Hello everybody! I had the idea for this story for quite some time until I decided to write it. Main reason is because I am a huge fan of SwanQueen and because the series doesn't show any intention of pairing these two in the next century *dramatic tears* Please have in mind that English is not my native language and I don't have a beta reader, so you will have to bear with all my mistakes. [I really hope they aren't that many xD Also if anyone is interested in being my beta please feel free to pm me. It would be really great! :3]. Apologies for Chapter 1 being kinda short. The next chapters to come are expected to be longer. Hope you like the story and don't forget to review! Enjoy!

Disclaimer (as always): I do not even dream of owning any of the characters in Once Upon A Time. On the contrary, in my dreams, Regina owns me :P Soooo yes, the characters aren't mine, I'm just borrowing them for a while and once I'm finished I will put them back in their box.

Main pairing: Regina Mills x Emma Swan

Rating: T (that will do for now :P)

Power In My Hands - Chapter 1: Origins

The curse was broken. Emma was repeating the same words again and again in her mind, like an incantation, a spell cast to prevent the world from reversing back to what it was for 28 years. Storybrooke. Ever since the young woman had arrived in the small town, she had found herself captivated by its charms, bonded with its people. Slowly discovering the secrets it held, one by one and a prophesy, one that she never accepted. Emma was not a woman to just believe in destiny and fate, she would strive and create her own destiny and she had proved it to be true till now, but in this particular situation she had been wrong. Because she had broken the curse after all and she had saved them all from a hopeless future and most importantly, she had saved Henry from death. And now they were all free, to reunite, people from Fairytale land who had lost friends and loved ones and among those, they had lost themselves too. Happiness had been out there now, at arm's length and they only had to reach for it. A new beginning.

For Emma there was the relief and the remains of the terror that still continued to shake her whole being, since the moment that she saw Henry's lifeless body on the sickbed. But it was all gone now, she was almost healed, although weirdly Emma felt like an outsider. A mere watcher. The happy ending had just arrived and everyone was about to see the end credits roll at the finish of the Storybrooke movie, but Emma felt unsatisfied. Bad ending. Disappointing, as if there was something missing, a hint that the happiness wasn't true. Just an illusion.

She walked at slow pace, without paying attention to her surroundings. Every now and then she would just check the road for passing cars and then robotically continue her march, deep in her reverie. She could have driven all that way in her trusty yellow bug, but she had decided not to. Because she needed to think and because she needed to prepare herself for seeing Regina again. She really felt the need to curse out loud for letting Henry persuade her. A short display of the irresistible puppyeyes at a still very sensitive Emma and the blonde had said yes too fast, even when she was far from ready to see her. Henry was worried and it had surprised her, because he usually did not show that much interest for his mother.

He had proposed an excuse, a pretty catchy one. Emma would pretend she went there to get his stuff. Truth was that Henry wasn't living with Regina anymore, even if Emma never really believed Regina to be a threat to the kid. After the latest incident that almost cost the boy his life, Henry had moved in with Emma and Snow, while all his possessions were at his former home, a place that nobody dared to approach for a long time now. It had to be Emma.

She stopped walking only when she stood right in front of the heavy white door, as if her mind suddenly registered that she had arrived. Emma took a deep breath and pushed her lips together, as she usually did whenever she had to gather her courage to do something. She hadn't seen Regina since the curse was broken, when the brunette had fled into the sanctuary of her home. The Savior being at the Evil Queen's house was totally not expected to be a happy reunion… And soon things were about to become really nasty. Only two days had passed and everyone was too busy gathering their memories and putting their lives together, but when the shock would settle down they would certainly go after the reason of their misery.

She didn't have to ring the doorbell. The door was open, just a slit but definitely open. Emma shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she reached for her gun. For a moment she got scared for the worst; an angry citizen of Storybrooke breaking into Regina's house to hurt her. She pushed the door with her boot, slowly, praying that it would not creak and entered the hall cautiously, the weapon at hand.

The image of Regina standing there, waiting for her, just like the spider waiting for her meal to get caught in the web, startled her. "Jeez, Regina you scared me!" she protested while returning her weapon back to its leather case on her side.

"Will you ever stop entering my home uninvited, Sheriff?" Regina said and crossed her hands in front of her chest.

"The door was open. I wouldn't enter like that, but I thought something had happened to you." Emma answered. "Glad to see that you are okay." She ended up almost whispering, impressed that her voice was audible at all.

Regina did not reply. Instead she wore that sour smile of hers, one that showed that even now that she had lost, she still had the pride to not show remorse. Emma's tongue was a knot, all these things that she planned on saying to Regina had disappeared from her mind. She could feel the brunette's eyes burn holes on her face, steel gaze that petrified the blonde. Emma didn't look away, nor spoke or moved. She only stood there, not with the air of the champion but with the air of the person who had just hurt someone while trying to save someone else and was almost regretting doing so.

