A/N: I'm back with another Swan Queen fic! Let me know what you guys think of this one! Updates for my other fics are coming very soon :)
The infamous yellow bug waited patiently just short of the threshold, as Emma and Henry said their tearful goodbyes, the pain of never seeing their family ever again weighing heavy on tired shoulders. The soft sobs from Snow and David filtered through the air as Regina stepped forward, tears gently streaming down her chill kissed cheeks. She had prepared something to say, final words that she wished her son would hold onto, but that was before she made the gut-wrenching decision to erase herself, this town, and everyone in it, from his mind. Emma's too. She figured that's what they were owed. A life together, a normal, happy life. So, instead, she held the boy tight, inhaling his scent, memorizing every inch of his face, kissing his cheek. She would never forget the happiness Henry had brought her, how his sweet smile and bright eyes had changed her for the better.
"We will find a way back," Emma promised as she placed a tentative hand on Regina's shoulder, her own tears fighting to escape.
Silently, Regina nodded and reached up to clasp her hand to Emma's. As brown eyes met green, all of the tension around the two women seemed to slip away. There was no hatred, no jealously of the life one had or was going to have with their son. In its place was sadness, and regret. A small part of both women wishing that they'd just ended their feud months before, that they'd just enjoyed being Henry's mom's, together.
"There's no Storybrooke to come back to," Regina forced a fake smile onto her face, before placing one final kiss on her son's head. Wiping the tears away from his cheeks, she let him go, as he moved to stand with his Father, clinging onto more time with the newly discovered family member. "You did it, Emma. You broke the curse. Now it's time to escape this one."
"He'll be safe with me."
"I know he will. Doesn't stop it from hurting this much...Emma, there's something I haven't told you." She nervously fidgeted, as she spared a longing glance towards her son.
"What now?"
"When the curse washes over us, it will send us all back. Nothing will be left behind. Including, your memories...it's just what the curse does." Regina began to explain, as the residents closed in, clinging to every word that left the former Evil Queen's mouth. "Storybrooke will no longer exist, it won't ever have existed. So these last years will be gone from both your memories, and we just go back to being stories again."
"What will happen to us?" Henry mumbled as moved to embrace his blonde mother, his eye wide with fear.
"I don't know." She shrugged, as she quickly wiped the tears from her cheek.
"That doesn't sound like a happy ending," Emma choked up as she placed a kiss into Henry's hair.
"It's not. But...I can give you one," The former evil queen reached out her hands to Emma and Henry as she smiled through the tears.
"You can preserve our memories?" The blonde questioned, a small flicker of hope exploding behind her eyes.
"No...I can do what I did to everyone else in this town, and give you new ones." She spared a short glance to the crowd behind them, nodding in a silent apology for the lives she'd forced upon everyone. "My gift to you is good memories. A good life for you," she squeezed her son's hand before bringing it up to her lips. "And Henry. You'll have never given him up, you'll have always been together."
"You would do that?"
"When I stop Pan's curse, and you cross that town line, you will have the life you always wanted." Regina met Emma's gaze, their eyes locked together for what felt like an eternity.
"But I won't have you too..." Henry's voice cracked as he crashed into Regina's arms, holding onto his adoptive mother as tight as he could.
"This is all my fault, Henry...you heard Gold. Villain's don't get happy endings, no matter how hard we try." She mumbled, as she pried his clinging arms from around his waist and knelt down to his level.
"You're not a villain...you're my mom." He rubbed his reddening eyes, as Regina brushed the messy mop of hair from his forehead. "It shouldn't have to be this way!" He hissed, the anger in him trying to outshine the sadness.
"It's here," Leroy called from the crowd, as a cloud of thick green smoke poured over the trees. They were out of time.
"I love you so much, Henry." Was all Regina could muster as she stood and walked back to the crowd, the scroll clenched tightly in her fist.
"I love you too, mom." Henry choked as Emma engulfed him in her arms and lead the sobbing teen the few steps towards the car.
Henry watched carefully over his shoulder as Regina broke the scroll and offered up her own curse to end Pan's. As her magic soared through the sky, the thick green smoke turned purple as the yellow bug began to roll over the spray-painted marker in the road. She did it. Henry smiled sadly as Regina turned to watch the bug disappear.
"She saved them..." He mumbled to himself before he made a decision that would change everything. "I can't leave her alone!" He shouted, and before Emma had a chance to react, Henry spirited out of the car, running back towards the town line, where a gobsmacked crowd watched as his hand reached through the portal for his mother's, pulling her to safety just as the town vanished.
A/N: As always please ignore any and all mistakes, I will be doing a complete redraft/corrections when I'm finished writing :)