Note: Hey guys, sorry for the delay. My inspiration decided to go on hiatus, much like the show itself. But it looks like I've finally hit a break so here we go!

Chapter 10

Regina looked at Emma. Seeing the blonde stand outside her door, like she had done so many times before, ripped right through her. Her voice died in the back of her throat when she tried to speak and her brown eyes reflected sadness. She tried to hold Emma's gaze but couldn't bear to look into those green eyes for a moment longer.

"What on Earth are you talking about, Miss Mills?" she asked and tried to keep her voice was cold and distant as possible. It was a struggle to mask the pain she felt inside.

"This," Emma said and showed Regina the book she'd been clutching under her arm. Regina recognised it immediately. The book that had started all of this had found its way home. Emma's blazing eyes continued to search Regina's face even after the brunette had broken off the eye contact. "I know who you are."

"Miss Mills, I understand you are frustrated that your holiday plans have been ruined but I assure you, your anger is no reason to come barging in here like this," Regina said coolly. Through her eye lashes she looked at Emma. "Now, please, explain to me what this book has got to do with anything."

"You're in it," Emma breathed and she flicked through the pages until she found the image that had brought her to Regina's doorstep. Once again she looked down at the drawing of the Evil Queen. The resemblance was striking, other than that the woman standing in front of her right now looked nowhere near as vicious and deranged as the woman clad in the black dress in the book. But she recognised the eyes.

Regina knew she wasn't handling this the way she was supposed to. If she wanted Emma to break the Curse a second time, the blonde had to remember the life she had lived here in Storybrooke. But Regina couldn't bring herself to tell her. Not like this. There was too much at stake, she had too much to lose.

"Don't be ridiculous."

Emma turned a few more pages, coming across by now familiar faces. The girl who had served her the coffee in the diner, Ruby, appeared to be Red Riding Hood. The old woman who owned in the inn named Granny. Their pictures were all in the book and according to the stories written there, they were all part of some grander tale. A fairy tale that wasn't like any story she had ever read before. "Everyone's in it!"

"Did you hit your head?" Regina asked, wrinkling her nose a little when Emma took a step closer to the open door. Her breath hitched when she caught a waft of a familiar perfume and the harshness in her face softened.

Suddenly Emma's green eyes found Regina's again and the hint of anger that had flickered behind them had died. What remained was a look of loss, of despair. "Please," Emma said softly, "let me in."

Regina folded her arms across her chest. "Why?"

"Because I need to talk to someone," Emma said breathlessly. "And you're the only person I can think of."

It was true. Regina had been the first person to come to her mind after she looked at Henry's book. Perhaps because she had been on her mind a lot more than Emma would have liked to admit or maybe just because when their eyes met back at the diner, she knew something had changed. A cold shiver crept down her spine and her clothes were wet now that the snow had begun to melt. She looked at Regina. "Please."

Regina stepped aside and gave a curd nod. "Very well. Do come in, Miss Mills."

As Emma filed past her into the hallway and that perfume prickled her nose a second time, Regina remembered the first time they had met. It felt like a lifetime ago and in some ways, it was. It had been a dark night and she'd been sick with worry over Henry. The most terrible and haunting thoughts had filled her head until the knock on the door came and her son arrived back home. But he didn't come alone. He brought Emma with him and from that moment on, her whole life changed.

First she hated her. She knew who she was and she knew what Emma being here would mean. But at some point even hatred turned to love. She couldn't let herself love her though. She couldn't allow herself to feel such heartbreak and deal with another loss. It was better to watch from the side lines and suffer internally than risking losing her heart all over again. But Emma had changed something inside the Evil Queen; she had broken through the darkness that stopped her from loving and for the first time in her life, Regina had felt what it was like to have hope.

"Would you like something to drink?" Regina offered as Emma awkwardly turned around, her hands pushed into her pockets. "Apple cider, wine, coffee?"

Emma swallowed. Her throat had suddenly become unexplainably dry. "Just some water, please."

Regina walked to the kitchen and when she heard footsteps behind her she judged that Emma was following her. She picked a tall glass from the cupboard, poured Emma some cold water from the fridge and turned around to find the blonde leaning against the doorframe, her eyes lingering on Regina.

"Thank you," Emma said softly when Regina handed her the glass. Their hands brushed against each other and the sudden spark of energy made her take a quick step backwards. A shade of scarlet flushed across her cheeks and she averted her eyes.

"Now," Regina said, faking a smile to mask the hurt inside. "What can I do for you, Miss Mills?"

"You're the Mayor of this town, right?" Emma asked after she took a sip from the ice cold water.

"Third term," Regina replied, the fake smile still firmly in place. It never quite reached her eyes. "Tough job but someone's gotta do it."

Emma put the fairy tale book down on the kitchen counter. She kept her back turned to Regina. "When I drove through here yesterday, this town wasn't here. It didn't exist."

"Like I said, Miss Mills, you must have taken a wrong turn somewhere," Regina stoically replied. "I assure you, Storybrooke has been here for quite some time."

