So here you have chapter three, I know it took me a lot, I'm horrible and I'm sorry. This chapter was just too difficult to write as I needed to explain a lot of things and decide what was the best way to do it, that's why I made this chapter longer, so you don't hate me for making you wait so long.

Once again I want to thank my beta Sultry Sweet for making this possible and all of you for the support, reviews, favs and follows, love you guys.

Chapter 3

"Why? Are you wanting to tell your secrets?"

"Oh! I hope you aren't getting me wrong, dear, what I really want is for you to turn around and leave me alone."

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going anywhere."

"Of course you're not."

"Indeed, I'm not, so why don't you start for the beginning? …Grandma?" Regina took her gaze off of Emma as soon as the last word left her lips and the blonde woman instantaneously regretted messing with something she still didn't understand, as it apparently affected Regina too much.

Regina sat up in bed, wrinkling her nose at the incipient pain that slithered up her spine and pounded under her rib cage. She rapidly enclosed her ribs with her arms and then leaned her back against the headboard. She slowly lifted her persistent gaze until it collided with the blonde's distressed one.

"You can sit anytime now, Miss Swan," Regina spat out.

Emma glanced around, looking for a place where to sit. There was nothing but the bed and a low-back chair that was so far away from the bed that it would be like if she sat at a bench at the park, expecting Regina to tell her secrets from the magistery with a megaphone.

"D-do you mean, like sit on the bed?"

"Well, unless you want to use the floor instead. I won't blame you though. It seems far from cold and uncomfortable," Regina scoffed.

"Okay, okay. I get it," Emma said, raising both hands. "If you're okay with that, I don't see why I shouldn't." Emma shrugged and let herself fall beside Regina, continuing by take her boots off and crossing her legs under herself. "Whenever you want, I'm listening."

Regina's eyebrows shot up to her hairline when she saw the blonde's sudden carefree behavior.

"Very well then. Here we go…" Regina sighed, "Remember that trip to Boston we were planning together for the three of us?"

"Of course I remember! It was just today! What's going on, Regina? Spit it out already, for God's sake!" The frustration of not knowing was getting the best of her.

"Right, well, there was never a 'we' in that planning," the brunette said, adding air quotes with her fingers. "It was only me and my plan never truly included me at all. It was always only the both of you going to Boston," Regina confessed.

"And why is that? I thought the main idea of the whole damn trip was to demonstrate to Henry that we can bear each other for a whole day without killing one another in the process. If you couldn't make it to Boston today, why didn't you just reschedule the whole damn thing?"

"You're not listening. Emma. The plan never included me because I couldn't get out of town today, but I needed you and Henry to be safe out there in Boston before all the things that were going to happen today, happened," the brunette tried to explain herself the best she could.

"Wait, what? Did you already know what was going to happen today?" Emma interrupted her. "The hell, Regina? Not even when you knew you could get hurt, you couldn't abandon the paperwork at your office for one day and come along with Henry and me to Boston?" Emma hissed with disbelief.

"It's not like that, Miss Swan. When I say that I couldn't leave town today, it's not because I had better issues to attend or whatever you're implying there, but because I actually COULD NOT cross the town line. Not 'this day'."

"What's that supposed to mean? The town line has never affected you. Why is this day any different?"

"Because it is! Okay, Miss Swan? I don't know why, it just keeps happening. The last day of every single month since the curse was broken, shit happens to me and I can't do anything about it. I'm physically bound to the town. I can't leave. I can't escape my fate, because it's written after all."

"Okay, so if this… What do you call it? 'Fate issues'…have been happening since I broke the curse, how is it possible that I don't remember anything about it? How could I simply ignore all of this for so long?"

"You didn't…" the brunette whispered lowering her gaze from the blonde's. "I t-took your memories away," Regina admitted, chocolate eyes still not reaching emerald ones.

"You did what?" Emma asked narrowing eyes.

"Look, I know how it sounds, but please let me explain before you blame me as you always rush to do," the brunette begged without daring to look into the blonde's eyes yet.

"You have ten minutes," was the Sheriff's only answer.

Regina allowed herself a quick glance at the blonde woman. There she sat over the brunette's bed as if it was her own, legs crossed under her body and arms firmly crossed over her chest. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, the look aimed right at her, trying to seem angry and yet, Regina could see beyond her 'don't you dare say something that I don't like' pose. There was nothing but a little girl with big, shiny eyes, bouncing on her toes just waiting for her to answer her queries. That made the brunette smile.

Emma clucked her tongue, uneasy under the now smiling brunette's gaze. Regina's smile simply widened at that, but then she held it back and regained her always unshakable mask. The tale of what happened the last day of the month in which Emma had broken the curse then slipped out of her mouth.

