Our Truth Part II

Summary: She thought she wouldn't be able to do this for a very long time. Maybe never. She was wrong. Regina speaks and the words, and Snow responds.

Regina cannot sleep. Well actually, she can …

It just that she doesn't particularly want to. Because when she sleeps, she dreams.

She dreams of her father, dying by her hand. "I'm sorry."

She dreams of her mother dying in her arms. "You would have been enough."

She dreams of Daniel, dying by the hand of the woman who has terrified her, tortured her, and whose love and approval she has craved for as long as she can remember. "Love is weakness, Regina."

She dreams of Snow, all wide-eyed earnestness, all trembling lips and quivering chin. "I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to lose your mother. Like I lost mine."

You promised. You promised to keep my secret, but you lied …

Tossing and turning, fighting sleep, Regina tries to summon it, the old, satisfying anger, the rage that kept her warm, or at least kept her pulse going, on the nights when she and Leopold would lie together the only way they knew how … side by side, and still, and cold.

Eventually, they slept in separate bedrooms, though it made little difference. Even when they shared a bed, she was alone.

She was alone then, and she is alone now.

Except …

It's just as she imagined it. She's looking out into the endless blue, thinking of Henry, wishing she could make him materialize by sheer force of will, when Snow approaches her. A thousand thoughts run through her mind, and she tries to find the strength to hate her, how she needs to hate her, it's all she had to keep her strong, to keep her alive, but it's exhausting, so exhausting, and oh, how she's terrified of what's underneath, but …

The words come out of her in a burst, in a messy, undignified jumble. She isn't nearly as eloquent as she imagined herself being, but somehow, she manages to make her point, speak the truth.

That Henry is the part of Snow she could let herself love.

"How do you feel about that?" Regina asks her.

"I …" Those impossibly wide eyes. "Regina, I … don't know what to say."

It almost makes her laugh. After all this time, after turning it over and over in her mind, of course Snow's response would turn out to be entirely anti-climactic. Because Snow will never, ever do what Regina wants, whether it's suffering or dying or simply keeping her mouth shut.

Regina avoids her painfully earnest gaze. "You don't have to say anything. I just … wanted you to know."

But when she turns to leave, Snow grips her arm.

"Look at me," she whispers.

"No …"

"Regina, please, look at me."

Her rage has left her, just when she needs it most. She will summon it back, or die trying. Regina begins to shake.

"No! Let me go!"

"Regina …"

"Let go or I will make you let go!"

"You were to be mother!" Snow cries out, and Regina looks at her then, can't seem to stop herself. For a moment, Snow is ten years old again, ten years old and crying over all the things she can't change.

"I wanted … I wanted … I was happy when you told me Daniel had run away, b-because you said we were going to be a family! You said … I thought … I didn't know … I couldn't understand … your mother … she told me she just wanted to be close to you, and I …"

"Oh Snow, you promised, you promised …"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Snow whispers. "Why didn't you tell me what your mother was? If I had known, I never would have trusted…"

Regina grips Snow's arm, tight enough to bruise. "Tell you? Tell you? You were a child! How was I supposed to explain to you that I lived every day of my life in fear? How was I going to make you understand what it was like, to have magic make you suffer, make you bleed? And be told by your own father that it was only happening because your mother wanted the best for you?"

"Your … your mother used magic to …?"

Regina shakes her. "Of course she did!"

"But … but why, Regina, then why would you side with her?"

"Because she was my mother!" Regina screams. "I had to, I had to stop disappointing her, I had to try harder, I had to be better, I had to be good enough …"

"Oh Regina, I know you must've –"

"No you don't! You don't know what it's like, because everything was handed to you! You drew love in with every breath, your mother's love, your father's love, but I … I had to try and suck in the air in between my screams … but I couldn't shake the taste of blood in my mouth … until Daniel. He loved me, he loved me …."

Regina bows her head and begins to sob. After all this time, it still hurts. It still hurts so much.

"I would have loved you," Snow whispers.

Regina looks up at her through a haze of tears. "What?"

"I would have loved you. I would have helped you. You were my hero, and I would have done anything for you … if you'd only let me."

Regina has the sense that she is standing on a ledge, a precipice … and that's when her survival instincts kick in, and she begins to back away.

She wipes away her tears and gives Snow a bitter smile. "Well," she says, trying to keep her voice steady, trying to inject as much coldness into it as she can. "It's too late now, isn't it?"

She turns and walks away.

"I don't believe that."

For a moment, she thinks she imagines Snow's voice. But then she says it again, louder. "I don't believe that."

Regina turns, and gives Snow her best Evil Queen sneer. "Oh don't you, you foolish girl?"

Snow meets her gaze evenly. "I don't. It's not too late. It's never too late."

Regina feels her heart beat faster. She cannot bear this. She can't. She needs her rage, where is her rage, why can't she find it? Snow tricked her into killing her own mother, she hates her, she hates …

Regina closes her eyes. "Damn you Snow, I would have loved you too."

Then she turns and flees below deck.

Snow doesn't follow her.

But later, in the sleepless night, Regina hears a faint tapping on her cabin door. It's soft at first, hesitant, but then louder and more insistent.

"Regina?"

"Go away!" She says, sharper than she means to. And then, more softly, "I'm tired. Please, I'm just so … tired."

She hears Snow sigh, pictures her as she leans against the door. "We're going to find him, you know. Henry."

Regina stands up. She puts her hand to the door. "I know."

"Family always finds their way back to each other."

Regina thinks of her mother, of her father, of all the beautiful children she and Daniel never made.

"Not always, Snow."

"You'll see."

Regina leans against the door, closes her eyes. "You know, I really hate that you're still so damn optimistic."

"Regina …"

"Go to sleep, child."

"Yes, mother."

Regina starts, and her eyes fly open.

When she opens the door, Snow is gone.

Regina gasps, breathes in crisp, clear lungfuls of air.

This time, there are no screams. And there is no taste of blood in her mouth.