They drove back up the Maine coast from Boston in relative quiet. Mary Margaret was still fascinated with the world outside Storybrooke that she'd never seen before and she largely didn't notice the quiet melancholy that settled over her wife. As they approached the town line Regina brought the Benz to a stop a few feet from where she knew the magical barrier was and got out of the car without saying a word. She stood in the road facing the invisible barrier and the hidden town.

Mary Margaret got out of the car and walked up beside her, putting a hand on her wife's arm, "Talk to me, Regina."

Regina didn't turn to look at her but kept looking down the road. "On this side of the line I'm Regina Mills. No magic. No past. No murder. Just a woman. A few feet down that road and I'm the Evil Queen. The magic pulses through my body fueling ..." She paused and bit her lip, "Fueling all sorts of terrible thoughts you'd scold me for if I told you about them. I'm death. The destroyer. And there is a town full of people who tolerate me because they fear that I might turn any moment into the woman of legend..."

"The Evil Queen wasn't a legend Regina. I knew her. I saw her eyes and when I look into yours I know that she is long gone." Mary Margaret moved to stand in front of her. "And yes down that road you are just a woman. Anonymous. Like so many others. But that's not who you are."

Regina ran the back of her knuckles along Mary Margaret's face and offered her a sad smile. "Your life was simpler too... you were a school teacher and you didn't have to lay in bed next to someone who spent so much time trying to hurt you."

"Kill me. You were trying to kill me." Mary Margaret corrected.

"They're not mutually exclusive." Regina commented and looked at her sadly, "We could stay out here. I could go into town one last time and get Henry and we could leave everything about the Enchanted Forest behind. We could let Snow White and the Evil Queen go back to stories..."

Mary Margaret shook her head, "We can't white wash our past away, Regina. It's our past and it's what makes us who we are."

Regina fingered the lace around her wife's neck. "We don't have to remember. Forgetting would be as easy as ..."

Regina started to pull one end of the lace... to take the magical protection away and let the cursed personality reassert itself. Or it would if it had moved more than the few inches before Mary Margaret reached up and caught her arm in a vice like grip.

"I'm stronger than you Regina."

"You always were."

"You don't get to take away my pain."

"Even if I caused it?" Regina said in almost a childlike voice.

"My pain shaped who I am. Just as yours shaped you. I may have married Regina Mills small town mayor but I'm in love with you. All of you. I am in love with the fight. I'm in love with the struggle and the searching that you do every day. I'm in love with the woman who has those terrible terrible thoughts and says no." Mary Margaret moved Regina so they weren't looking down road of their choices but instead standing across the center line and she leaned in almost until their foreheads were touching. "I don't want that woman. I might have married her but she is not my wife."

"Snow White didn't fall in love with me..."

Mary Margaret chuckled, "My beautiful idiot, I've been in love with you my entire life, why do you think stripped of hate and fear and everything about our former lives we found ourselves together. Snow White may not have fallen in love with you but she's very much in love with you. The question is, your majesty, can you manage to be in love with me. Because I'm not easy. I'm selfish and I can be self absorbed. I run away from my darkness as much as you wish you could run away from yours and I doubt either is healthy."

Regina was crying, "I'm just going to hurt you more. I hurt everyone I love."

Snow wrapped her arms around Regina, "You gave me a the family I've always wanted. You brought Henry into my life. You helped me find more fulfillment as a teacher than I ever had as a ruler."

Regina shook her head, "That's Mary Margaret..."

"And you made me a hero."

"You made yourself a hero." Regina corrected. "I don't get credit for hunting you like a dog."

"No. You made me a hero because I spent my life trying to live up to a young woman who would risk her life for someone she never met." Mary Margaret reached up and cradled the back of Regina's head, mixing her fingers into her hair. "She's in there. And she's who fights those dark instincts of yours. And she's the woman who stopped me from killing Greg Mendell."

"You wouldn't have ... you wouldn't have liked the person you were if you'd done it."

"You needed me to remember who Snow White was." She held her tightly in the hug. "You don't get to make it better by taking her away from me. And you won't be better for pretending the Evil Queen never existed. I know it's hard. I know you have to fight her every day. But you do and it's glorious."

Mary Margaret finally let go of the hug and pointed down the road away from town, "There is a whole new world there yes. And it's exciting and beautiful and maybe it does offer a kind of peace. But in it you are ordinary. One of a million. Across that line you are a legend. The great and terrible yes. But isn't it better to be someone?"

"It's easy for you to say. You're the hero. I'm the villain."

"So be the hero." Mary Margaret said firmly.

Regina laughed, "It's not that simple. No one in that town trusts me much less wants me to protect them."

"What they want and what they need are entirely different things. They need you. I need you. And I need all of you." She held her hands, "And so does Henry. Because Henry is a good kid and a sweet soul because you raised him to value everything that you didn't have. Even if you weren't a hero to me, which you are, you are one to him."

Regina shook her head, "He sees the Evil Queen."

"Because he's ten. And he doesn't see her anymore. Not really." Mary Margaret tilted her head to the side, "Let him get to know you Regina. All of you. And I think you'll find that he and you will come out much stronger for it. And the rest of the town get the hero they deserve even if it's not the one they want."

Regina shook her head, "You and your hope speeches..."

"My stock and trade. Now get in the car and stop being an idiot."

"That's my line."

"And you can have it back when you stop being an idiot."

Regina shook her head but got back in the car and let Mary Margaret drive the rest of the way home.