The brunette let her eyes fly around her house then she allowed herself another sip from her cup of tea and leaned against the frame of the kitchen door. The house felt utterly empty without Henry.

It had finally happened. The thing she feared the most was now a reality. The unbearable "Savior" had taken her son away from her. Regina sighed and took another sip of her tea as a single reckless teardrop slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away with a finger and composed herself once again. While she tried to withdraw the increasing feeling of regret that filled her gut, the voice in her head repeated over and over again that she should have let Snow and Emma die in that damn wishing well.

She had saved them for Henry, to let him see that she was truly changing and trying to be a better person for Henry and Henry alone. And yet, there he was living with the Charmings and here she was, alone again with all her good intentions.

Regina placed the empty cup in the sink and then left the house.

Outside was completely quiet. The streets were empty and no surrounding voices or noises could be was utterly silent. It was the kind of silence that could only be seen as a hint of bad things to come, a bad omen. She couldn't be more right about that.

The moment she walked around the corner, some kind of rope hit her legs and tied them tightly before she fell to the floor. Everything happened so fast she could barely notice what was going on until she saw them. Snow and Charming were running to where she was laying, but when she thought they would release her legs, David simply pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his belt and bound her hands together.

"What do you think you're doing, David!?" she asked, trying to shake Mary Margaret's grip from her arms.

"I don't know who this David you're talking about is, but I, Prince James of the White kingdom, am condemning you to the guillotine for all the crimes you have committed against the crown.

"What the…? Snow, aren't you going to stop him this time? What about all that 'everybody deserves a second chance' babble?" Regina asked desperately, trying to free herself. The fact that David was acting like he didn't actually known who David was, was disconcerting.

"Right, but the thing is, Regina, I have given you so many chances now that I'm done with that. Evil has completely blackened your heart. There is no way back and there is not a second chance," Snow spat out, giving her an expression of pity that she used to give the queen almost every time their paths crossed.

Of all the expressions the black haired woman had ever given her – disdain, anger, or even that look of complete admiration she gave her when she was just a little stupid girl – Snow's pity was the one Regina hated the most.

"You can come out now, guys. We've got her," Snow shouted over her shoulder at the same time that she and James began to drag Regina across the street.

"Great! Let's take her to the square!" said someone in the crowd that suddenly appeared.

Regina found herself being carried through the streets over Charming's shoulders. It was ridiculous, not to mention humiliating. Besides, she was wearing a pencil skirt, which made things even more uncomfortable, if that was possible. She whirled her wrists repeatedly, calling for her magic, but nothing came out. Her magic didn't work and she couldn't get free.

The crowd finally got to the square and they tied the queen to the biggest statue there.

"Where is the guillotine?" Leroy shouted from the front of the crowd. "She must have hidden it!"

"You are all going to regret this. That I guarantee," Regina stated, but it seemed like nobody was even listening to her. "Have you forgotten who am I and what I'm capable of?"

"Oh, we haven't forgotten, Your Majesty. That's exactly why we're doing this," Granny laughed, aiming her crossbow right at the point in between Regina's eyes.

"Let's all look for that guillotine. She might have delayed her destiny, but she's not going to get passed it this night."

Regina's eyebrows shot to her hairline as it was Archie who was talking, the conscience thing clearly having gone on vacation.

As quick as the entire crowd had appeared out of nowhere minutes ago, they all disappeared in a heartbeat in the search of a guillotine they logically wouldn't find in Storybrooke. Even the Charmigs were gone—after they had tightly gagged her, of course. Once she found herself alone again, she did her best to fight the handcuffs, hoping for them to break or something as fortuitous as that. But she was not that lucky, was she? Even her magic had abandoned her after a complete week without failing. How likely was it that it happened on the exact same day the Charmings and the rest of the town got murderous? She had performed magic perfectly since she had used her mother's book to regain it and now this happened? Things couldn't get any worse.

"Come on, kid, I'll walk you to school," she heard Emma's voice from somewhere behind the statue.

Regina unsuccessfully tried to call for help through the gag.

"But I'm starving, Emma!" Henry responded.

"Oh! Don't put it that way. It isn't my fault that Granny decided to take the day off, right? Come on, you can buy something at… Regina?" Emma rushed to the brunette's side, finally noticing the tied up woman. "What the… What happened? Why are you tied to a freaking statue?"

"Clearly not by choice," she answered, rolling her eyes as Emma removed her gag. "Would you mind?" She moved the handcuffs so Emma would realize her other form of confinement and could finally free her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some issues I have to sort out with your parents; issues that involve a guillotine they were planning to use on me." Regina said, smoothing out her skirt with complete grace as if she had just been eating in some fancy restaurant and not tied up to a freaking statue in the square.

"Wait, what? Why would they do that to you?"

"Well, I don't know! You tell me, they're your parents! You all live together under the same roof and you're telling me that you didn't hear they were planning to murder me?"

