A/N: This story has been written for LoveFromOQ-2019 as a gift for Joym13

Special thanks to the talented BabyLawyerOQ for beta-reading this story and giving her feedback constantly.

I hope you all enjoy and tell me what you think!

Fifty.

Regina Mills just turned fifty and each time she thinks about it she realizes it's nothing like how she imagined it. In fact, she feels exactly the same and doesn't understand all the fuss everyone makes about reaching that moment in life.

She must be fifty, but she feels the same and all her life she thought reaching that milestone would be different. She's an intense woman, always has been, she's full of energy and life, she's strong, confident, has a fruitful professional life, and despite all she has endured, she can say she's happy. However, if at a certain point she has begun to look at herself in a particular way, it had been more about how other people expect her to be and their persistent reminders that she is, indeed, a fifty-year-old woman, than how she feels because of that.

Those 'You look amazing! You don't look like you just turned fifty, Regina', 'Do you still attend those spinning classes? Wow!' or her mother's 'Isn't that skirt too short for a fifty-year-old lady?' make her think how other people expect her to fit their stereotype of the fifty-year-old woman. Why are people surprised that she still looks good and can perform a physically challenging discipline? Why can't she feel sexy enough to wear clothes that make her feel that way? She's never been someone to make her choices thinking about how they would look at the eyes of others. If she had, she would never have had a child out of wedlock, would she?

Yet, those remarks, along with other things, had made her realize that even feeling the same as always, she is a middle-aged woman and that fact has begun to stress her out.

Regina knew that at some point in her life she would begin perceiving things differently, but she didn't expect to suddenly face the shocking realization of mortality and a finite life. Actually, that's a fact everyone understands and accepts, but she never gave a second thought, at least not until she stopped to analyze the meaning behind someone's words at her birthday party.

'For another fifty more years, Regina,' she heard someone toast and only smiled and drank from her champagne glass. However, those words -whose clear intentions had been wishing her more years of life and not literally another fifty more- remained with her and didn't allow any sleep that night, or the nights that followed, and, after some basic math, she realized she had already lived more than what might be half of her lifetime. She became aware she had less time left because what are the odds that she gets to live a hundred years? Not likely. Besides, that's not what she wants. She wants to live intensely each day of what's left of her life. She doesn't want to reach that time in which disability, sickness, lack of abilities or oblivion rule her life.

So, after facing that fact, she began to understand that she might feel very much the same, even when she's certainly not. Time will continue passing, and she won't be getting any younger.

And while she thinks about the years that will come, she can't avoid taking a look back at the previous years. Those fifty years that have seen her grow physically, emotionally and professionally, the years that made her become the woman she is now; those days, nights, weeks and months that have witnessed the once young girl living under her mother's constant criticism turn into a self-confident and strong woman. She smiles at the memories those years brought her, at the goals she achieved, both in her personal and professional life. She can't evade, either, thinking about the people she lost over the years, those people that at some point were important to her but took another path for either reason and with those memories comes one of the things she regrets most in her life: not asking his name and not giving hers.

Sometimes she thinks she forgot him; on other occasions, she believes he was just a dream, a product of her imagination and desires. Those thoughts never last long, though, because as soon as she looks at her older son and spots those dimples along with his smile, she recalls that special night, and knows it was all real. And, even not knowing his name, she has lived for almost twenty-seven years with some reminders of him: her son, a soothing and tender voice with a sexy British accent, and the hazy memory of a lion tattoo.

Since Regina turned fifty, a month ago, and even if at the beginning she didn't feel the impact that being a year older entailed, some demons, insecurities, guilts and regrets from the past have gradually begun to unleash.

First, she has realized that rather than overthinking, she needs to be more spontaneous and try to get whatever opportunity life can bring her, with the awareness that it might be her last chance. Maybe later she won't have the energy or strength needed, or the opportunity will not be there for her to take. And this goes for everything in her life, it doesn't matter if it's about deciding to go on a trip, on a blind date (something she thinks unlikely at this stage of her life) or buy a new pair of shoes she doesn't need at all.

Next, it's the fact that soon her younger son, Henry, will be going to college. He is fifteen now, but in two years, he will leave, just as Roland, her older son, did and that day she'll have to deal with feelings of emptiness and loneliness. When Roland went to college, eight years ago, she had her husband and Henry with her and having to take care of a six year old and, in the meanwhile, balancing her role of mother and wife with that of a graphic designer working in one of the leading companies in the field, kept her busy enough that it had been impossible for her to feel lonely (which she certainly wasn't) because one of her sons had left already for college.

This time will be different, though. There's no husband, Daniel's dead, and both her sons no longer will be living with her. The older one is a twenty-six-year-old adult now, doesn't live with her, has a job, a girlfriend and a life, and, the younger will be by that time in college. She is very much aware that if she's lucky she'll get to have both of her boys for Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays, maybe even on both ...and that'll be it. So, she needs to be prepared to face an empty nest.

