The hardest thing, Regina had realized, was leaving behind her history. Not only was she leaving behind the people she loved in leaving Storybrooke, but she was also leaving behind herself. But maybe that was good for her, to be able to start anew. Not that she had much time for a new start. Stealing a glance at herself in her rear view mirror, she knew that she had not much time at all. The tints of green magic were now visible in the bags under her eyes, and in the hollow of her cheeks. You can tell that I'm dying, Regina thought. She had very little time. There were tasks to be completed and she had less than a month to complete them. It seemed selfish to her, to not tell Henry and Emma of her condition. If they'd managed to find her it might be too late for them to say goodbye. Maybe now that they were going to find out whom she truly was things could be better between them, she pondered. Now she wasn't really the spawn of evil, and she was manipulated her whole life and she was doing something good with her last few days. Maybe they would come and find her, before she passed. And she'd get to see them one last time. Yes, Regina thought, I'll see them again, and I'll get to say goodbye. It was better that way, because if Regina had seen their faces, she wouldn't have been able to leave. This was good for her, to be alone for now. With one final glance at her home, Regina pulled out of her driveway and drove away into the early sunrise.


"Henry! Come on, we gotta go!" Emma yelled from the bottom of the stairs. She checked her watch for the third time in the last five minutes.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Henry came charging down the stairs, almost falling over on the way down. "Easy there kid, your mom has enough to worry about without adding a broken ankle to the list." Henry smiled sheepishly.

"Are you sure we should be bothering mom again? She said she needed some space and I still think we should give it to her."

"Henry, when it comes to your mom 'leave me alone' means 'I'm pissed at you but I really need you.' Trust me; I'm fluent in all things Regina." Henry stared unconvincingly.

"I would have to respectfully disagree with that last statement." The sheriff rolled her eyes.

"Geez, what are you, Regina 2.0? Save the inquisition for later, we've got a queen to see and I still have to stop at the station." Emma hurried out the door, Henry following close behind her.


Emma rushed into the Sheriffs' station from the now pouring rain. They'd been half way to the station and the sky began to crackle with lightning and open season all over her favorite leather jacket. Some freaking luck, she thought. Hurrying over to the interrogation room, she failed to notice the envelope on her desk. Emma grabbed her phone off of the table—she'd forgotten it there earlier during one of her impromptu breaks— and ran back out into the hallway, stumping her foot on the desk on the way back.

"Mother fucker! Son of a bitch, oh my god!" She cursed, hobbling on one foot and holding the other. The small envelope fell to the floor in front of her. What's this, Emma wondered. Her aching foot now forgotten, the blonde sheriff bent to pick up the envelope and sat down on her desk. To Emma, it read. She immediately recognized it as Regina's handwriting. What could this be, Emma thought as she ripped open the envelope. It was a letter with an ancient looking key at the bottom of the envelope. Regina had written her a letter. Should she read it? Of course she should, it would be rude not to. After all, Regina had taken the time to write it, so she absolutely had to read it. But what if it said something horrible? What if Regina was stating her undying hatred for her? What if she said she'd never forgive her? And did she really deserve her forgiveness at all? No, thinking poorly of Regina is what got her into this mess in the first place. She's a good woman and despite all of the pain she was going through, she was still Emma's friend. Or something like it, she added. Unfolding the letter and taking a deep breath, she began to read.

Dear Miss Swan,

I've never been one for cowardice, but I simply can't bring myself to face you. Emma Swan, you are without a doubt the most irritating, insufferable, meddling, life ruining woman that I have ever met. And even so, you've somehow still managed to have me falling for you. I know what you must think, that this is some ruse in a ploy to seek revenge. It isn't, I wish with all my being that it was, but it isn't. For some reason completely lost to me I have come to care for you in ways that even I don't understand. I don't know how this has come to happen, and I believe that's what angers me the most. To be honest I didn't think that I had much of a heart left to love (yes, love Ms. Swan) anyone romantically ever again.

After Daniel, (I've decided that I am finally going to tell you everything because as the woman I love I believe that you deserve to know who I truly am. Please try not to be too disappointed) I was so utterly broken. I was merely out of my teenage years, and I'd fallen for a stable boy. At the time I thought that he was my true love, but now I find that I had just loved him, and not been in love with him. Nevertheless, he was so very dear to my heart. In all of the horrors of my life, Daniel helped me in ways that I couldn't begin to explain. He was my first friend and he believed in me when no one else did.

Cora was a cruel woman, as you well know, and she'd hurt me in so many ways. I don't know how I managed to survive all that she had put me through. There were so many mornings that I'd woken up wishing that I hadn't. I just wanted to disappear, escape to a faraway place where she couldn't reach me. But I never disappeared. There was one day that I'd wanted to drift away the most of all. My thirteenth birthday. Cora took me to a whore house. She'd said that it was time for me to become a woman and that I needed to learn how to please my future husband. She left me in a room with an enormous, dastardly man. I will not write down what he did to me, I fear that rehashing the horrific details before the devils eyes will bring about long forgotten nightmares. And that coward of a man, Henry Mills, (whom I somehow still managed to love) never did a thing to stop her. As much as I hate to admit it, that was what made it easier for me to take my father's heart. I loved him dearly, but a small part of me—the little girl inside of me who can never be at peace, never really forgave him. Gods know I tried, but I couldn't find it in me. But I forgot about all of it with Daniel, I could be someone other than the property of Cora Mills.

