof, a needle stuck in her arm, her darker half made whole and physical and since then, she has rarely been without drink.

At least not when she's alone.

Which isn't to say that she's battling an alcohol problem; when Henry or Emma or the Charmings are around, she notices that her chest is warm and her heart is big and even though she knows better, she finds that she has little need to have her mind elsewhere. But when they're gone and she's able to wonder and think and believe that they're probably happy to not be with her, caretaking her and trying to keep her buoyed, it's easy to reach for the spirits.

Easy to reach for any way away from her own heart and mind.

Regina chuckles. "You're a mess," she mutters to herself.

And, yes, of course she is.

Over the last few months, she's spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out who she is without the Evil Queen lurking deep within her mind to help her to navigate through the darkness. The Queen had helped Regina to evade her many demons, and now, by choice, the Queen is gone and those demons are constantly clawing towards her, reminding her at all times of the sins of her past and how more of them belong to her than she has ever wanted to admit.

Because of that, because of those ever-lurking demons, Regina has of late spent a lot of time looking into mirrors and seeing very little of worth looking back at her. Oh, sure, the woman on the opposite side is more innocent and her eyes are wider and perhaps even more hopeful in that kind of dumbstruck way, but they're also more lost. More afraid and more alone.

And more wondering exactly where she fits in now.

A tip of her glass full of scotch back to her lips, and Regina thinks that she still doesn't have a clue - she just feels like she's something less than she was. Oh, sure, when it had been absolutely necessary to, she rallied and been able to find the fight and fire needed to defeat Hyde and the rest of his goons, but the whole time, she'd felt like something was wrong.

Like she was wrong.

She'd felt like she'd been pretending every step of the way. Fire in her hands, magic beneath her skin, and she'd been strong and fierce standing toe-to-toe with a mocking Hyde, but it had all been dress-up and pretend. For herself at first, but then mostly for the others who had looked at her with such worry, and with the same "are you all right?" always on their lips.

For Emma, who touches her constantly, like she's trying to ground her, and give her strength.

For Snow, who keeps trying to give her hope, and keeps trying to see light in her eyes.

And for Henry, who should never know that sometimes that light doesn't come back.

They had ended Hyde and then stood above his ashes, his other half having hidden away. She and Emma had been shoulder-to-shoulder and she'd thought, "This will one day be me."

And said, "It's over."

Knowing even then that while Hyde's sad terrible story might have been, hers was not.

Then, as she had been walking away, there had been the strange inexplicable moment when she had felt a strange anxious tingle and had turned to her side, towards the wooded area on the side of the road. She could have sworn, then, that she'd seen herself staring back at her from the trees - or rather, that she'd seen the Evil Queen standing there, watching her with a lifted eyebrow, her gaze full of cold judgment. Dressed in a sweeping crimson and silver dress with her thick hair piled high atop her proudly lifted head and her lips painted blood red, she'd been imposing and bold even in the shadows of the night. Smoky eyeshadow and furiously long eyelashes glistening darkly in the shimmering moonlight, she'd been the worst and best of Regina's demons. All just her imagination, of course, but she can't stop seeing that one visual.

Can't stop seeing what had looked like disgust and perhaps even pity being thrown at her.

A shake of the head from the Queen towards her. Like, "My God, what have you become?"

Impossible, of course, because the Queen had been defeated and killed, her black heart crushed and the whole of her turned to dust floating along the smog of the New York skyline.

Regina takes another sip from her glass and then laughs.

Because this whole pity-party that she's throwing herself is something worse than pathetic.

She doesn't even need to be the Queen to see that.

To see what she has become.

Broken, lonely, guilt-stricken and doubts-ridden, a shadow of any kind of complete person. Wallowing away in her home wishing for others and thinking that their contact is obligatory.

Believing that they reach out to her only because they feel sorry for her.

Voices in her mind argue – insists that she's wrong – but she lacks faith.

Lacks hope.

Wonders how she'd become someone with less hope than even the Evil Queen had once had.

Regina looks down at her hands, clenches and unclenches them and waits for fire to rise up through her palms. It comes so slowly now, like thick oil. As it turns out, if you rip out your darkness like one might a tumor, you also get rid of your ability to do black magic with ease. Oh, she still knows the logistics and mechanics enough to get it done, but suffice it to say, the price that she has to pay for anything that could even remotely be classified as dark is significant.