Stop it! Stop being so naive! She deserved every single bit of it! The little voice inside her head was trying to prove to her what logic dictated, but there was something, something in the way that Regina looked at her, in the way that she was standing alone in that huge house when everyone else was celebrating, that made her feel guilty.

And the seconds passed, and Emma did not try to justify herself. Or say that she was sorry that things happened the way they did. They just stared at each other in silence until the blonde's knees became unable to support her weight. Emma collapsed in front of Regina and the tall white ceiling was the last thing she saw before she lost consciousness.

Emma found herself lying on hard stone, the cold emanating from its surface, passing through her thin clothes, chilling her to the bone. It was warm in Storybrooke, but the warmth had disappeared and so had Storybrooke apparently. Opening her eyes, she found herself on the floor of a huge room and she knew, just then, that Storybrooke was no more for her. This was a different world. She could see it, smell it in the air, hear its sounds. It felt unfamiliar and inviting at the same time. Wondering how long she was lying on the stone tiles, she managed to gather her body and stand up. Her strength seemed absorbed and a cocktail of fatigue and headache was giving her the urge to close her eyes and settle back on the floor.

The room around her had walls in a deep shade of gray, the stone was worn out from age but had character. Emma was sure that if these walls had mouth they would certainly tell the tales of glory passing from this place, printing a trail of pride and memories behind it. A painting was decorating the wall; a portrait of a rather old man which captured her attention instantly. The man's face looked kind and gentle and he had the warm smile of a tortured but forgiving man. A large built-in fireplace was right under the man's portrait, but there was no fire burning, just ashes of a previous fire. The room around her was clean, the place seemed inhabited but until that moment she had heard no other sound, no indication that there was someone else there with her.

The window was hidden behind thick curtains. Curiosity got the best of her and she pushed them aside to take a quick look outside. It wasn't hard to notice that the building she was in was quite higher than the area she could see. It was probably on a hill. Scratch that, it had to be a mountain, because she could see everything in a smaller scale, like a miniature of what existed out there. It gave the viewer the feeling of greatness and power, standing up there and watching the world at their feet.

It was certainly Fairytale land. And it was about time. Emma believed it was natural that once the curse no longer existed, they would all return to the place where it all started. In fact, many were already preparing for that in Storybrooke and they seemed quite disappointed that it had been delayed so much. But what was Emma doing in Fairytale Land anyway? She wasn't a fairytale character.

It was a more than a guess that she wasn't the only one that moved from one world to the other. Mainly because that would be really really weird. There was that possibility that she was still lying unconscious on Regina's floor and her mind was playing tricks on her. It all seemed so real though, that she strongly doubted it to be more than just a crazy theory.

Emma straightened her shirt and passed her fingers fast over the badge of sheriff that was proudly fixed on her belt. Reality or illusion, she had to find out exactly where she was and why she was there, but most importantly she had to see if the others were there as well. Her thoughts circling around Henry and his well-being. If she had changed world then so would he and she only hoped that he would be somewhere safe. If not for anything else, she had to search for her son. She turned around determined, ready to face whatever obstacle was waiting for her in this world, but her feet stopped instantly. She was not alone and definitely not prepared for what she was facing.

"Miss Swan, what a coincidence to find you here."

Emma's eyes opened up wide, as if the image in front of her was too large for her range of vision. The voice was so familiar but its tone was different, cheerful and distorted by the echo of the tall room and the stone walls. And the tone of the voice was the least of the differences that Emma could pinpoint. Regina in front of her was not the Mayor that she had known all this time. She was dressed in a no doubt expensive black long dress that reached all the way to the floor, her pointy collar standing proud and her cleavage exposed, a pendant hanging around her white neck. A black crown was sitting on top of her head, which gave away a weird purplish shine. But it wasn't the appearance that stroke Emma, it was the expression, the aura of authority that she never demonstrated in Storybrooke. The air of the woman in front of her made the Mayor Regina pale in comparison.

The famous Evil Queen, flesh and bones. Amazing.

"Regina…"

Emma attempted a move towards the Evil Queen to find out that she couldn't move an inch. "What the hell?" she blurted as she made another attempt to move, pressing her limbs further, but nothing happened. Her eyebrows knitted into a confused expression as she turned towards the other woman with unanswered questions and then she noticed it. Regina was grinning; a wide grin full of smug satisfaction. In her eyes a purple shine glowing, burning in their depth, similar to the one emitted from her crown. Magic. Fuck.