Hey, thanks for your feedback. Here is another important chapter. Please review, let me know if you hated or loved something. Or even if you thought it was just okay. Enjoy!
Henry walked into Regina's chambers carrying a tray with a bowl of soul and a chunk of bread, not dinner fit for a Queen, but Regina needed to eat and it would do. The servants had insisted that they bring the food to Regina, but Henry insisted that his daughter wouldn't eat unless he was there; and everyone in the castle was aware that Regina as losing herself and worried that they would lose their queen.
"Regina" he said as he entered the door; surprised by the shards of the broken cup and vase scattered around Regina's room. "Don't worry about this mess I will have somebody come and clean it up, I brought you some dinner." Henry said.
"I told Snow I wasn't hungry." Regina said as she rolled over. The hollowness in his daughter's cheeks hit Henry like he was being punched in the gut.
"Yes, Snow told me that she spoke with you, you may not be hungry but you need to eat, when was the last time you had a full meal?" He asked.
"I don't know" Regina answered as she sat up in bed. Her father came and sat by her, placing the tray before her.
She looked up at her father. "You can go now daddy."
"I won't go, not until I have seen you finish this soup and bread." Henry replied.
"I will eat it later; I am just not hungry right now." Regina answered again.
"Regina" Henry pleaded. "I know that you are grieving for your daughter, I loved her too I should have done more with her, but you not eating and starving away up here is not going to do anyone any good."
Regina just looked at him with the same hollow look that she had given for the past couple of days.
"Regina I can't lose you." Henry said again as he dipped the bread in the soup and handed it to Regina, "if not for you, do it for me, please." He said almost begging.
Regina reached out her hand and took the bread and took a bite. She slowly picked up her spoon and ate bite by bite. As Regina started to eat more Henry let out a sigh of relief and a tear rolled down his face.
"Snow told me what she told you, about how she thinks she is responsible for Danielle's death." Henry said.
Regina cringed and the combination of the words Danielle and death used so close to each other. "She was responsible" Regina replied, "first my love and now my daughter, what else can that girl take from me."
"She has good intentions" Henry replied.
"Does she?" Regina asked. "Because I have been wondering that ever since Daniel's death, and I have been able to chalk it all up to a young girl putting her trust in the wrong person. But now, she is 18, no longer ignorant. She let her desires come before the safety of a sweet five year old child." As Regina got to the end of the sentence she found herself choking back tears.
"So does she have good intentions? Because look at the cost, look at the cost I have had to pay, and I am done paying it daddy." Regina said finally.
"What do you mean?"
"All I know, is that I can't live like this. Every morning I wake up and my daughter is not here, she is in the ground. And I just don't know what to do, do I breathe the air? Because it seems wrong to do that if she is not breathing the air. It is like a part of me is missing and every day I feel that hole in me, and it hurts, it hurts so much and I don't know what to do." Regina did not cry, it seemed like she was out of tears by this point. But the tears that she could not produce her father did.
"Well why don't you start by finishing your soup." He said.
She nodded and picked up another spoonful eating one at a time until the whole bowl was gone before she pushed back the tray to her father.
"Tell me how to help you?" Henry said.
Regina looked up at him again, saying nothing. "Tell me how to take away your pain, because I can't be forcing you to eat bowls of soup every day; although I will."
Regina took a deep breath and whispered under her breath, "Danielle forgive me, I will always love you." Before turning back to her father and answering, "hand me that vial on the table."
He did so and she took the top off of it and allowed herself to shed one final tear for her daughter before downing the all the contents. She expected it to burn when she swallowed it, like fire or hard alcohol. But instead it felt like cream, a smooth substance calming everything inside her. When she looked up at her father Henry saw a different look in her eyes, almost as if he did not recognize his own daughter.
"Regina are you alright?" he asked.
"Yes of course I am father, why wouldn't I be, was I sick?" she asked.
"No, it was just, your daughter Danielle." He replied.
"Danielle, I don't have a daughter by that name, I don't have any idea who you are speaking of, I only have a step-daughter called Snow White, that monster." As she spoke her name a look of rage and pure hatred came across Regina that Henry had never seen before in his life.
"Good, well I must go to bed now, good night" Henry said as he turned and almost ran out of the room out of fear.
"Good night father" Regina called back
One week later
King Leopold walked into the garden with a guest where Regina stood in a white gown admiring the apple tree from her childhood home. Snow stood off the side, Regina did her best not to make eye contact with the young woman.
"And this is my beautiful daughter Snow" the King said.
"How do you do" Snow replied with a slight curtsey as she gathered flowers in her basket.
"And Regina, my wife, the Queen" Leopold said again.
Regina turned from her tree, head down and walked over to where the stranger stood. He was dressed in a vest and a turban, clothes until any that Regina had seen, but she had been taught well.
"Hello" Regina replied.
In case I am horrible at describing things that last scene was Regina meeting the genie. The story is now back on its original trajectory. I am planning of having the next chapter skipping to Storybrooke and catching up there. Let me know if you have a problem with that or have any other ideas. Thanks for reading.