Which means that yes, she can partner up with Emma for magical light shows and she can still mix up a sharp and strong healing potion or a location spell, but anything beyond that?

A bad idea.

A very bad idea if the aftermath of the destruction of Hyde is anything to go by. Defeating him with dark magic had left sick for almost a week, a high fever escalating to an almost frightening degree. She had hidden it from the others, of course - from Henry, especially - because really, how much further could a person tumble than to be undone by their own elemental magic.

The flu, she had insisted. Nothing more. Best for them to all just stay away.

She would have said anything to keep away those sad-eyed looks for her.

Emma and her unending sympathy for her troubled partner as she walks arm-in-arm with her awful pirate and enjoys the realities of the future, and all of its promising rewards (even as Regina believes that a future with that man could never be terribly promising; she pushes away these thoughts, trying not to wonder if they're jealousy about them, spite towards Hook or something else that might be entirely and solely related to Emma). Snow as she comes to recognize that her former stepmother is someone she never should have been afraid of.

And Henry as he sees that his mother can't protect him without getting ill.

All realities that she can't deal with; she loves these people, loves them more than she'd ever thought humanly possible, and to see them look at her like she's broken would be too much.

Even if it's true.

She's tired of it being true.

With an angry grunt, Regina stands up from the table and slams down the glass, liquid sloshing over. "Enough of this simpering," she instructs herself. "Go do something. Be something."

It's not exactly a Snow White level pep-talk, but it will have to do.

She figures she just needs to get out of the house, get herself busy again.

On her own.

She won't be anyone's burden.

She will get herself through this one way or another.

As she always has.

Because she's stronger than this, she insists.

She's stronger than all of her losses. Stronger than all of her heartbreak and her loneliness. She's stronger than the break of her psyche thanks to the loss of the Queen (who would have thought, she has mused many a time over far too many glasses of scotch - removing the Queen was supposed to save her soul and instead it has plunged her into doubt and fear and seeing far less than she ever has when she looks into the mirror; at least before, she'd seen evil there, now she sees nothing and it's that absence of anything which frightens her so terribly).

But she's stronger than this – stronger than the mirror; she has to be.

If she's not, then she truly is nothing, and she can't – won't – allow that.

Regina whirls her hand around dramatically and then the soft beige slacks and gray sweater that she'd been wearing are gone, replaced by tight black jeans and a ruby red silk spaghetti strap shirt and a black leather jacket. She completes the ensemble with insanely high heels.

The look works, at least.

The look is impressive, domineering.

Bold, defiant and in-charge.

"Be something," Regina says to herself again.

And then holds her head up and walks out into the night.

Her first would-be suitor arrives at her side barely a few minutes after the bartender has handed her the first glass of whiskey. The young man who saddles up next to her is attractive enough with sandy hair and gray eyes, but she brushes him off almost immediately because not only is he young (and she's never felt older), but he's leering at her, his intentions obvious.

He tries to start up a conversation, tries to flirt but he might as well be soliciting her.

She wants company, true, but she has no desire to be just a notch on someone's belt or to add one to hers. She wants someone to speak to her like she's a person - not just a shell or a body.

The bartender – his name is Joseph, she recalls - comes by and says softly, "Your Majesty, another?" He's kind and his blue eyes are equally so, but he's worried and she hates that because she barely knows this man except to recall that he had worked in a tavern in the old world as well. Apparently, he doesn't hold a grudge against her, but even absent the Evil Queen, she thinks that he should despise her and she hates his compassion. She wonders as she accepts another glass if the removal of the Queen had made the self-loathing within her - for so long buried beneath excuses and justifications and so much anger and hurt - that much worse.

It'd always been there, of course. In every step into battle, and in every risk and bit of jeopardy that she has ever recklessly sprinted into without hesitation and in every glance into her own eyes in the mirror, that deep loathing has been there. It feels so much worse now, though.

It feels like she knows that with or without the Queen, the blood on her hands is still sticky.

There are no more sweet lies to tell herself, no more hard promises of vengeance and control to sate herself with, just names written across tombstones and bloody sins which could fill up -

"Majesty," the Joseph the bartender says again. "Would you like me to call someone?"

Her eyes snap up. "Someone?"

