CHAPTER 4

With Emma gone, a lot of the tension in the room went out with her. The two girls turned to leave. "Where are you going?" Regina asked them.

"Back to the diner. We haven't had breakfast."

Regina looked at the "mother" if she could be called that and saw nothing but a purely apathetic face. "If you wait outside, I'll give you a ride."

The girls said nothing as they continued outside. Regina figured even if they didn't wait for her now at least, she knew where they were and where they were heading. She turned back to the mother.

Emma had hidden as she heard the girls leave. Once they made it back out to the street and walked in the direction of town, she walked back over to the door where she could catch the conversation going on inside.

"Where did you get her from?" Regina asked making it clear that she wasn't interested in being put off.

"She's my daughter. They're all my children." Regina looked at the stray kids lying around. Their faces were just as apathetic as the mothers. She didn't feel like she was in a home with children. She felt like she was being studied in a lab.

She shook her head. "They may be. And the little one may be. But Jana. She's mine," she said in a voice daring the woman to deny it.

Regina was saddened, confused, and angry that that didn't happen. The woman said nothing. She didn't even blink or raise her voice or anything. She just continued to give Regina that blank stare that she wished she could slap off her face.

"I want you to know that I'm taking them home with me. I'll have the papers for their custody to be transferred over to me by the end of the afternoon." She still got nothing but a blank apathetic stare.

Regina walked outside with tears shimmering in her eyes. She walked outside to look for the girls. Instead she ran into Emma Swan again. She could tell from the look on her face that she had heard everything. "Sheriff Swan, I guess I shouldn't be surprised since this is how you got my son to turn on me." Regina continued walking to her car hoping to catch up with the children.

"How is she your daughter? I mean, I didn't know you had kids."

"Then you can add that to the long list of things you don't know about me. I guess that'd be number one billion and one? Good day Miss Swan." Regina got into her car and drove away hoping to catch up to the little girls along the way.

Emma stared after her car and for lack of something better to do followed along.

XOXOXOXXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Before heading to the diner, Regina made two phone calls. The first was to the newspaper to speak to Sydney Glass. She told him that she needed everything on the people living at the address.

The second was to her secretary telling her to clear her schedule for the next week at least. Also, to have custody papers on the two girls drawn up and ready to go to the judge by this afternoon. She wanted to make sure that she was listed as their guardian as soon as possible.

XOXOXOXOXOXXOXOXOXOXXOOXOXOXOXOXO

As her eyes sought out her daughter, her mind raced to that day long ago when she had lost her.

Daniel had been Regina's first and only love. He had swept her off her feet. At first, he was just a stable boy that her parents had hired. Then, he became a friend and confidante. Then, he had become her true love.

Regina gave herself to him in every way. Being with him had brought her the greatest moments in her life. Then, her mother found out. At first she merely forbid Regina to see him. But after finding out that Regina was planning on running away from him, she then murdered him. She crushed his heart in her hands with Regina powerless to do anything but watch the horror show. Then, she forced Regina to marry a man who was old enough to be her father.

Regina had found out she was pregnant shortly after the wedding. Even though she had been performing her wifely duties for her husband, she knew that the baby was Daniel's.

She loved her from the time she was conceived and loved her still. Not a minute went by that she wasn't somewhere on her mind. She had even been allowed to suckle her for 2 whole weeks. Aside from having to put up with the Kings belief that the baby was his, her baby had brought back such happiness for Regina.

Then, her mother had taken the baby from her. Once again Regina had been powerless to stop her. She had been literally ripped out of her arms. Cora then told everyone the child had gotten sick and died. Regina still remembered screaming and begging her mother not to do this even as Cora poofed away with her child. That was when Regina embraced the Evil Queen inside of herself.

When her mother returned she informed Regina that it was her duty to give the King an actual heir. Regina had begged her mother for weeks to tell her where her baby was and that she was alright. Cora laughed at her. When she became absolutely certain that she would never give her the information she was seeking, Regina had pushed her mother through the looking glass.

She never gave up hope of finding her daughter in this land or the other. Every time she saw a child she searched their face for recognition.

When she had walked up to the child in the diner, Regina had already sensed power inside of her. Immense power. She was born from true love. Regina was sure that she was already stronger than she was.

She had been sitting outside when she watched the children walk up and go into the diner. Regina smiled at her daughter. She could see from the loving way she protected the smaller one that at least her heart was still true. She came from true love. That was the purest form of magic to be found.

Even though she had resigned herself to possibly never seeing her daughter again, she had always held out hope. Hope that if she did, wherever she was, she was in a loving home. Part of her knew that allowing Henry to behave as he did was from her overcompensating and praying that someone was doing all the things for her child that she did for him. But after learning today just the little that she had learned from being in that house and from the shadows on her daughter's face, the hope she had held out for was crushed.

Only a child suffering could cause that apathy that she had witnessed inside that house. There had been no love inside there. Regina wanted to rip that woman apart. She vowed to keep her daughter away and protected from the woman even when she knew she would have to go back and get some answers out of her.

How did she get her baby? Why had she been secreted away inside that home? Did she know who she was? Had she ever loved the child? So many unanswered questions but Regina's heart couldn't take the answers inside that house just yet.

If there was anything about Regina that people tended to underestimate about her, it was her patience. Regina knew the answers would come all in good time.

She knew that home was no place for any child. And that her daughter had suffered. Regina took that on inside of her as part of her failings. But, she was going to spend every minute starting with this one to make up for it.

Earlier, she hadn't wanted to overwhelm her child. She wanted her to get to know her, Regina, not the Evil Queen or rumors that followed her around. She wanted her to love her. She would not make the same mistakes she had made with Henry.

She walked into the diner and looked around. She saw them in the last booth, the one that she normally sat at. She walked over and sat across from them. "Hi," she smiled.