Emma slowly turned around. "It isn't on any map."

"What are you saying? That this is all some kind of fantasy?"

"You tell me, Madame Mayor."

Regina's eyes fluttered shut when those words reached her ears. It had been a long time since anyone called her that. It was the echo of another life.

"Listen, I understand you and your son have had a long journey and I'm sorry the weather has ruined your Christmas plans," Regina said. "But I assure you, whatever it is that you're thinking, it isn't true."

Emma leant against the counter, her green eyes fixed on Regina. "So you're not the Evil Queen?"

"Listen, why don't you show me this book you're talking about?" Regina suggested. "I'm sure this is all just some kind of misunderstanding." She cocked her head. "Does the book belong to you?"

"It belongs to my son, Henry."

Our son, Regina thought, but swallowed the words before speaking them out loud. "And how old is he?"

"Twelve."

"Children do have a wonderful imagination at that age, Miss Swan."

Emma's eyes widened and she took a step in Regina's direction but not enough to enter the brunette's personal space. Her voice trembled as she spoke. "What did you just call me?"

Regina's heart sank. "My apologies, Miss Mills. I must have confused you with someone else." She averted her eyes and brushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear. The composure she had managed to keep up crumbled as the loss she had experienced shone through on her face. "Someone I used to know. You bear a rather striking resemblance to her. I'm sorry."

"Someone else called me by that same name a few days ago," Emma said slowly as she remembered the red haired woman who delivered the parcel with the glass unicorn to her office back in New York. It had struck her as odd then but to hear that same name spoken a second time was just something that seemed near enough impossible. "I'm beginning to think this is more than just a coincidence."

"Believe me, it is anything but," Regina answered, her voice suddenly so much softer.

Emma's eyes narrowed as she watched the woman before her crumble. She couldn't look away. This was the woman she had seen in her dreams and although she did not understand how or why, she felt she somehow knew her. She swallowed hard but the lump in her throat was impossible to shift. She stood in a stranger's house, in a kitchen she didn't know, but she didn't feel uncomfortable. It was as if she had been here before, between these walls.

"I'm sorry," Emma clumsily muttered and went to grab the book of the counter. She started for the kitchen door but turned around when she felt Regina's presence closely behind her. The brunette's hand reached out to stop her from leaving. "Perhaps I shouldn't have come here."

"No," Regina whispered. Her brown eyes sought out Emma's green. "I'm glad you came."

Emma didn't answer. Instead she walked out of the kitchen and through the hallway back to the front door. She didn't wait for Regina to catch up and stepped outside into the snow. The thick white flakes were still falling from the sky, smothering the town of Storybrooke in a wintery blanket of beauty and serenity.

"Emma!"

She turned around slowly when Regina called her name from the open door and found the brunette stepping out into the snow. The feather light white flakes rested on her dark hair as she walked her way towards Emma. When she reached her she took the blonde's hand.

Emma felt the warm feeling creep up along her fingers to her wrist and through her arm. It was as if someone had gently poured warm water inside her veins. The touch erased the cold of the snow.

"What's happening?" she asked, her eyes looking down at Regina's hand holding hers.

Regina smiled as she pulled her hand back. Her brown eyes were kind. "Destiny."

Emma didn't answer. She cast one last look at Regina before turning around and walking her way through the snow to the side of the road. She felt Regina's eyes burn into her back but couldn't bring herself to turn around. She kept walking, with her head down and clutching the book against her chest. The bitter cold wind robbed her of her breath and made her eyes water but she didn't care. When the tears rolled across her cheeks, the touch of winter slowly turned them into ice.

~()~

Regina's gloved hand knocked against the wooden apartment door and waited patiently. She heard a stumbling sound on the other side. A chain was moved and a key turned before the door opened and she looked up into the face of Mary Margaret.

"Regina," she said and stepped aside. The older woman was wet from the snow and strands of dark hair stuck to her forehead. "Come in. What happened?"

"Emma," Regina answered as she walked into the apartment and heaved a sigh as she felt the comforting heat.

"What about her?" David asked. He stood in the kitchen had had just finished making coffee. He took a third mug from the shelf.

"She came to see me."

Mary Margaret's eyes snapped up. "What?!"

"She's realized something's happening," Regina said as she sank down on one of the chairs at the table and rested her head in her hands. "The town reappearing, the book…. She knows something's going on and I don't know how to tell her or explain it to her."

"What do you mean?" David wanted to know and he put the steaming mug of coffee down in front of Regina. Her cold hands eagerly warmed themselves as she picked it up.

"The same way Henry did before," Regina explained. "The book is telling her something. She called me the Evil Queen." She swallowed and stared down into her drink. "She recognised me."

"But that's a good thing, right?" Mary Margaret suggested. "Isn't it?"

"I don't know. How would you feel if you thought you were stuck in a town full of fairy tale characters?"

David leant against the table. He hadn't seen his daughter since she returned to Storybrooke and he didn't know if he could face her without her remembering who he was. He looked sideways at Mary Margaret. He knew she definitely wouldn't be able to look at Emma without wanting to tell her the truth.