This is how I'd come to meet your mother. I want you to know that there was a time when I'd loved Snow White. When she was a young girl, I had cared for her very much. But things changed very quickly, and I was unable to do anything to stop it. I'll leave it to Snow to tell you the full story, this is my goodbye to you and I can't afford to spend it talking about that woman. I apologize for burdening you with my life story, but I need you to know now more than ever that I did not want my life to come to what it has. I had hopes and dreams, once upon a time. I had innocence. But it was all taken from me, everything. I was abandoned in a cruel world to fend for myself with not a clue of what the world really was. Snow White had taken my love from me. I know my choices were my own, but I can never forgive her. She took the only person that has ever loved me away. And to make matters worse, she gave birth to you, the savior, with your brash ways and horrid sense of fashion and I fell completely and whole heartedly in love with you. It's as if she knew I would love you, and gave birth to you just to spite me. Nevertheless, I seem to find that I can hate her a tad less knowing that she brought you into my life. And as difficult as it has been, it truly has been a pleasure to know you Ms. Swan. Emma. I realize that I've never called you by your name before, and for that I must apologize. I never imagined that something as trivial as saying a person's name would matter to me so much. But you're much more than some person, aren't you? I'd like to apologize for all of the fights that we've had but the prided part of me will not allow it. After making myself this vulnerable to you I must maintain some shred of dignity. But honestly Emma, it is quite rude to barge into someone's life and take their child. I know that Henry is your son, but you could have at least recognized the fact that I have been the sole mother figure in his life for the past twelve years. He's my son just as much as he is yours, and you just took him from me. I don't understand why everyone is so keen on leaving me alone. Well, you've certainly followed in your mother's footsteps. We've moved past all of that, but the thought of it still brings tears to my eyes. You've single handedly left me in ruins, and for some strange reason I still love you. Why do I still love you, Emma? I don't know how you have done this to me. I really wish you hadn't because it was so much easier to hate you. I tried so very hard to. But I've grown tired of fighting losing battles.

Just to clear the air, I am not angry with you for reuniting Robin and Marian; i was hurt that it was you that did it. I don't love Robin, I never have and I never will, but he was convenient. He filled a void in my life that I now realize can only be filled by you. I wanted to hold onto the belief that I could be happy with him because he was easy enough to be with. But alas, he wasn't you. I apologize for taking out my frustrations on you but you must realize that he was my last chance at accepting the fact that I could never have you, but just like my heart you took him as well. I know that you didn't mean to hurt me; I know that you would never intentionally hurt me. I trusted you against my better judgment; I gave you everything I had. No one in this godforsaken world knows me the way you do and I absolutely hate that. I just wish it could have been different with you, I wish with all my heart that you could have been the one to stay with me through it all. I dreamt that you would be my savior. But now I realize that dreams are not for people like me.

However, no matter what you'd do, my heart would still be yours. It has been since the day at the mines. Through all of the turmoil I was feeling, you were there by my side to save our son. And I thought of how easy it would have been to just fall into your arms and let everything go. I thought of how easy it'd be to just cry and have you hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay. I had wanted that so badly, to just be held by you, suspended in your love and security. When pigs fly, I presume is your train of thought. I now realize that it was foolish of me to ever entertain such thoughts. How could the product of true love, love someone as evil as me? I am not deserving of you in the slightest and I know that. So I'd pushed you away time and time again. I'm quite the actress, wouldn't you agree? I should receive an Oscar for all of the effort I put in to keep my feelings a secret. I resisted all of the temptation that you threw my way. It was so hard not to smile back when you would smile at me, or laugh at your perverted and disastrous sense of humor. It was even harder to pretend that I didn't find you to be the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. I had to restrain myself constantly to not stare too long. And I hated when I would stand too close to you, because you smell of honey and I do so love honey. There were so many occasions when I wanted to just pull you close to me and hold you and kiss you all over and tell you how gorgeous I truly think you are. But I believe the hardest thing for me was to not touch your hair. It looks of freshly spun gold, and I had wanted to touch it at least once. I'm sure it feels of silk. Here I am rambling about your beauty, who would've imagined that? I assure you this is not what I had in mind of writing to you. Although, I suppose I'll leave this the way it is because a woman of your stature should hear of her beauty every day.

There are many things that I've found out in the time since you broke the curse. The first being that Cora and Henry Mills are not my parents and that Regina Mills does not exist. My mother was a gypsy named Esmeralda, and my father a soldier named Phoebus. I was stolen from them as a baby by Cora, who raised me as "her own". Cora's true daughter, Alice, was dying when they stole me away. They needed someone to carry her heart and fill it with magic in order for her to survive, and everyone knows that gypsies are born with magic. She went to Rumplestiltskin, and together they manipulated my entire life so that I'd make all of the wrong choices to become the Evil Queen. The true reason that Cora is trying to find me is that she wants to take back her daughter's heart. But I cannot allow this. There are many things that I must do, including finding my own heart. I wonder if I'll still love you when my heart is restored to me. Because it's not really me who is in love with you, is it? The heart inside of me that quickens at the sight of you isn't truly my own, so does that mean that Alice loves you? I don't know, I don't know anything really, and that's why I have to go. I know how this all must sound, but you must believe that this is all true. I can't tell you how I've come by this information; it would endanger you along with Henry, just please trust me. If there comes a time when my duties are fulfilled and I am still able to live, I will return to you. But don't count on that, I don't know what the future holds for me, and for all I know I may die tomorrow.

I believe that I should bring this to an end. I fear that if I continue confessing all of my hearts desires I won't be able to leave you behind. Please tell Henry that I am so very proud of him. Tell him that I love him more than life itself, and that no matter what heart I have in me, I'll always know him as my son. Our son. I love you, Emma. You're one hell of a savior, because you've managed to save me without even trying. You have finally set me free, and for that I will be eternally grateful. I wish you all the happiness in the world, and I hope you find your true love one day—even if it is that god awful pirate. These are my final words to you, please remember them well. Goodbye my dear Miss Swan, it was lovely to have known you.

Forever Yours,

Regina

PS - Henry will know what the key opens.