"Sorry to interrupt your talk, Moms, but they whole town is, like, coming over there and they don't seem very friendly," Henry interrupted and both women turned around to see he was right.

The entire town walked toward the square where the three of them were standing, no friendly expressions on their faces but lots of sticks, torches, and swords in their hands.

"Mary Margaret? David? I don't know what's going on, but this certainly is not the way to fix the problem…" Emma shouted so they could hear her, but then Regina interrupted her.

"Did I forget to mention they don't remember who they are?" the brunette woman asked.

"What?"

"That woman and that kid are helping her escape!" Snow yelled to no one in general.

"Burn the bitch!" someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

"Burn them all!" someone added.

"Okay, time to run, guys…" Emma said as the crowd got closer and closer.

The three of them broke into a run through the streets. Even though running was not something Regina would usually do, she was without her magic. What else could she do if not run?

"Damn it, Regina! Nice day to wear a pencil skirt and five inch pumps."

"Well, excuse me for not putting on my 'in case someone tries to murder me' outfit! Next time, I'll bring my sneakers and baggy pants. I promise."

"IF there's a next time! They're getting closer. Come on, Moms, less fighting and more running." Henry intervened.

"Yes, Ms. Swan, less talking and more running," the brunette said mockingly as she rapidly pulled her shoes off and run as fast as her skirt let her. "We should hide somewhere."

"Granny's! The door was open this morning even though there was nobody inside. Now we know why," Emma suggested.

"Fair enough," answered the brunette.

"After that we ran to Granny's diner and remained hidden until next day when Granny and Ruby found us and we realized they were completely oblivious to what had happened the day before," Regina finished her narration. "So that's pretty much what happened the first time this happened."

Emma narrowed her eyes and hesitated while she tried to assimilate to all the new information she had just learned.

According to Regina, there was a day every month where all the people in the town began to act strangely and forgot who they were in Storybrooke. However, this new issue somehow didn't affect Henry or herself as they kept acting normally. It sounded like they were cursed all over again, except this time was one day a month and it seemed, as far as she knew, that Regina was the one who got the worse part of it. And yet, she still didn't understand why Regina had erased her memory. The story she told was perfectly similar to everything that happened in the town almost everyday. Why would those days be any different to the others in 'weirdland' Storybrooke.

"You aren't telling me everything, are you?"

"I am!" Regina nodded almost convincingly.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Superpower, remember?" Emma said, clucking her tongue and pointing to her own chest. "If it was all puppies and rainbows while hiding at Granny's then why would you erase my memory?"

"Ms. Swan, I swear, sometimes you are unbearable and other times you really are a freaking pain in my ass. Do you know that?"

"Yep, and I'm pretty much proud of it," Emma responded with a big, bright smile. "Then what happened…"

"Then nothing! I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm not here so you can make fun of me. Yes, I took your memories. Not once but several times in the past few months and no, I'm not giving them back to you. I'm the 'villain', remember? I do what I want!"

"Oh! Who's acting childish now? Okay, Regina, you can keep my memories, but you have to explain to me how this new curse works. Why do people in the town forget who they are? And more importantly, what the hell does that have to do with you believing you're my grandmother? Also, where the hell does my grandfather - the shadow- come into the story?"

Regina smoothed the blanket above her before she cringed in bed and locked eyes hard with Emma.

"You haven't understood anything. This thing, this new curse as you called it, it's not like chapters from the same story or something that stops at some point and resumes the next month. They're always different stories."

"What do you mean stories? You're talking about this like it's already written or something. Is it?" The blonde woman asked, her full attention put on the mayor.

"Somehow it is, indeed," Regina sighed. "Look, there are all these people out there who expend their lives writing about us."

"You aren't making any sense, you know?" Emma interrupted with an arched brow.

"Yes. I also refused to believe it when Rumpelstiltskin suggested such a thing, but believe it or not there are, and these stories they write are pretty much what are affecting us in this new curse. These stories control our actions and memories and there is nothing we can do about it.

"And yet, you're acting normal and seem like you have your memories intact," Emma let out, her voice full of skepticism.

"That's because I… Me, I'm different than the others. It works differently on me. I mean, I can do things willingly if the story doesn't demand otherwise. Somehow I can do what I want."

"That's because you're a 'villain', right?" Emma asked mockingly.

"I'm sorry?"

"Because you can do what you want…" Regina narrowed her eyes at her. "It was a joke, Regina. About what you said earlier? Okay. Forget it!"

"It's not something to joke about, you know? Oh, what am I saying? Of course you don't know. You don't know what it's like to be controlled by these ridiculous stories, to do what it says no matter what, to know what you're doing and unable to help it. They – the others, I mean – at least they don't remember the day after, but me? I remember everything. What I've done to them, what they've done to me. Under this curse I've hurt you. I've hurt Henry …" Regina suddenly started to sob. "That's why I took your memories away. I didn't want you to remember. I didn't want Henry to remember either."

