The handmaidens worked on Emma's hair as she sat there in front of the mirror. She should be happy. She wanted to be happy. In less than an hour she would again be marrying Regina – this time by her choice.

Happiness it seemed would be a luxury until she decided what to do about this secret. It was all she could think about.

The conversation she had with her parents kept replaying in her mind. Normally if she had something on her mind like this she would talk it through with Regina, but that wasn't possible. She knew what Regina would say – she would want to know the truth. She didn't want to be lied to and Emma didn't want to lie to her.

Yet, what would happen if she told the truth?

She hadn't even seen her wife since that morning when she proposed. All she knew about her whereabouts was that she had been giving various instructions to the staff all day and that all was ready for them. Other handmaidens had come into their chambers to retrieve items that Regina would need and she was being attended to elsewhere.

Her mother came into the room shortly before the time for her to go down to the ceremony. The attendants had all been dismissed. Snow came up behind her daughter and put her hands on her shoulders.

"I know this is hard for you," Snow said. "It's a burden that shouldn't be yours to have to carry. I'm sorry Emma. I'm sorry any of this had to happen to you."

"It didn't just happen to me," she said sullenly.

"No, it didn't. It is no more fair for Regina either. You can judge us, judge her parents for the decisions we have made, but now you have a decision to make. I know you want to tell Regina the truth. I caution you though," Snow said. "Do you think Regina will understand this? Do you think she will ever be able to come to grips with the idea that this magic inside of her could devastate all the land? Think of the pain of that burden on her."

Emma looked up at her. "How can I lie to her?"

"Because you love her. You love her and you don't want to cause her pain."

Emma turned back to the mirror. She was willing to do anything for Regina, anything not to cause her pain, but she wondered if she was capable of this. Could she lie to her?

"Let's go," Snow said after a few moments. "It's time."

…

Regina was nervous perhaps even more so than she had been a year ago. This time it would be Emma walking up the aisle toward her. She was dressed modestly compared to how she was dressed for their first wedding. A simple red gown accented only by the crown on her head.

Her parents were there in the front row and all around them were the residents and guests of the kingdom.

She could hardly believe that she managed to pull this all together in a short amount of time. But as she had told everyone, it didn't have to be perfect. Funny, she thought, that it could also be applied to her marriage to Emma. Their marriage had been anything but perfect so far yet they still managed to get to this point.

She was lost in her thoughts when the music began to play and she looked down the aisle where Emma was being escorted up by her father. Emma was wearing a simple cream-colored gown that blended well with her complexion and blonde hair. Where Regina expected to see a smile on her face, instead she saw a more serious, thoughtful expression. It wasn't until Emma was facing her that she finally saw a smile. Still, it seemed somewhat forced and that brightness she usually saw in Emma's eyes when she was happy wasn't there.

If they hadn't been standing up there getting ready to be remarried she would have asked Emma what was wrong immediately. Yes, while she didn't expect everything about this ceremony to be perfect, she did expect her wife to be happy about it, but that is not what she was seeing on her face.

Emma wasn't even looking her in the eyes at this point, instead keeping her attention on the officiant. If it wasn't for her hand being held by Emma she would feel like there was no connection between them.

This was her fault, she realized. She had told Emma this horrible thing about her dying and then turned around and came up with the idea of remarrying her like that would make it all go away.

She had wanted this ceremony to be different, but the black cloud that seemingly hung over Emma was making it hard for even Regina to be happy about this. She began to feel unsure about all of this and could feel the magic humming more loudly now. Letting out a deep breath, she closed her eyes for a moment – wishing she could stop time and get a grip on all of this.

When she opened her eyes Emma was looking at her with concern, maybe even a little sadness. Regina would do anything to keep Emma from looking at her like that.

"I love you," Regina said quietly so only Emma and the officiant could hear.

Emma's face lit up with a real smile. "I love you too," Emma replied.

Regina smiled in return, seeing the happiness return to Emma's face.

The officiant continued with the ceremony and when it came for their rings to be returned, Emma handed Regina two rings – one she recognized as her own but the other band was a silver band that looked like thin strings had been woven together and there was a diamond inset in it. It was stunningly beautiful.

"Happy anniversary," Emma said, and Regina realized this was a gift from her wife.