"To come and get you. Sheriff Swan, perhaps?" he says, and then smiles that same kind smile at her, like he could ever possibly understand her. Like he knows what might help her feel better – feel stronger, maybe. Emma Swan, he probably thinks. Because everyone knows that they're no longer two mothers at war. Everyone knows that that they're close friends and family and sometimes – though not for a time, she thinks bitterly and then hates herself for her simpering need just a little bit more – almost inseparable. They're practically partners, right? That's clearly his assumption; Emma will come for her and rescue her from this indulgent bit of self-loathing.

"No," she says. "Sheriff Swan is busy and –"

"I'm sure that -"

"No," Regina replies again, more forcefully this time. "Just keep the drinks coming."

"Of course," Joseph answers immediately, obediently. He starts to say something else, but then nods, turns and walks away, towards his other customers. She watches him go and then sighs.

And thinks that this isn't exactly what she'd meant by being something.

This is being exactly what might be expected of a woman who had been so violently halved – to become a morose and sulking broken woman who no longer has the boldness or fight of the Evil Queen. To the eyes of everyone else in this town – even the kind ones like Joseph – she's just a pathetic weak woman in need of being saved, one who has to be watched out for now.

Well, fine, if they want to watch her, then they can.

So she stands up, finishes the drink in one large burning gulp and then with her head held high and her hips swaying like she owns the room, Regina moves into the middle of the floor. It has been a very long time since she has danced and her moves are unrefined and unpracticed, but then, she just lets go. They might mock and point and stare but at least they will remember.

And at least she will remind them that they shouldn't underestimate her.

Well, that part works, anyway.

She's beautiful and sensual and that's muscle memory, and not just the Queen. She still has enough presence to command the floor and to move like liquid through the crowd. There are eyes on her and they're watching her and at least for the moment, they're not pitying her.

It's an hour after she'd first stepped out onto the dance-floor, and she's finally sitting back down at the counter. She's sweaty and hyper and more than a little drunk thanks to having downed several more drinks while she'd been dancing when the woman (of average height, but leggy and blonde - not unlike Emma, Regina muses somewhat appreciatively and God, that's just inappropriate and so out of left field and it must be the liquor, right?) sits down next to her at the bar. After her little dance party (only one man had dared to join her, but he'd gotten too handsy too quickly and she'd pushed him away, and that's why she had eventually left the floor because as fun as it had been to surprise people, she hadn't come out here to be alone), she'd made her way back over here to try to cool down, but apparently she'd been followed back.

"Quite the show, Your Majesty," the woman says, a slight accent from the western side of the Enchanted Forest just barely noticeable in her voice. Regina tries to recall where she knows her from, but nothing comes up and so she assumes that either she's too inebriated to think clearly or this woman was just yet another someone who had been brought over. Collateral damage.

"It's been awhile since I've done that," Regina admits, her voice quiet as she tries not to think about things such as collateral damage. But it's not nearly that easy these days – nothing just flows off of her and away from her like it once had; everything sticks and hurts far more than it used to. Everything feels just a little bit out of control, like she's lost all sense of grounding.

The realization of this makes her finish off her glass, the darkness of her thoughts quickly wrapping back around her once again. If the woman notices, though, she doesn't let on. Gesturing towards Regina's now empty glass, she smiles and asks, "Can I buy you another?"

Regina lifts an eyebrow, unable to hide her surprise. "You want to buy me a drink?"

"I very much would." She extends a hand to Regina, her fingers folded inwards in a way which tells Regina that the handshake will be soft and yielding even before she feels it. And, of course, she's right - the offered hold is limp and unimposing; she thinks that the Queen would have sneered at the expressed weakness of this woman, but Regina tilts inwards because the woman might look a whole lot like Emma, but she's not Emma and maybe finding someone who isn't a threat to her heart or her thoughts or any other part of her is a good thing. The woman is still smiling at her when she introduces herself, "My name is Anne. And yes, Your Majesty -"

"Regina," comes the reply. "She's not...I'm not the Queen, anymore." It's a complicated story and people around here only know the most basic part of it which is that like Jeckyll and Hyde, Regina and the Queen had been split. They don't know the why or that it had been done willingly and because Regina had felt an almost obsessive need to exorcise her darkest sides. They don't need to know how she wakes with regrets almost every night, wondering if she'd given away the all of her instead. Regina cocks her head towards Anne in curiosity. "I might not be the Evil Queen any longer, but that didn't change what I did to you; I understand why my previous suitors came towards me, and what they wanted but what do want from me, dear?"

"Well, first, I don't need to be a man to appreciate you. You're stunning."

