As Emma had grimly predicted, it had been all too easy to stir the townspeople into a mob; a simple, few well-placed rumors about who had killed Archie - helped by the fact that someone as reliable as Ruby had seen her walking into his office (the town seemed to forget that all to recently, they had all demanded the wolf's blood, as well) - had brought everyone running to the former mayor's mansion where she waited, alone, nervously rubbing her hands together and reminding herself that the words Henry and Emma were going to say to and about her - the ways they were going to look at her - were not how they actually felt. Quite the opposite.

At the familiar banging on her door, she opened it cockily, knowing her mother was somewhere, watching, in the distance, recognizing her mask for what it was: a mask. She was steadied by the knowledge that Emma also knew - intimately - that it was a false front.

She forced a smirk as Emma's faux-angry eyes met hers, at the front of the yelling crowd with Henry.

"Ah, Ms. Swan. Come to rescue me from the bloodthirsty barbarians again?"

"Not this time, Regina," Emma answered loudly, her stance set. "Now we know who you really are, and you're not getting away with it."

Regina's heart pounded unpleasantly as she reminded herself that Emma was acting. Wasn't she?

She looked down at Henry - as planned - and willed herself to remember that the pain and betrayal animating his eyes was a lie, put there on purpose to fool Cora, to save her. Wasn't it?

"Henry, please. Don't let them do this. I'm your mother." She willed tears into her voice, and found it was all too easy to call them to the surface.

"You're not my mom! You killed Archie! He was my friend! And you're nothing but an Evil Queen, and I never want to see you again!"

Regina tried in vain to remind her heart not to break at his words. She searched for reassurance, a wink, a gesture, in his eyes, indicating that he didn't mean what he said. She found none.

"You won't have to, Henry." Charming's ever-annoying voice drew her eyes up to his as he backed her against the same pillar that Emma had saved her from. Let her go, let her go! Let her GO!

She didn't have that to fall back on this time. This time, no one would rescue her.

James raised his voice loudly, eyes not leaving Regina's as she began to shake, unable to keep convincing herself that they didn't really want to hurt her. Maybe it had all been some plot by Ms. Swan to ascertain her deepest weakness, to get her to agree to her own death sentence. Everyone had always betrayed her: this could be no different. Could it?

"People of Storybrooke! This woman has been a scourge on all our lives for far too long. And now she has murdered Archie, our friend, in cold blood. We've given her enough chances to change: the time for action is now!"

"She can't change," Emma's voice was as low as her sneer, but somehow it carried over the crowd and pierced Regina's heart violently. "She deserves whatever she gets now."

Snow continued. "She needs to be put to death. I had hoped above all others that this would not be the way, but she's proven that we have no other choice. At this time tomorrow, she will be executed. Are there any objections to be raised?"

There was a deathly silence followed by an eruption of cheers, during which Emma roughly moved forward and began forcing Regina into her house: twenty-four hours of solitude in a place she had once hoped to form a home in with her son - twenty-four hours of sheer torture - before she was to die.

"Henry! HENRY! You can't let them do this, Henry. Emma. PLEASE!"

She thought she saw wetness in both of their eyes as she completed her part of the act. Henry's voice trembled, but it could easily sound like rage, as he raised his voice to shout, "Emma's my mom, and she's right: you deserve what you're going to get!"

The door was barely closed behind Savior and Queen before the latter emitted a wrenching sob.


"Hey, shhh, shhhh. Henry didn't mean a word of it, Regina. And neither did I. It's all going to be ok. Shhhhh, shhh. I've got you."

Regina didn't shy from Emma's touch as she wept openly into her arms, burying herself in her chest, out of view of her mother and of the murderous crowd.

"We've got to do this fast, Regina: we don't know when Cora will come for you. Go to Mary Margaret's: she'll bring Henry back there to be with you as soon as she can. You'll be safe there: it was a flawless performance, Cora must not suspect a thing." She ran her hands up and down Regina's back comfortingly. Lovingly?

The hunted woman took a steadying breath as she backed up from Emma's hold slowly, nodding, acknowledging the sheriff's words. She took her eyes firmly into hers.

"If you let my mother harm you, I will never forgive you, Emma Swan."

The woman in question could do nothing but smile softly as Regina vanished in a puff of purple smoke, tears flowing down her cheeks as she re-appeared in Emma's bedroom in Mary Margaret's apartment.


And so it came to be that Regina Mills occupied two places at once in Storybrooke.

One - the original - collapsed onto Emma Swan's bed in exhaustion and agonized nerves, terrified of what the next twenty-four hours might bring. And what it might not.

Two - the newly incarnated - in the corridor of the Mills mansion, having taken in all of Rumpelstiltskin and Regina's advice about changing form, admiring herself in the mirror and wondering idly if touching herself in this body would be masturbating or an odd kind of violation of Regina's consent. She decided on the latter. And anyway, now really wasn't the time.

She stared at her new reflection, admiring her beauty for the first time in her life and wondering how Regina - who lived and breathed life into this body every day - failed to see it.

She sank onto the couch that she had sat in when she first had a conversation with the woman whose appearance she had taken on and reflected on the other woman's life. She sorted through every horrid detail of Regina's past with Cora, trying to focus on the good memories - what few there were, like one of watching Cora plant an entire, beautiful garden with the flick of her wrist when she was a very small child - as well as the terrible. She would need them both when Cora arrived to retrieve her broken daughter.