Regina smiled wider as she slipped the rings on. When they were pronounced married once again Regina was the first to kiss Emma but Emma was right there kissing her back. They kept it innocent for their audience who were clapping loudly.

Hand in hand they walked back down the aisle to those cheers.

They didn't go very far as Regina had arranged for the reception to be right there.

Almost immediately the dark mood that Emma had brought with her to the ceremony disappeared.

"The ring, it was my grandmother's," Emma said as they shared a dance. "It's been in my family for generations. When I first learned I was going to be marrying you, my mother had suggested the use of that ring. I balked at the idea. Sorry."

"It's ok," Regina said. "I think given the chance we both would go back and do things differently."

"Still, when our anniversary was coming up, I asked my mom to bring it here with her so I could give it to you," she said. "Now it's where it belongs."

"It is beautiful," Regina said. "Thank you."

They danced with each other, danced with their parents and others until they decided to call it a night.

By the time they got into their chambers, the two were all over each other.

"I love you," Emma said for what seemed like the 100th time since the ceremony.

Regina laughed knowing Emma was saying it not only because she meant it but also because she was wanting a certain reaction from her. "I love you too," Regina said before pulling off her dress.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," Emma said as she picked Regina up and tossed her on the bed, removing her dress before joining her there.

…

The two women remained curled up with each other after making love. Emma held on to Regina, kissing Regina's shoulder periodically as they lay there.

"That was a better wedding," Emma said.

"Yes, it was."

Regina turned around, earning her a kiss on the lips, which she continued for a few more kisses. She brushed the hair back from Emma's face.

"I'm sorry for telling you about the seer," she said suddenly.

"Why are you saying sorry?"

"When you were walking up the aisle and when you were standing up there you looked so sad. You wouldn't even look at me. I just …"

Emma kissed her to get her to stop. "Listen to me," she said. "I admit what you told me, it bothered me, yes, but it also made me realize what a loving, caring person you are and when I saw you up there I didn't know if I could ever show you how much you mean to me. It's only been a year but I can't imagine my life without you. When you said you loved me up there it was like I don't even know how to explain it. It was like this overwhelming, conglomeration of feelings that could burst out of me like those fireworks. It was like …"

"Magic," Regina finished for her. "That's what the magic feels like for me sometimes. Like it's an uncontrollable force."

"But you're going to get control of it," Emma said. "Your mom is going to help you. It's all going to turn out you believe that right?"

"When I'm here with you, I do."

They shared another kiss before settling down to sleep.

Despite it being a long day Regina couldn't get to sleep. Emma was asleep still when Regina got out of bed. She went over to the window and sat down on the seat there. She kept her eyes on the view and tried not to look over at Emma. If she did she knew she would feel guilty – guilty for telling Emma she loved her because she knew that is what Emma wanted to hear from her. She knew it would make Emma happy and she had wanted to make Emma happy.

What she wasn't sure about was if she was in love with Emma.

…

"Can we stop this?" Regina said.

"No," Cora said.

It was three weeks into her stay where she was teaching Regina to control her magic and to say it wasn't going well would be an understatement.

"Regina if you want to learn …"

"Don't," Regina stopped her. "Don't say it. It's all I have heard from you for weeks now. This isn't working."

They were down in the depths of the castle, in a cleared-out storage area where no one ever came. Cora transported them each day for their lesson so that no one would see them down there.

It was decided to do it down there as the chances of any magical mishaps were lessoned.

"It's not working because you don't want to listen to me. You have to stop fighting me every second we're alone together."

"Then stop yelling at me."

Cora ran in her fingers through her hair. She was not able to get through to Regina. She had tried everything she could think of to get Regina to begin to control her magic. Emotion wasn't an issue – Regina was overflowing with negative emotions mostly directed at her during these lessons. Getting her to take those emotions and funnel them into her magic in some sort of sustainable way was the problem. Everything about her magic so far had been erratic. There had been days where she had been completely incapable of even calling up her magic.

"Take a seat. Please."

They had a couple of chairs down there and Regina sat in one of them and her mother took the other.

"Maleficent, now she was a teacher. I didn't know a thing when I started to train with her. She sent this carriage to my father's to pick me up and I think I was more struck by my first time riding in a carriage than I was by going off to learn magic," Cora said. "When I got there Mal drilled me from morning until night. There was hardly a time when I wasn't doing something geared toward learning or strengthening my magic. She would not let up on me. I think I hated her those first few weeks."

