A/N: Big thanks to SwansandQueens for beta reading and for your great description of the Queen's clothes!

REGINA

Regina threw open the front door to her home, the one space where she felt safest, and raced up the stairs to her son's room; or what used to be her son's room, she corrected herself as she opened the door and stepped inside. Her biggest fear since laying eyes on Emma Swan had come true; she'd lost her son, just as she'd lost everything else in her life she'd ever loved. Why did she think it would be any different this time? Why had she allowed herself to think her control was so unbreakable?

Sitting down on Henry's small bed, she reached for his pillow and brought it to her face, breathing in the smell that was uniquely Henry. She didn't even try to stop the tears as she sobbed at the knowledge she would never hug him again, never see him again. Now that the curse was broken, she would have to run or risk being killed. Her crime could be punished no other way; the people she had cursed to this existence would seek punishment and justice in the form of taking off her head. Yet, she would stay if Henry had wanted her to, she would give up her life for him if only he needed her; but he didn't need her, he didn't want her, he didn't love her. He needed, wanted and loved Emma Swan, the only woman in the world he saw as his mother. She was his Evil Queen. She was everyone's Evil Queen. The sins of her past could no longer be hidden beneath the facade of a curse, a curse that had been given to her so long ago by Rumpelstiltskin.

A wail of anguish and loss burst forth causing her to clutch the pillow even tighter, as if it was some makeshift tourniquet that could keep her anger and pain from escaping. That bastard was behind all this. He had used her from the beginning. He had sought her out all those years ago when she was desperately searching for a way to make Snow White suffer for what she had done to her. He had given her the curse and asked nothing in return for it, only giving his usual sing-song warning that "all magic comes with a price." She had taken it from him with no real intentions of ever using it. She had no desire to go to a foreign world to live out the rest of her existence; it was only after the sleeping potion had failed to keep Snow White asleep that Regina became desperate enough to use the dark curse.

"Just as he knew I would," Regina whispered to herself, her anger building the more she thought about him.

She knew without a doubt that this moment was what Rumpelstiltskin had wanted from the beginning. He had risked her son's life as well as Emma's to get his hands on that potion he had hidden within Maleficent. But why? Why would he want that potion so badly...

Regina's musings stopped when she heard a quiet rumbling from outside. Rising wearily to her feet, she briefly wondered if the town had already got together to behead her as she'd dreamed they had, but when she looked out the window it wasn't furious townspeople she saw, but a purple fog rolling in across Storybrooke.

For a moment she felt fear as she tried to figure out what it was and what it meant, but then she knew. Gold had used True Love's potion to bring back that which had been lost. Arrogantly, the little imp probably thought only he would benefit from using the potion, but Regina knew better. Magic was coming to Storybrooke within that rolling fog, magic restored to all those who had lost it in the transition to this world. A slow grin formed on her lips as she thought of having her powers back. She would make Rumpelstiltskin pay dearly for his crimes against her, against Henry, against Emma.

Not so long ago, Regina would have used her powers to rid herself of Emma Swan, but over the last month things had changed between them greatly, and against her better judgement, against everything her life had taught her and that her mother had so painfully shown her, she had started to fall in love with the brash Sheriff. The feelings had shocked her. She'd almost thought herself incapable of feeling love for anyone anymore except Henry, and until this moment she'd never admitted her feelings even to herself, but the power held within the fog made her bold, her confidence returning a hundred fold. She would make that bastard pay, and then she would leave Storybrooke forever.

Despite her feelings, there was no place for her here, not now. She knew what she felt for Emma and Henry was not returned. Henry had stopped loving her long ago, and Emma had never started. Their relationship had begun with anger and ended with anger. She could still clearly see the disgust and hatred in Emma's eyes the last time they had argued in the Sheriff's office over her involvement with Mary Margaret's frame job. It hadn't been the first time Emma had looked at her with such animosity, but this time there had been a hardness to it, a finality that had never been there before; and then Emma had told her to stay away from Henry. The very idea was absurd since Henry was her son and lived with her, but the way Emma had said it caused Regina to look at Emma with the same hardness. After that encounter, Regina was sure she would never see Miss Swan again, at least not in an intimate way, but then she'd shown up at her door insisting they talk, telling her what was between them had to end; Regina had already thought it had. After all, that along with the fact that Miss Swan had attempted to abduct her son were the main reasons she decided to give Emma that damn apple turnover!

Regina sighed; no, there had certainly been no time for Emma to love her, and she had given her no reasons to do so. Now that the Sheriff knew who she was and what she had done, she would want her dead along with everyone else.

Regina scoffed at herself, angry for ever believing her life could turn out any differently to this. She was not meant to have love, the love of an equal or the love of a son. She was destined to be alone, it was better that way. Too many people always ended up getting hurt around her, whether by her own hand or by machinations beyond her control. That would end now. As the ominous fog grew ever closer, now only seconds away, she closed her eyes and embraced the dark power she felt returning as the purple cloud washed over her. It felt like being reborn. She needed nothing but this power, this feeling of control.

Opening her eyes seconds later, she watched as the last of the purple fog disappeared. Now to see what she could do. Closing her eyes, she thought of one of her favourite outfits from the other world. Waving her hands in front of herself briefly to make the clothes appear, she walked to a nearby mirror to examine her handy work. Leather pants, long black riding boots, and a rich, red velvet riding jacket with a sweeping, skirted back, the gold buttons of the bodice closing snugly around her middle, the sloping, black collared v-neck of the jacket providing the perfect frame for her exposed cleavage. Well, well, this was actually a welcome change to the mayor's usual conservative Gucci suits. No need for those anymore, she thought wryly as she reached up to adjust the finely adorned black choker surrounding her neck. The alabaster lace peeking through the bottom of the cuffed sleeves brushed her chest as she fingered the medallion pendant hanging there. Perfect.