"So where does that leave us?" he asked.

"I don't know," Regina said quietly. "But that book isn't going to help us."

"It brought her here."

"And it makes her distrustful," Regina countered.

David rubbed the back of his head. "What about Henry?"

"What about him?"

"He was the one who figured it all out the first time, wasn't he?" David said. "He figured out Emma was the Savior and that we were all living in this world. He knew she would have to break the Curse. Can we get him to somehow help her remember?"

"Emma will only remember if the Curse is broken," Regina reminded him. "And there is only one way that this can be done."

Mary Margaret looked at Regina and recognised the agony she was trying to hide. "That's what this is, isn't it?" she asked. "You're afraid that Emma won't recognise you."

David looked at his wife. "But she just said…"

"Emma recognised Regina from a drawing in the book, as the Evil Queen," Mary Margaret clarified. "But for the Curse to break she has to recognise Regina as something else."

"Don't." Regina sounded defeated. "We both know that's never going to happen. Neal is Henry's father. He is Emma's true love."

Mary Margaret had never seen Regina doubt herself. There hadn't been a moment in her reign as Queen that she didn't have the faith that she would get what she wanted. The woman she had gotten to know back in the Enchanted Forest, long before they first came to Storybrooke, didn't stop at anything to get what she desired. The woman who sat across the table from her tonight wasn't that same person anymore.

"You don't know that," Mary Margaret said, her brown eyes fixed on Regina. "Regina, you'll never know if you don't try." She reached across the table and covered Regina's hand with her own. "And for what it's worth, I think it's you."

Regina looked up. "Why?" she whispered in disbelief. "Why would you think it's me?"

"Because tonight, when she had questions and needed someone to answer them, she came to you," Mary Margaret answered. "It's you that she's been seeing, you that she recognised." She smiled as she looked over her shoulder at David. "Take it from somebody who knows." Her eyes met Regina's again. "It's you."

~()~

Emma walked into the inn soaking wet and cold to the bone. She found the reception desk empty and stamped some of the snow of her shoes before climbing the stairs to the second floor. She stuck the key into the lock of her door, turned it and stepped inside. She kicked off her shoes, threw the book onto the bed and crossed the room to the window. It had finally stopped snowing but Storybrooke was covered in at least fifteen inches of the white stuff. A frustrated groan escaped her. There was no chance she could leave this place, no matter how badly she wanted to.

Emma rested her head against the cold glass as she climbed into the window sill. It was a position of comfort, something she had done ever since she was a little girl. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She'd spent many nights like this, staring out of the windows of her foster homes, wondering if her real family ever thought of her. Every time she climbed into a window sill and pulled her legs up, she became that little girl again, still looking for a place she could truly call home.

Her eyes slowly closed as the images from mere moments earlier flooded back into her mind.

Regina.

The knock on the door startled her and her eyes snapped back open just as Henry walked into the room.

Emma heaved a sigh, slipped out of the window sill and ruffled her son's hair. "Hey, kid."

"Where did you go?" he curiously asked.

"To have a chat with the Mayor," she answered as she perched herself at the end of the bed. She looked down into her lap.

Henry stared at her in shock. "You went to see the Evil Queen?!"

A small smile tugged at Emma's lips and she shook her head. "Henry, Mayor Mills is hardly an Evil Queen."

"Mills?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "She's got the same last name as us?"

"It happens," Emma shrugged. "Loads of people have 'Mills' as their last name, you know. Not just us."

"Did you ask her?" he wanted to know, "About the town? Did you ask her why it wasn't here yesterday?"

"I did," Emma answered. "But I think we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere." Her eyes drifted to the window. "I mean, how can a town not be here the one day but suddenly appear the next?"

"Magic!" Henry insisted. "This place is full of it!"

"Henry, there's no such thing as magic."

"There is!" he countered and grabbed the book she'd put on the bed. He turned the pages until he almost reached the end and pointed at the picture of Storybrooke, the image that had been the last one to appear. "Magic is what brought it back here!"

Emma looked at her son. "Why would Storybrooke come back if it had been destroyed before?"

"Do you remember what I told you about everyone having been Cursed and the Savior breaking tat Curse?" Henry asked and Emma nodded, remembering that Henry had told her a story like that only days earlier. "There was another Curse and they need the Savior to break it again."

"The Savior?" Emma questioned. "And is the Savior in the book too?"

"Not really."

"Not really, eh? So if they are not in the Book then how do you know there ever was one?"

"Because they broke the first Curse!" Henry said, his voice echoing both excitement and irritation. "They came to Storybrooke and broke the Curse. But then the second Curse came and they were forced to leave. They couldn't stay."

"So you're saying the Savior is out there somewhere but they left?" Emma shook her head. "Some hero."

Henry's eyes found his mothers and he put the book down. "They came back."

"They came back?"

"Yes." Henry nodded. "They came home."

"So who is this Savior according to you? Are they a fairy tale character too? You know, is he Aladdin or something?"

"It's you."