A/N – Kristy Baker asked if there will be a sequel. I have one story I am currently still posting on and another yet to debut I am still writing. There very well could be, but not right away.

Title:

Untold Story

Summary:

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

-Maya Angelou-

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Snow nearly lost her milk through her nose when Regina told her about having magic back in her excitement. While she didn't like the idea of magic at all, even feared it at times, she understood it was how they got here and was more than certain that's how they would get home. But as she let that word settle little one began to question just where home was; Enchanted Forest for her or Storybrooke for her adult side and if somehow they made it out of here to one of those places where did that leave her?

"What about me?"

Regina turned off the stove and turned to regard the child sitting at the kitchen counter. It was just after breakfast on Saturday morning and she'd just shared with Snow a bit more of the details about her discussion down memory lane with Cora. Child looked like she'd seen a ghost with the question asked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean me right now. Not big me but me. What happens to me when you break the spell?"

Regina's mouth dropped. Truly she had not thought that far ahead nor did she really know how she felt about anything that could happen once the spell broke. She didn't want to scare her child and she also didn't want to lie either. And then something hid away in Snow's eyes as she thought these things. Little one she knew she'd miss terribly when they did return, suspecting when they did Snow would be an adult once more.

These ideas made her heartache and also fill with a kind of anticipation. While she knew little Snow well, she longed to learn the heart of her grown daughter. Regina looked forward to getting to know the little girl she raised as a woman she could be friends with. Under two anxious green questions Regina searched for answer. She set her coffee mug down and reached across the counter for a little hand resting there. "I don't know everything, but I do know that when it breaks we will be together." Too much had changed between them for that not to be the case. For both sides of Snow.

"You won't go away again?"

Regina shook her head. "Nothing and no one will keep us apart any longer."

"What about when we do go back. Everyone is still mad at you. They don't know…" A lot of things, Snow realized as her adult mind pushed in and some things she still had yet to understand, but had a feeling by the way Regina was looking at her now that was soon to change. The adult stepped back then for her child side's wondering thought.

"We will explain the truth." Regina began and paused over her next words. "I will need your help with that I expect. But as for us… I will do everything in my power to make sure we keep working things out between us." She knew it would take more than the five weeks of being in a spelled reality or however long they were here to mend the years of hurt between them. It was a start and one she knew Snow wanted to keep on with too by the way her daughter was looking at her.

Child thought on those words and peeked up through lashes. "Do you promise?" Regina always kept promises made and the one she had thought to be broken at the stables in their past had in fact never been.

"I do." Stroking the back of a hand, Regina easily answered. "Now, I think it's nearly time for someone's riding lesson, hhmm?" That got the grin she'd been waiting for and she watched as Snow scampered into the foyer to get shoes and coat on as she further contemplated another talk they needed to have.

One that had been decades in the making.

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Regina watched from the stable benches as her old Master of the Horse led Snow's horse in a canter in the frosty meadow. She pulled the collar of her coat up higher against the chill on the breeze coming in. Snow was all smiles and waved to her every chance had and Regina waved back.

It was strange being here at the stables so similar to the royal ones of past. Ones where a promise seemingly broken through little eyes and a secret told for the right reasons began the tear on their relationship. She thought back to their conversation that morning on the spell breaking and just what would happen once the spell was no more. She thought maybe they were close to breaking it. Well closer since Cora's revelation that they needed to work together. At least she was trying and the little one too.

Regina was unsure of where adult Snow was on the road of the matter and had been the last several days. Little one rarely spoke for that one anymore and any appearances by the adult were brief. She thought she might know what would bring her adult daughter around and knew if she was correct it would spark another conversation they needed to have. The talk long brewing. Regina suspected big Snow was avoiding her for some reason and she'd had just about enough of that for a lifetime.

Or two.

"Did you see me?" Snow scampered over and right into the arms waiting for her.

"I did and you were wonderful." Regina praised and undid the chin strap of the riding helmet. "Go and thank Mr. Jettson if you haven't already. You've been riding for hours and it is near time for lunch."

"Good, I'm hungry! May we eat at Granny's?"

"Not today little one."

"But I hoped to." Begging once more then pouting some when the answer did not change. A dark brow rising got her feet moving. "Oh alright."