Finally, there's the issue that's been bothering her the most lately. Something that, although she never forgot completely and, instead, learned to live with it weighing over her shoulders and conscience, has come to her mind more often than not this last month. This situation has arisen feelings of longing (which she fails to understand because it even didn't last long to get used to it) and guilt she thought she overcame years ago.

She doesn't know why this issue returns to haunt her after almost twenty-seven years.

When she met this stranger, both had wanted something merely physical, and neither of them had any intention of complicating things with a relationship none of them wanted. In fact, she was getting out of a toxic one and this man was what she needed ...and he knew it.

Your Majesty had been the way he referred to her because of a tattoo on one of her shoulder blades, and each time she heard this man calling her like that, she couldn't help a thief come out of her lips, alluding clearly at the way they had met. And it had been like that all night long and the day that followed and the night after that: Your Majesty …thief ...laughter ...passion ...talk ...caresses ...drinks ...confessions ...tenderness ...sleep ...understanding ... always with the cruel awareness that whatever they had was destined to finish in some hours.

Their adventure lasted a whole weekend, but without doubt, it had been one of the best experiences of her life.

However, things didn't go as planned. She had only expected some fun and a good fuck. Something that could make her forget the circumstances she was going through at that time. She would never have guessed he would be so wonderful, tender, understanding and passionate that he'd find a place in her heart and memories throughout the years. She wouldn't have imagined, either, that they would have such good shot that she would have to live with a reminder of that night ...one which she'd been grateful for and that has made even more difficult to forget him.

Regina and Daniel had talked about it when things between them progressed and became serious, and Daniel had married her knowing the exact circumstances behind Roland's birth.

Daniel had willingly accepted to raise Roland as his own and never had brought up Roland's biological father for discussion, he even had insisted in adopting Roland not long after marrying Regina, and no difference had been ever made between Roland and Henry. To Daniel, Roland had been his son as much as Henry was, and somehow that had made things easier for Regina.

It never ceases to amaze Regina how she found support on a man that wasn't blood-related to her son, rather than in her own mother. Cora Mills had always been a controlling, selfish bitch, but she outdid herself when Regina found out she was pregnant and there was no boyfriend, fiancé, least of all husband, to father her son.

It seems Cora Mills' only concern was the way people would look at a single mother in the nineties because as soon as Daniel, a good catch, appeared in Regina's life and decided to raise Regina's son as his, Cora tried to get closer to Regina and pretend the years of rejection towards Regina and her son didn't happen. Mother of the year, indeed!

Regina and Daniel had decided not to tell Roland the truth about his biological father, at least not during Roland's early years. They thought it wouldn't make any difference to Roland. It wasn't as if Regina was able to reveal the identity of Roland's father. She had no clue about the identity of that man. In 1992, when they met, there were no cell phones, let alone social media, and the efforts she went through trying to find him had been unsuccessful. So, they both had thought it would do more harm than good, at least during Roland's childhood and, then, as a teen. They postponed that chat for later, time passed by, it seemed there was no ideal opportunity for breaking such news to their boy, Daniel and Regina continued rescheduling that conversation, until one day, four years ago, a heart attack took Daniel away from them, and Regina was left behind dealing with her husband's death and very few people to help her ease the weight of such big secret.

Still, she doesn't know why she has begun to think just now about the circumstances that led to Roland's birth and about a man whose name she doesn't even know and who she isn't certain would identify after all that time. Perhaps being fifty brought her some common sense? Maybe just now, at this stage of her life, she has the courage or the life experience to admit she (and Daniel) could have handled better the truth about Roland's biological father? Maybe having hit what might be half of her life has made her realize she needs to put things in order and tell Roland the truth, a truth that for Roland would bring more questions than answers because there are some she won't be able to respond, a truth that not only would affect Roland but also Henry.

So, after a month of going back and forth with these feelings, she realizes how wrong she'd been because, in fact, being fifty doesn't feel the same. It had brought things from the past she rather preferred would have remained just there.

And not knowing what to do and, with each day that passes, feeling her anxiety increase, she decides to book an appointment with Dr. Hopper, her psychiatrist and therapist, and one of the few people who knows her life from top to bottom, only to find out the man is retired. She gets to talk to him, though, she has his personal number, she has been a patient of his for years, and after some small talk, she gets a recommendation from him.

She looks forward to this appointment with Dr. Robin Locksley, strongly recommended by Dr. Hopper and that he pointed out he was sure she would like and feel totally comfortable with.

Little does she know, that appointment would change everything in her life and won't help her much ...at least not immediately and not in the way Regina or Dr. Hopper expect.

To be continued ...

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