"Outside of not going from morning until night, are you teaching me like she taught you?" Regina asked.

"No," Cora said. "I wouldn't treat my daughter like that."

"Maybe you should," Regina said. "This isn't working after all."

Their chairs weren't that far apart and were facing each other. Cora leaned forward and took her hands in hers. "I can't. Not because Mal was teaching me how to use my magic instead of just control it. Mal was … I don't think she cared if she pushed me to the point of death. She didn't care about me. I care about you."

"You spoke about her before like you two were close."

"We were. We became close," Cora said sitting back. "It didn't start that way. Once she figured out my block, she could get me to do anything she wanted."

"What do you mean by your block?"

"Unlike you, my issue wasn't getting the magic to activate and sustaining it. It was my power. She had sensed my power upon meeting me so she couldn't understand why I wasn't able to do anything more than simple magic. For instance, if she had asked me to levitate that chair, I could do it but not for very long and I couldn't get it very high. She said she should've been able to lift that chair with her in it all the way to the ceiling," she explained. "I couldn't do it though. For weeks she tried different tactics. Then one day she told me that I was done, that I couldn't learn and she would be sending me home."

"I begged her to let me stay, telling her I could do this, but she merely dismissed my pleas. Then she said something to me. She said I didn't have the will to learn this craft because I doubted that I deserved to be there. She said there was nothing she could do if I kept blocking myself from experiencing my own power because I didn't feel I was worth it."

"She didn't even see me off when I boarded the carriage back home. I kept thinking about it on the ride home. Maybe she was right. Maybe I didn't feel like I deserved any of this. I was from a modest household and coming to live with Maleficent was like a completely different world. Here was this graceful, intelligent woman who could see something in me that I couldn't."

Regina could see a range of emotions on her mother's face as she spoke with sadness being the prominent one. For once she didn't interrupt with questions, wanting to hear her mother speak on things she never spoke about.

"On the ride home the horses got spooked and the driver was unable to get control. We were going along this path that wound along a cliff and one of the back wheels slipped off and the carriage capsized. I fell through the door just managing to catch hold of it so as not to fall to my death, but I couldn't hold on for long I knew this. Even if I could I didn't think the carriage would hold its position. The driver had leaped off when the carriage began to teeter but he couldn't get to me. I knew I was going to die if I couldn't use my magic so I forced myself to calm down and I channeled my fear, my doubt, everything I was feeling into my magic, and lifted myself and the carriage. Once it was righted again and I was standing there, I heard clapping. Coming around the back of the carriage was Mal. She ordered the driver to get the carriage turned around so we could go home. Once we were safe back inside I asked her if she had caused it, if she had done that to get me to use my magic to its potential and she simply said of course. Then I asked her what she would have done if I had fallen and she just smiled. At the time I thought it meant that she would have saved me. I know better now."

"You think she would have let you die?"

"Yes," Cora replied. "As close as I became to her, revenge always meant more. Anyway, I hope that helps you understand why I won't teach you as she taught me. I can't put aside my love for you to push you as she pushed me."

"What about a block, do you think that is my problem?"

"If it is, I haven't figured it out yet. Enough of talk, let's go again."

…

When Regina left her room after their lesson, Cora wasn't far behind her. After being cooped up in that storage room for the last two hours she needed some fresh air so she walked out onto the ramparts.

She knew that Regina was getting frustrated with the lack of progress so far and in a way so was she. Regina was her daughter so she felt like she should be able to find the right way to teach her control.

The longer she was here the more she thought about Maleficent and her magic lessons. Maleficent had been a hard taskmaster in the beginning. There was not a lot of positive reinforcement when she had done things right, but a lot of criticism when she had done things wrong.

Despite all the time they spent together in the beginning she didn't feel like she knew much about this mysterious woman and their relationship was strictly teacher-student. As Cora had become more adept at the magic it had begun to change. Meals were no longer merely times to reinforce studies or discuss potions. Slowly they began to talk about their lives and get to know each other more.

Then there was the night Cora had asked Maleficent why she didn't have a family.

"I was to be married once," Mal said. "I was going to marry a king."