Standing Regina waited until Snow returned from saying thank you to take up her hand.

On the drive home Snow filled with chatter about WinterStar and of things she wanted to do the rest of the day and tomorrow. Snow followed Regina back into the kitchen once they'd sorted their things away by the front door. She sat back at the counter, completely lost in her musings and Regina's occasional clarifying question or comment as lunch was made.

Regina reached into the fruit bowl and began slicing an apple. She put half on her plate and the other half on Snow's next to a chicken salad sandwich. When she put the plate in front of the child the chatter all but died down as she expected it would. Rounding the counter, Regina sat in her place on the stool next to Snow's and picked up an apple slice pointedly taking a small bite and chewing.

Little Snow stared at her lunch for a long minute as her big side conversed with her in mind and then back to the Queen. She cleared her throat and as politely as she could she pushed her plate away. "No thank you."

"I thought you were hungry." Easing into the talk they needed to have. "And I know for a fact that you like everything on that plate." The child Snow was certainly did. They used to share plenty of apples in the past and the aversion now was not from the child in front of her. She saw a flash then of the adult inside and nodded to the plate in a silent prompt, relying on her connection with the little one to help bring that adult mind forward.

Snow tentatively picked up an apple slice as memories of taking such slices from the Queen's hand as child smaller than she was now in the orchards flashed backwards. Then forwards from taking a spelled apple from such a hand too. 'But had it been Regina's hand truly?' Such a big thought and suddenly little one was baring witness as her adult side took over.

"Was it you or Cora masked as you with the apple at Daniella's grave?"

Regina set down the slice she'd bitten into and wiped her hands on a napkin. Two very adult green eyes watched her every move. "I was under one of her compulsions. She had my heart and was controlling what I said and did. I knew it was happening, but I had no way to stop it or the words that were coming out of my mouth giving you the ultimatum to take the apple."

"Cora?" Asking again to be sure.

A nod. "By then she had almost full control and I couldn't stop her from making me give it to you, but I was able to reach for sleeping curse drought next to the poison bottle she had me infuse it instead." The spell protecting what emotions and control she had fought to have had near worn off, but she still fought the compulsions whenever she could.

Snow felt the edges of the room dim within her vision as nausea bubbled up. Once the first question had been asked her mind began overflowing with all the ones she'd wanted to ask but never did. "And Graham that day in the woods when I was picking flowers before my birthday… When he said you ordered me killed I didn't let him finish speaking before I ran... That was her too?"

"It was. He was supposed to tell you about the compulsions once he had you far away enough from Mother's wards and spies. To get you to safety." Regina explained what she had been wanting to for years. Her side of the untold story her daughter was now ready to truly hear. "We had worked it out to transport you to a safe house along one of the hidden routes Graham used to get prisoners free from the re-education camps. By then having you tucked away from my Mother for good had become my one priority, but getting you out of the castle until that point had been impossible until she gave that order."

Dawning crossed Snow's tight face as she remembered being a teenager and never being alone. Always under guard or watched by a spy of her Grandmothers. More too on the mention of the re-education camps. She remembered the day in court when she had been very young and the two women had been charged with treason for loving each other. How also Regina had found a way to convince her Father to spare them.

Snow stammered. "You were trying to get me away from her. Even when I…" How had she not put the pieces together before now? Unable to answer that question for herself she asked another. "You were trying to protect me?"

"Always." The Queen promised. "That is also why I insisted on you learning archery among other things. So if something ever happened to me you would not be completely defenseless."

Snow further paled as other pieces of the puzzle of her childhood began to come together. The subtle way Graham also added to those archery lessons stuck out bright in her mind. How he had pointed out the flora and fauna around the Castle archery field that could be eaten or used for medicine. The few times too he had taught her to make a fire when they had sought shelter in the stables from afternoon storms. To make a bow and arrow should something happen to hers and the way to filter rain water to drink or find shelter in a storm. All of it woven in so subtly in the twice weekly lessons with the Queen's Huntsman for many years.

Without that knowledge when she had run away from him and the Castle for good that day Snow realized she would not have survived the forest. Too terrified at the time to question anything other than running for her life. But now looking back with new knowledge and fresh eyes she had the beginnings of understanding when she had misunderstood so much. And in it she began to drown on her own breath.

