Her hope was wrenched out of her chest, ripping a bloodied hole in her heart, however, when she heard the unrestrained rage in the voice of Emma Swan, hatred coloring every syllable of her name.
"Regina, get away from my son!"
Her lip curled as she spun in front of Henry; seeing Neal at Emma's side called a fireball into Regina's open palm, feeling yet again the keen pain that inevitably follows the weakness of hope. It was rage, not hope, that made her strong. Henry was kind, but wrong.
She searched Emma's fiery eyes and heard Henry's voice - "Mom!" - behind her, drawing comfort and satisfaction from knowing that he was talking to her this time, not the blonde, not the woman whose existence threatened to ruin everything.
Love is weakness, Regina.
Henry reached out and touched her back. But what if it's strength?
The fireball in her hand dimmed, and for a moment - just a moment - she thought she detected the heartbreak, expertly disguised as hatred, that Henry had said was in Emma's eyes.
She had been honest with her son, and he hadn't been disgusted by the idea of the Evil Queen and the Savior loving one another. He had seemed into it, in fact. And maybe honesty was a drug, as vengeance was: maybe now that she knew what Henry's trust, confidence, comfort, and support felt like - even and especially now that he knew for certain who she really was - maybe she could never settle for anything less, anything manufactured, anything manipulated.
She held up the curse scroll in her non-flaming hand, positioning it immediately above the inferno.
"No need for your gun, Charming." She forced her voice into the light disdain of a confident Queen on the cusp of victory. She ignored Emma. She had to. What if Henry was wrong?
"You can run along and tell your undoubtedly depressed little wide that I won't be giving her the relief of death: my family will love me despite her drawing breath, bot because she's stopped." Henry noted her use of the term "my family" instead of "my son" and resisted smiling. He didn't want Emma to catch on before it was time. He knew anything less than a perfect plan would humiliate and anger his adoptive mother, and he wanted to do this right.
Regina dropped the curse into the flame and felt its disintegration shudder throughout her bloodstream, the origin of the fire that was curling the paper into nothingness. She ignored the pain as she had ignored the agony of the fairy magic she had absorbed in this very spot, relatively recently. She locked her eyes on Emma's shocked face as the curse burned, inadvertently turning the fire to a hotter blue as she searched the blonde's face for any traces of... anything positive. Usually so gifted at reading people, she found herself unsettlingly confused by the younger woman's enraged and shocked uncertainty.
"C'mon, Henry," the blonde called, her eyes refusing to turn away from Regina's. She extended a hand for their son.
The older woman's heart sank, so hard, so fast, that she found herself almost shocked that the entire forest hadn't trembled with its weight impacting and shattering on the ground. A brief moment of transparency, of comradery, of love, between mother and child. Had she really been expecting anything else? What a fool she was. He probably had only said all those things to manipulate her into destroying the scroll.
He is NOT your mother, a gently stern voice - again, sounding irritatingly like Emma - reminded her. Or you, the voice added, but without judgement, almost apologetic.
Henry's voice called her back to the well, out of the downward spiral of her mind, where she spent most of her time these days.
"No!" he squealed, causing Regina's eyes to widen as Emma's head jerked back in shock. Charming tentatively raised his gun again, clearly wondering if Regina had cast some other kind of spell on his grandson. This did not escape the child's notice.
"She hasn't cursed me, Grandpa! I'm just saying - this is exactly the problem!"
Emma wore the look of one befuddled by a complex calculus equation. Regina suppressed the instinct to find this adorable as she focused on Henry, hoping against hope that he was getting at what she thought he was.
"I'm not following, kid," Emma said densely, obviously impatient to get out of this damned forest.
"Clearly," Regina couldn't help but murmur as three glares and one look of mildly amused exasperation were sent her way. Emma tried - hard - to avoid noting that Henry's exasperated face was the same as Regina's. She internally rolled her eyes at herself. The anger was so much easier than the grudging love for the brunette, whose roller coasters were both higher and lower than Emma could ever have dreamed possible.
Their child continued as though uninterrupted. "Think about it," he imposed as though he were the adult and they were the children. "Since the curse broke and Mom's tried to be better, what have we done? She saved you and Mary Margaret, then we all went to celebrate without her, and no one but you ever even thanked her, Emma. Then, when you did invite her, no one spent time with her at dinner, but Grumpy threatened her with a big knife and everyone at her lasagna without thanking her or asking how she was after absorbing all that fairy magic and everything. No one looked really hard for her when we found out that Archie was alive, even though we Cora's so dangerous and could have hurt her. And instead of apologizing for not believing her about Archie, we all just ganged up on her about Cora.
"And now," he took a big breath as all the adults' mouths hung open and tears clung to two of their faces, "Mary Margaret manipulated her into killing her own mother, and we all have sympathy for Grandma but none for Mom, but all I have to do was talk to her to convince her not to hurt anyone, and still you're suggesting that we all just go off together, again, and leave her, again? Don't you get it? It's this kind of stuff that makes her feel like she has to be the Evil Queen! You should know better than anybody, Emma: you were abandoned, too."
Tears had stained his cheeks in the same pattern that they had stained Regina's as he spoke. Emma's mascara and eyeliner - cheaper than Regina's and less water resistant - had smeared slightly down her face as blood began gathering on her lip, tasting iron because of how hard she was biting down, trying to control her trembling.
The younger woman's voice cracked as she began, "Regina, I - "
"Save it, Ms. Swan," Regina deadpanned, though the admonition somehow lacked its usual sting. "I have no desire for your pity, borne only out of the insights of my son." But she looked at Neal, not at Emma, as she claimed Henry as hers.
Her face softened as she took Henry's chin in her palm and bent down to his level. "Thank you, Henry. But they don't want me." His eyes were almost as sad as hers, his brow slightly furrowed, matching the tired creases above and below her eyes. She opened her heart, slightly, looking into his brown orbs. "And who can blame them? I was just threatening to kill someone they love."
Henry opened his mouth to object, but she put a soft finger to his lips. "Come by and see me tomorrow? If - " she paused and searched his eyes, finding love for her in them that she hadn't seen untainted by doubt in far too long. " - if your mother permits it."
She kissed him softly on the nose and vanished in a puff of purple fog before his open arms could wrap around her.