"A king?" Cora said.

"Yes, don't be so shocked," Mal said. "I have had plenty of suitors in my life, but this king he was the one – he was the one I was going to live my life with. I loved him with all my being."

"What happened?" Cora asked. She couldn't help but ask even as she noted the sorrow in Mal's voice.

"This king was a widower. His wife had passed away and he had a young daughter whom he would do anything for. I didn't have a lot of practice being around young children and as such I don't think she and I meshed well at first," Mal said. "I was looking forward to changing that, to become a real mother to her. Not to replace the one she lost, but still to fill that role. She didn't see it that way. She thought only of herself and didn't like that her father's attention could be on anyone but her so she asked her father not to marry me. He came to me days before our wedding to tell me this – to tell me he could not marry me without his daughter's consent. I thought fine, we will postpone the wedding, give me and her more time to get to know each other and it would all turn out. Instead, she had me turned out of the kingdom entirely. I had nowhere to go and I ended up coming back to the one thing in my life that I could trust – my magic. It helped get me through the pain of love's loss and helped me build this life I have now where I'm able to teach you all I know."

"I'm sorry that the daughter treated you that way," Cora said.

"I am too," Mal said. "But I think in the end it will be her that will be sorry."

Knowing what she did now, Cora knew that Mal never loved Snow's father. It was another of her stories, another way to manipulate her to get what she wanted.

Even though it ended badly there were times Cora missed Mal. She missed the nights where Mal would declare no lessons and they would sit and talk. Mal had a way about her that made you want to show her the very best you could be.

Again she thought about what Mal would have been able to do with Regina as a student.

Mal would have seen what the problem was with Regina immediately and would have known how to handle it. Cora also knew what the problem was despite telling Regina she didn't know what Regina's block was. She was somewhat surprised Regina hadn't figured it out herself. Then again we don't always see ourselves as clearly as others can.

Regina's block was simple – it was fear.

She feared her magic because she didn't know what to do with it. They had made her fear it and now that fear was keeping Regina's magic at bay.

Finding a way around it without giving Regina the keys to unlock her potential was Cora's problem now.

…

Regina returned to their chambers after leaving her mother's room. The lessons took place usually after dinner so that they finished up about the time Regina would normally retire for bed. Due to their talk, their lesson had gone later and Emma was already in bed when Regina got back. She changed clothes quickly and got into bed, Emma moving closer to her as she settled down.

"Any progress?" she asked, her voice with the beginning twinges of sleep in it.

"No," Regina answered. "My mother is due to return home after next week and I've yet to master any kind of control."

"You will get there," Emma said. "She told you this could take time. You have to be patient."

"Yes, I know. My mother constantly reminds me of it."

She didn't try to mask the frustration in her voice. Each lesson felt like another failure to her and she couldn't help but feel more resentful of her parents' decree against magic. She was sure if she had been allowed to learn at an earlier age that she would have mastered control over it by now. She could have mastered using it by now.

It didn't help that Emma appeared to have taken her mother's side in all of this – urging her to be patient or giving her other platitudes after each lesson. It was like Emma had changed from being the one who had urged her to defy her parents and look elsewhere for a teacher to now counseling her to pull back on any desire to learn magic.

She wondered if it was because of what they now knew about her mother's involvement in Emma's parents' story and her partnership with Maleficent that did it. Or it could have been the other magic-user on the final day of the festival. Whatever it was there had been this shift in Emma's attitude toward her wanting to learn magic.

After a particularly bad lesson a few days ago Regina had returned to the room upset and she had told Emma that once her mother left she was going to find a real teacher to work with. She had been upset when she said it and hadn't had a plan on following through with it, but as soon as she said it there was Emma telling her that it wasn't necessary to look for another teacher and it was best to continue these lessons with her mother.

At the time she had let Emma calm her down as she had a knack for doing, but she still saw this as an example of Emma shying away from the magic. To Regina shying away from magic was another way of saying she didn't trust Regina to handle the magic. That is how she felt about her parents – that they didn't think she could handle it. She could live with her parents feeling that way but she wasn't sure she could if that is how Emma felt about it.

They hadn't talked about it. Yet Regina knew if this kept up they would need to talk about it. She needed to know if Emma didn't trust her in regards to her magic – or if she feared her.