Survival techniques she had never forgotten for the careful way they'd been taught to her. Memories rushed in of the conversations Regina and she had had about those lessons after and the careful way that knowledge had been reinforced with questions and expected answers of what had been learned. Cora had not known about the additions to the archery lessons and if the old witch had surely they would have been stopped as unfitting a lady.

Then it clicked.

Regina and Cora had been occupied when she had those lessons. With what she thought she knew and for the reason of Regina studying magic, Snow was not sure how she felt about it. Magic scared her. Always had for the price it carried. Then she found she didn't know as much about the price of such things as maybe the one who had told the Huntsman to teach her those subtle lessons. The feel of Regina's dark eyes on her now, said as much.

Snow looked up at Regina and then with another pushing question. "Why did Cora want my heart?"

"For the strength it possesses. She never said what it was for exactly, but I suspected she had other curses to cast." Regina was sick over the very idea and memory of her Mother's orders that day. "Yours she said had to be procured in that manner and not the usual way she was used to taking them."

More questions spilled from Snow's mouth as her mind spun every which way. "And my wedding after your exile and the dark curse… all of what you did was actually her?"

"It was." Regina answered bitterly and then correcting her daughter's thought. "Up until the curse was cast and I was able to subdue her, yes." Regina took a deep breath for what she knew was coming with that truth.

Snow bit her lip to blood. So much pain and wasted time between them. Too many misunderstandings and over them she'd lost her Mother and all of it had been Cora's fault… then Regina's last words registered. "Up until…" And her brows furrowed. "Wait. You cast it?" Memories of her and a bleeding Charming clinging to each other and staring at the tree they had put their daughter in for safe keeping flashed in mind as purple smoke had engulfed them.

"I did." A hard truth.

And the room was too bright in Snow's confusion. Temples pounding and she needed to ask to be sure. "So everything between the stables and before the curse was Cora's magic forcing your hand?"

"Yes, especially after your Father's death. I had cast a protection spell over my emotions to try and fight it off as long as I could, but that didn't last long once she'd taken my heart."

The curse that had cost her Emma was not something Snow thought she could ever... If everything else was Cora then… But if the casting had been Regina… Then one last time Snow confirmed as her mind teetered on the edge of complete understanding and utter devastation. "Not for what it took to do so, but the casting of the dark curse after you stopped Cora was your choice?"

Regina's mouth burned around her next words. "Yes. The actual casting in the moment was my choice." And as she thought would happen Snow was off that stool and storming towards the door quicker than she could blink. "But not for how you are thinking. Snow—" Regina just as quickly moved to block the Princess' exit.

Snow huffed in anger, cheeks reddening as she began trembling with it. A trick, a lie, it had to be because she sensed the rest of the truth was going to hurt way too much. Hurt like it had putting her infant daughter minutes old in a tree. As devastating as the years of living in cursed memories not her own without her family. Why had Regina done it if the woman claimed to have loved her so much? What had been worth the price of that lost time?

Snow didn't understand.

So as she had once before when they were in the Study fighting over Cora's spell book Snow pushed. "Let me pass!" And pushed physically, growing sore in heart as her wrists were caught by Regina hating how she began calming under that touch.

"Not until you hear me out." Firm that they would finish their talk Regina caught little shoulders then that tried to storm past her once more. "Snow. Listen to me."

"No. I ca—n't…" A child's voice cracked around adult emotions.

Snow was sure she couldn't bear to live with herself if what Regina would say next was true. What her heart was saying was the hard truth that needed telling. That she had not seen or recognized for what it was growing up because of the strength of the arms holding her now. And the truth she suspected would actually come from that mouth would make the last twenty some odd years of her life's heartache too hard to face for the price they had both paid in distance that shouldn't have been. If what Regina said next was true, she'd have to own the choice of putting Emma in the tree, of a lifetime separated from her daughter because she had been a daughter who pushed her Mother away.

Snow couldn't do it.

She did not have this strong heart pushing to spill out of her chest screaming. Screaming as she wanted to do right now. So she begged. "I can't. I can't, please." And she began breaking in tears as she fell hard against the woman who raised her. The woman who held her up from the fall coming.