"Stunning," Regina repeats, her voice quiet. She shakes her head to push those thoughts away from her heart and from her mind, then smiles thinly at Anne. "So you're here to hit on me?"

"Not really. Been a hell of a week and I'm mostly just here for whiskey and conversation. I'm kind of sick of being hit on by these clowns tonight, too." Anne gestures around. "Lots of dudes here, not a lot of ladies. They're like cockroaches, and I really couldn't be less interested."

"Fair enough."

"As for what you did to me? Nothing. I came over with the curse that was cast by the Charmings awhile back. I know I should probably be pissed off, but this world is far better than our own." She shrugs. "But if you want, I'll take off. Trust me, I know what it's like to just want quiet."

"Do you know what it's like to not want quiet?"

"Entirely too well."

Regina studies her for a moment, a soft buzz at the back of her neck, a little tingle somewhere inside of her mind. A warning bell? Ridiculous. Old worthless instincts, she tells herself as she ponders the reality of a night spent alone in the middle of her big house. Those instincts – ostensibly meant to protect her – had instead kept her from having any kind of real and beneficial human interactions for far too long. The truth of what she wants and even needs right now is very simple: Regina wants someone who doesn't look at her like they know how broken she is. Like they don't know how much she cries whenever she turns off her lights.

So Regina says quietly, "Stay."

Anne smiles broadly at that. "Happy to. So again, can I buy you a drink?"

Regina shrugs slightly, trying to affect the cool disinterest of the Queen, but failing simply because of how much she hungers for contact and craves human interaction and anything that feels like it might be real and hers. "Yes, you may." It's a very strange thing that she's allowing to happen here, and Regina doesn't exactly understand what's really going on; she knows it should be obvious and knows that most people would like her like she's mad for her confusion and uncertainty about all of this. The alarm bells are still going off in her head, but she thinks that they're too soft to pay attention to - too much of her past wariness. And is it so bad to be receptive to an invitation of kindness? Most people get real ones so why can't she as well?

Four months ago, she'd lost the man who was supposed to be her soulmate; he had stepped in front of certain death for her and then just been gone. Her heart, her hope - her belief that she could ever be happy had been shattered in that moment. Absent any other logical recourse, desperately needing to understand why his death had happened, Regina had blamed it on the karmic retribution of the Evil Queen, and had gone to great lengths to end that vicious loop. As the weeks have passed since then, however, she's come to realize that perhaps it's her and not the Queen who is to blame. Oh, yes, the Queen had done much evil, but it had been Regina the girl who had existed before the Evil Queen who had allowed all of that evil to come to pass.

Though she had lied to herself for so very long, she's starting to realize that she had craved the vengeance and bloody aftermath of the Queen's rage. She had enabled the fury and her soul is just as weighted down by her choice to let the Queen free as it had been by the Queen's actual actions. Which has left her adrift, confused and unsure of who she is supposed to be now.

If Robin could see her now...

If Emma could.

If any of them could.

But they can't; they're not here and she can do this - find herself - on her own.

She can make her way back to being a complete person. Worthy, maybe.

Maybe.

She has to try.

"Regina? What would you like?"

"Whatever you're having," Regina murmurs, having half-heard the question. Normally, she'd never let someone else order for her (except Emma, but that's another matter entirely, and why can't she get Emma out of her head?) - she's never been the kind of woman who lets anyone else take the lead - but she thinks that this is how it's supposed to go so she allows it.

Anne nods, then turns to the bar, finds Joseph's eyes, motions down to her own glass and then puts up two fingers. Regina notices that curious way that bartender lingers and stares back at Anne for an extra-long moment, Joseph's brow furrowed in some kind of concern, but then he turns his back on both of them and goes to fulfill the order. "So," Anne says, looking at Regina again, "They tell me that you've never been seen in here before. What brought you in tonight?"

"They?"

"The regulars. We see your Sheriff all the time -"

"She's not my Sheriff."

"No? You share a son with her."

Regina bites back on the urge to tell Anne that what's between (or in this case, not between) she and Emma is none of her business, but stops herself; that's not how you get someone to stay. That's not how you get someone to give a damn about you. The walls around her...they're bad, right? They are how you keep people away. How you keep anyone from ever caring.

She says, instead, "My love died four months ago. Sheriff Swan is, I believe, at home with her own love." The words come out hard and chipped, bitter and angrier than she'd like.

It's a strange answer, not quite a denial of anything.