As a finishing touch, she waved her hands over her face and hair, smiling at the result. Her short bob was gone, replaced with long, dark brown hair done up in a sweeping bun atop her head. Her lips were covered with dark red lipstick and her eyes dusted with blue eye shadow. At long last, she once again looked exactly like the Evil Queen the citizens of Storybrooke would remember. However, her careful inspection of herself caused her to catch her own gaze in the mirror, and she became disgusted with what she saw there just as she had three days ago when, in a rage, she'd thrown her wine glass at the mirror downstairs. She truly could not stand the sight of herself anymore, whether as Mayor of Storybrooke or Evil Queen of a faraway Kingdom. Every time she looked, she could see the truth of who she was and what she had become. This time instead of throwing a wine glass ,she pointed at her image and watched as it shattered into pieces. A small smirk formed as she thought there was a certain poetic justice in that since that's exactly how she currently felt; shattered and in pieces. Thinking about the other mirrors in the house, she flicked her wrist and her grin widened as she heard those all shatter as well. Briefly she considered destroying the entire mansion, after all, it had no use to anyone anymore, but she had more important things to do then waste her newly acquired skills on pointless destruction.

Stepping out of her son's room, she ran her fingers along the banister in the wraparound hallway as she made her way to the stairs. She tried to will herself not to think about all the memories this house contained. There were so many memories made with her son who had truly made this her home: Sleeping in his bedroom when he was just a baby because she was afraid she wouldn't hear him if he cried in the night; watching him learn to crawl and his first steps into her in the hallway when she'd come home from work. He'd been so excited to see her, he'd used the small table nearby to push himself up and took two faltering steps toward her before he fell down, crawling to her the rest of the way. Then there was the first time he'd looked up at her with wide, loving eyes and called her mommy... A sob caught in her throat as she thought about those times, a time when he did love her, when he did think of her as his mother, when he looked at her with something besides hate and suspicion.

Regina gripped the banister tightly as she made her way down the stairs, fighting her emotions every step of the way, not being able to stop the tears as they fell silently down her cheeks and trying desperately to focus her mind and give herself over to the darkness within her. She wanted to be numb; she didn't want to feel this pain, this heartache. It was too much. It overwhelmed her even more than it had when Daniel had been taken from her all those years ago.

Standing in the hallway near the front door she took one last look around, her gaze landing on the entry to the kitchen. Her breath caught as she thought about the last time she'd been in that kitchen, with Emma, giving her that damn apple turnover and then what came after... the furious, rough sex followed by a slamming front door as the Sheriff left when they were done. Regina had slumped against the wall then and cried, knowing she had damned the blonde to an endless hell filled with nothing but her own regrets. Regina had almost run after her, but her fear at losing Henry, at losing everything she'd created here held her to the floor and left her in misery only to get a frantic phone call from the Sheriff an hour later. Briefly, Regina had been relieved to hear Emma's voice and she started to tell her not to eat the turnover, but before she could get the words out, Emma had screamed into the phone that something was wrong with Henry and to get to the hospital immediately. The short drive had been torture as the possible scenarios ran through her mind, but never had she thought Henry would have eaten the turnover. Henry didn't even like cooked apples! How could she have known he would eat the damned thing?

When she'd walked into that hospital room, Emma grabbing her in a rage, dragging her into a storage room and throwing her against the shelving, she'd welcomed the pain. She wanted Emma Swan to hurt her, to make her pay for trying to cause her harm, but then the Sheriff had said the words that caused her blood to run cold and her world to crumble around her. She told her he ate the turnover, and in that moment Regina felt as if she had lost everything. The feeling was only cemented when Emma demanded the truth from her and she capitulated easily, all the fight gone out of her, nearly collapsing into the enraged woman's arms. Instead, she watched as the realization of who she really was came to Emma's eyes and, unbelievably, Regina felt herself break a little more. In that moment, she knew that if there could ever have been anything between herself and Emma, there could be no more. Not only had she tried to put the Sheriff asleep for eternity, she had now inadvertently done that very thing to their son. All that was left to her was to fix it in whatever way she could, but in the end Emma had done that, too. She'd slain the dragon, saved Henry with true love's kiss and broken the dark curse the Evil Queen inflicted on them all, even on herself. Regina included herself because, in retrospect, she could now see that enacting that curse had only caused her to experience more pain than she'd ever experienced in the other world. Here in Storybrooke, she had now lost more than she'd ever been deserving of.

Now there was only one thing left to do. She would exact a revenge that would hurt the only two people in this town deserving of pain, herself and that bastard imp Rumpelstiltskin. They both deserved endless purgatory, and she was going to make sure at least one of them received it. A wicked laugh began to form as she thought about what she would do to Rumpelstiltskin when she found him. The laugh followed her out the front door and into the street, causing nearby heads to turn and look at her with fear. However, she was different now, and seeing them cower before her brought her no joy, she only desired one man to squirm with fear at the sight of her.

Regina closed her eyes and concentrated on the focus of all her anger and hatred, disappearing moments later into thin air. It was time to get her revenge, for herself and for those she loved most. If only she had waited a few moments more she may have seen one of those people come screeching around the corner in her little yellow bug.