"Hey! Shh, it's okay," Emma said reassuringly, taking the brunette's hands in her own.

"No, it's not! I've done horrible things to you. I've let the others do horrible things to you, your own parents, and at first, even though I couldn't help it, I thought it was okay. I was convinced that it was okay, that you deserved it."

"That's because you thought I took your happy ending away from you by breaking the curse. I can't blame you for that, can I? Life must not have been very fair to you if you thought a life in a loop of time was happiness."

"Fair life or not, I didn't have the right to hurt people in the process of finding my happy ending. I know that now," Regina stated.

"Yep, you didn't, but you know what? Life could be better. Life shouldn't let mothers kill their children's true love like yours did. Life shouldn't let mothers give up their children like I did, and life definitely shouldn't let mothers put their children in a magic wardrobe so they can save the world when they turn twenty eight!" Emma responded and didn't even notice that she was still holding hands with the brunette, stroking her thumbs over the back of the woman's hands in an attempt to calm her down – not that her chat about life's injustices was helping at all.

"Yeah, I kind of feel like that was also my fault. If I hadn't threatened them with the curse, they wouldn't…"

"No, they could have fought for me and they didn't. Instead, they accepted that being away from me was okay for the greater good. They did it for their people. Even when they fooled themselves into believing they did it for me, they could have taken a leap of faith and tried to keep the family together."

"I would have taken you away from them, you know?" Regina said, removing her gaze from the blonde.

"I know, but they didn't know that. Plus, life with you wouldn't be so horrible. I've seen Henry's room. I would have totally gotten used to that."

That made the brunette smile.

"There you go. Now that I was able to steal a smile from you, I'm leaving. Before I mess things up again by making you cry, have a good night," the blonde wished her. "And Regina…thanks for trusting me," Emma attempted to get up, but the brunette didn't let her.

"Miss Swan, can you…? Never mind… Good night."

"Can I what?"

"Can you… stay the night? I don't want to be alone," Regina said with trampled words, letting go the blonde's hands.

"Oh! Do you want me to…"

"There is plenty of room in the bed. Besides, the guest room is not ready for any visits," the brunette tried to clear up, her cheeks blushing a soft pink. She didn't actually know why she had thought to invite the sheriff to stay in her bed.

"Well, okay then," Emma responded, scratching the back of her neck.

"Really? Because you don't have to, if you don't want," Regina said, her eyes fully open in surprise.

"Well, I don't really feel like sleeping on the couch, so I'm taking your offer. Just let me…" Emma stood up and began to unbuckle her pants.

"What are you doing?" Regina asked, her eyes opened even wider.

"I hope you don't mind if I sleep in my boyshorts. I can try to sleep in skinny pants. I've done that before. It's not great, but—"

"You can grab any of my pajamas pants or you can sleep that way. Whatever suits you," Regina offered, looking away from the blonde legs as she noticed that she had her gaze awkwardly fixed on the long, toned musculature.

"Oh, I don't usually do jammies, but if you want…"

"For god sake, we should stop acting this childishly already. Just get into bed, Ms. Swan."

Emma did as she said and neither of them said anything else. They just lay in bed, looking up to the roof and breathing heavily.

"I would have liked you to be my grandmother, you know? You'd be a great Gran. I've seen the way you raised Henry… People say grandmothers spoil their grandchildren even more than their own children."

"Well, I'd have been your step grandmother, so who knows if I would have spoiled you or not. And don't forget the relationship your mother and I have. She would probably never have allowed me to see you."

"But I would have probably sneaked out of the castle and would have gone to see you. Like, 'my grandmother is an enchantress everyone calls The Evil Queen, what?' What kind of child could resist that?"

"And then I would have probably ripped your heart out of your chest."

"No, you would have grown to love me and you you'd have cast a sweet feast full of cupcakes and chocolate for me. Then we would have watched a nice Disney movie like, I don't know, 'Snow White' together on your wall size television while we made fun of how you're dressed in it."

"Really? No ripped out heart at all?" Regina asked as she laughed.

"No," Emma firmly shook her head against the pillow.

"Shocking!" The brunette woman exclaimed and both women burst into laughter.

Henry woke up nearly half an hour past midnight. The storm outside had faded, but he still was concerned about his mother so he got out of bed and walked through the hallway until he reached his mother's bedroom. Emma hadn't woken him up so his mother should have arrived home safe and sound by then.

He slipped his head through the door opening and he could see both his moms' shapes in the darkness. They where sleeping peacefully next to each other. That made him smile. He closed the door again and went back to bed.

Maybe they finally were getting along.