"Robin Hood and Captain Hook," Anne muses, then chuckles.

"I don't want to speak of them," Regina tells her, her voice firm.

Then winces, and waits for Anne to walk away.

But Anne just smiles. "Okay. So again, what brought you in tonight?"

For a long moment, Regina doesn't answer. This whole interaction is quite strange to her. This kind of thing - this idea of an easy no-big-deal kind of conversation- isn't her normal for her.

Even when she'd been a very young girl, well before the days of the Queen, she'd struggled to just start up and have casual conversations with the everyday people she'd encountered. Part of that had been because people had been fearful of her mother, but the other part had been an uncertainty about what was expected of her. What was wanted and desired of her. As the Queen, she'd known those answers far more clearly: those who came in contact with her either wanted to use or destroy her and her response had always been to get there before they could.

She doesn't have a clue how to interact on the kind of level that someone like Snow or Emma might take for granted, doesn't know where to begin and what tone she's supposed to take with someone like Anne. She doesn't know how to calm her responses or how to soften up the doubts that run through her and bubble to the surface in her voice. The alarm bells that had been going off are getting louder and louder now, but they all just keep saying over and over, "you know that no one could ever like you" and the rest of her is trying to deny that truth.

Because the Evil Queen is gone and isn't Just Regina someone worthwhile?

Isn't Just Regina someone that might be worth knowing?

Robin had loved her as both.

The others claim that they love her, too (deep down, she believes that they do – even knows that they do and she thinks of "I believe in you" and it makes her ache), but she's become...

She swallows hard.

No, she won't be a burden.

Not to them – not to the people she would do anything for.

And that's what she is to them - a weight that is constantly pulling them away from their happy endings. And after all that she has taken from all of them, she owes them more than that.

But Anne…well, Anne is just asking to be a friend, not someone who has to carry that burden.

Anne is just someone in a club who doesn't know that the women she's sitting next to wakes up screaming most nights, her awful memories still there even if the Queen is no longer within her.

Anne doesn't know that she is grieving and conflicted and so terribly horribly at war with herself over the thoughts and desires that she has, the wants and needs which she harbors.

To Anne, she is just a somewhat famous woman in a bar and not someone to be worried about.

So Regina forces a smile and says to Anne, "I'm trying something new."

"New is good," Anne replies as she takes the two glasses from the bartender (who once again fixes Anne with a long look that seems almost troubled before moving away). Anne offers one to Regina and says cheerfully and brightly, "To a night of new things for the both of us."

Their glasses clink.

The alarm bells continue to go off.

Regina chooses to ignore them all.

One drink rapidly becomes two and then three (Joseph cautions her after this one, and again suggests that he can call a cab or Sheriff Swan for her so that she can get home, but Regina is far rougher in her dismissal of his offer this time) and then four and then...then they're outside just getting air (Anne had said something about cigarettes, and Regina has never really smoked, but right now she's as fluid as she's ever been, and she thinks that there's an exhilaration in being as out of control as she currently is) and then Anne is grabbing her and kissing her and before Regina can even really think about what's happening, she finds herself reciprocating.

Hungry and wanting and Robin has been dead for just four months now and Emma is with that awful man who never seems to die and none of that matters because she's just...

She just wants to be wanted.

Needs it.

Needs to know that there could be another start somewhere.

Another chance...a bit more hope.

Needs to know that she hasn't lost the last someone could look at her and -

The thought short-circuits in her mind when a hand scrabbles beneath her legs and rubs against the fabric of her pants. She groans, her eyes fluttering and all of the rest of her thoughts drifting away as she feels herself getting pushed. The wall is rough against her back, but the fingers grabbing at her are even rougher. The weak handshake from before is long gone now - replaced by firm and confident touches - bold and dominant. She feels soft painted lips crash against her own and then hard teeth biting at her neck and collarbone as her head slams backwards.

They're in an alley and this is disgusting and so goddamned beneath her, but her mind is fogged over with excessive alcohol and her heart is clouded over with abundant need, and someone is touching her like they want her. Someone is choosing to be around her not because they feel like they need to be, but rather because they want to be and for once it's not just the dead and forever lost who hold those feelings for her. For a moment, she's not alone or lonely. For a moment, she's feeling something and even if there's shame burning her cheeks, she feels alive.

She tries not to think about how it's only been four months since Robin died.

She tries not to think about how Henry had called three times during the time she'd been drinking with Anne (always his mother even in the middle of spinning out, she'd listened to the messages and heard him say that he'd just wanted to check on her and make sure that she's okay, and God, she doesn't want to be a burden to her son as well). She tries not to think about how both Snow and Emma had called, and Emma had sounded so concerned and just a little frantic when she'd said, "Hey, call me back, okay? The kid...we're...Regina, you're worrying me."

She tries not to think about green eyes that somehow see all the way through to her soul.

From her son, from his mother, from her mother.

As Anne's hand pushes down and into her pants, fingers shoving beneath lace and then roughly into her, Regina tries not to think about the dark eyes which she thought that she'd seen when she'd imagined the Queen looking back at her after she'd finished Hyde. She tries so very hard not to think about the scathing pity which she'd believed that she'd seen from the Queen. But the Queen is nothing but dust now, which means that it's only her mind condemning her...

Oh, she tries not to think about anything but hands and teeth and pleasure.

Not pain for once, just pleasure.

This alley that she's in is dirty and grimy and such a disgrace that she's almost crying (though silently, always that) when she comes, but with greedy hands and a hungry heart, she reaches out for what she can get - for the attention she's being shown even in hard hungry kisses.

As a young wife, she'd been the closed-eyed silent submissive to the King. As the Queen, she'd always been the dominant one in any and every physical relationship, quick to make her pleasures and displeasures known to all. As Regina, she'd allowed her heart to guide her in lovemaking and even in her wandering confusing fantasies, she assumes the same. Now, though, she finds herself unsure and uncertain of what to do. She doesn't want to be incapable of ever providing anyone else pleasure and so when Anne pushes her down, Regina allows it even as - in her cotton-balled mind - she sees the Queen's eyes angrily staring back at her.

Even as she can practically see the Queen sneering in disgust at her as she lowers herself down, her eyes crossing and growing glossy as her mind tries – and fails - to push her away from this.

Turns out that it had been the Queen who had helped her do that.

She tells herself she doesn't need that from the Queen, though; she's choosing this.

Equally angry now, furious at the thought of weakness, Regina forces herself to ignore the shame. Ignore the feelings of being used. Tells herself that normal people don't feel like that.

Insists that normal people who don't have the hang-ups and ticking mental time-bombs that she does wouldn't see any issue with what she's doing. It's just the give and take of normal intimacy. Dealing with hurt and pain and confusion and heartbreak through the rush of sex is normal. She just needs to forget everything that's plaguing and conflicting her - forget about the people she longs for - and for at least a few minutes, think only about the here and now.

Ah, but the voices in her mind remind her that the Regina who she was before the Queen and is now had never wanted this kind of affection - never wanted to feel like how the Queen treated her lovers. Still, she thinks that maybe anything is better than nothing. She thinks that maybe -

"Well," Anne drawls as she suddenly pushes Regina roughly away from her (it takes Regina a moment to realize that it's over and her face colors even deeper at that because this is all bad enough, but worse that even in the act of trying to forget everything, she'd been unable to get away from anything). As Regina stumbles backwards, humiliatingly falling to her butt before wrenching herself up and pushing back against the wall again, Anne says, "That was...fun."

Regina blinks, her arms circling herself protectively as reality again crashes in. She suddenly becomes aware of how much in disarray she is, her shirt rucked up, her pants open. "What?"

Anne laughs, and though they're both inebriated, she seems incredibly sober. Behind her, a door opens and a flood of people step outside, a few glancing over before scurrying away. One of the ones who lingers and stares right at her, his eyes sweeping lecherously over her slightly exposed frame, is the man who had tried to dance with her on the floor. Another one who comes out and stands next to the dancer is the one who'd brazenly hit on her when she'd just arrived at the bar. They look at Anne and she grins at them and says, "I win, boys. Told you."

"What?" Regina says again. She feels her heart pounding, feels panic rising.

Because she knows what this is. Knows damned well what it is.

She might have been playing something of an innocent for the last hour or so, but she's not actually one. She's not a child and even if her alcohol soaked brain and her desperate need for contact and for a connection had blinded and crippled her, she knows what's happening now.

And what has happened. The fool that's been made of her.

Knows that Anne has just made a mark of her on a post somewhere. "There were rumors that you were into whatever so we thought we'd all take a swing at you," Anne says, still smirking. "But everyone told me you'd never do it. Said you would never end up on your knees for me."

Regina's mind sputters and breaks. She tries to find the words. "You -"

"Just did what you wanted me to do to you. Your Majesty." She says the title with lazy disdain, looking Regina over with contempt, like the woman who had once felled entire kingdoms is somehow far beneath her. "You kissed me back because you wanted to; you hit your knees when I told you to because you wanted to. You have no one to blame but yourself."

One of the men snickers behind her, says something crude and colorful which Regina doesn't entirely hear. A door opens and closes, and someone says, "That's enough. Leave her alone."

She comprehends very little of the words she's hearing, her eyes misting purple.

The hatred and self-loathing and anger all begin to swirl inside of her.

Not products of the Queen, but of a girl who had never known how to use them as the Queen would eventually teach her to. Products of a girl who had wanted such simple things like love and friendship and family and found them painfully unattainable. A girl who had chosen wrong every step of the way and apparently, as Rumple has always said, never learned her lessons.

"Let her girlfriend come; there's nothing she can hold any of us for. We didn't make her pet do anything that she didn't want to do. Not my fault that the Queen is a –"

Whatever she says gets cut off in the roaring of blood in her ears.

She can almost feel all of the hair on her body lifting up, as if raised by static.

It's laughter that gets her attention again, laughter which makes her look over at Anne just in time to hear the woman say in a mocking tone, "The great and mighty Evil Queen. They told me you would actually be a challenge. That you were too proud and would see right through us. Them maybe, but oh, all someone needed was to offer you a little bit of friendship. Like anyone would ever offer a monster like you that." One more look at Regina, her eyes raking over her. "You might want to button yourself up; you're looking a little bit sloppy, Your Majesty."

The man who had come outside – the bartender, Joseph – says, "That's enough. Leave!"

But Regina is unaware of this.

Unaware of Anne and her friends walking away, unimpressed and unafraid.

Unaware of the angry eyes watching everything, glittering just as dark as hers.

The only thing Regina is aware of is the anger within in as it goes from simmering to boiling.

She the purple in her eyes change from lilac to deep violet.

Feels the burning heat in her hands.

When the fire starts racing up the wall behind her, she doesn't even notice.

She doesn't notice a goddamned thing except the blinding red in front of her smoky purple eyes until there are people all around her yelling and screaming at her to stop, please stop.

But she's screaming as well and her hands are out and everything is spinning.

She thinks about Robin and how he would be horrified and betrayed.

She thinks about Emma and Henry and Snow and their disgust at her.

She thinks about the Queen and how this never would have happened with her.

She thinks about a girl who maybe is too lost to ever be found, and she's not even the one that anyone has ever thought of as lost. That's never been her story, but perhaps it should've been.

The fire continues to surge, her body continues to vibrate and rage.

She hears, "Run!" and "She's going to kill us all!"

There's a distant strange thought of wondering whom they're speaking about, but of course she knows; she knows an she keeps exploding outwards until she hears, "Regina! Regina, stop!"

She sees a flash of blonde in front of her and then green eyes.

A red jacket.

And then there are soft hands settling heavily on her shoulders for a moment before they're then warm on her face. She feels fingers lightly pressing inwards against her cheekbones before the hands drop down and gently cup her jaw; the green eyes become for a moment more vivid, seeming watery and frightened and so familiar that they almost immediately anchor her.

She hears, "Regina, please. I need you to come back to me, okay? Please?"

The hands cup closer, thumbs rubbing ever so gently across her face like they're trying to somehow trace a line of comfort there; there's only one person who touches her like this.

Only one person who never used to touch her, but whom time and shared challenge and journey has bred familiarity and comfort into – a woman so brazen that the idea of not assuming allowance and permission is foreign to her. Especially when it comes to Regina.

Regina says, her voice hoarse and low and trembling, "Emma?"

She doesn't hear the response, though - doesn't hear if the woman she presumes (knows) to be Emma speaks at her with kindness or loathing or something even worse like angry pity and exasperation because someone is hitting her from behind and then she's falling forward.

There are shouts and cries and creative cursing and then what sounds like something getting punched and knocked down, but she thinks very little of any of that - can only focus on the swirling colors in front of her as she crumbles to the dirty and wet and cold surface of the alley that she had just ten minutes ago had sex with a woman she'd met an hour ago in.

It's a pretty goddamn long way to fall.

But she's laughing as she falls.

She's still laughing when the darkness overtakes her.

It's not the first time.

TBC

:D