"You can. Come here." Lifting the woman child to her hip and grateful Snow let her Regina cradled the back of Snow's head massaging the tension there. Big tears rolled down little cheeks as she soothed. "Take a deep breath… that's it, now another…"

Snow did and tried to calm down. When she was sniffling Regina went back toward the stools they'd vacated and she was set in hers again as a napkin came to wipe her cheeks. She stared at amber eyes so concerned over her. "Tell me." A whisper for what she was not sure she was ready for, but had to know.

"I was able remove certain aspects of Mother's crafting of the curse to make sure no was killed in the casting, but I couldn't remove everything, only mask it."

"Charming's coma?"

"He was not supposed to make the journey alive. Mother wanted him dead as a punishment to you." One last one in that world Cora had said before Regina had been able to get her heart back in her body. Graham had helped with that and the distraction to get it back from the vault.

"Why?" Snow struggled to breathe, but the hands on hers made it a little easier. "Why did she want to cast the curse?"

"To get her own happy ending. To be the Dark One with absolute power in a land without magic to counter her. She'd found a way to awaken it for herself here without anyone else's magic doing the same. It was her way to corner Rumple and to take his power without his knowing." Regina searched for understanding in green eyes before she continued. "The real Storybrooke would have been a world of puppets she would have been the mistress of and she could have done anything she pleased while bending a knee to no one, Rumple included. The moment she was able to cross the realms after the curse broke she picked up right where she left off and sought out the dagger."

"How did you stop her from casting it?" One question closer to asking the one chewing her heart out. Wiping her eyes as they leaked again and letting Regina take up her hands fully Snow listened.

"Graham was able to get my heart from her vault. She got wind you were giving birth and wanted to make sure the Savior would not be able to break the curse. She was coming to get my heart to bid me go after Emma, but Graham got it to me first. Then I trapped her in the vault." Regina took a deep breath herself as the weight held for two decades began coming off her shoulders and for the ears that were finally listening.

And the asking was here. Trembling Snow was as Regina's hands squeezed hers. "If you had stopped her why did you cast it?"

"Because by the time I had her warded my mirrors showed you had already put Emma in the tree." Eyes stinging. To save everyone she'd had to appear cruel in the moment to be kind. "You'd have never seen her again and I didn't…" Regina pushed past tears as they leaked. "I couldn't stand the thought of you losing your daughter and with Charming dying from the guard's attack it was the only way I saw to make sure he'd live and so you had a change to have both of them again one day. The vault wouldn't have held Mother for long and for everyone to finally be rid of Mother's influence for good I made sure she was left behind and separated from the Dark One."

Snow folded in on herself. A hard lesson she'd learned in past of service and responsibility to the people Regina had all but embodied and too managed to put her first along with the people of the Kingdom. "Em-ma…" A crack in the middle of a missed life and time lost, but not the fault of the one she'd thought it had been all this time.

"Emma is your daughter. She has your strength." Regina affirmed. "And I had hope one day she would find a way back to us, if we were in the same world as she, to break the curse and free us all."

She'd had no idea it would be though her adopted son. With Henry's growing interest in the mysterious storybook that appeared in her daughter's closet last year that told lies spun by dark magic, Regina knew Cora had found a way to bridge the realms she had once thought impossible to do. Had been horrified that her children, once again, were being influenced by that evil woman. Then Henry found Emma and the lies her Mother wove on paper awakened to a reality that set to destroy her family once again.

"And the price of the curse?" Always Snow knew well there was a price to magic and she suspected the price of the dark curse had been great. Knowing Cora's twisted ways as she did now, she thought the dark woman would have done anything to do so.

"Mother forced me to cut out the heart of one of the things I loved most." Regina shook her head as tears fell fast. "At the time, you were my heart and so was my Father."

Green eyes widened with horror and shattered with realization. "Grandfather. She made you choose—" Pink lips parted and a wounded cry as if from a small trapped animal escaped.

"You are my daughter." Regina stated, resolute. "And you were pregnant. There was no choice."

And there had not been when it came to a Mother's love for her child. It knew no bounds or moral law. This love, Regina was sure, answered to no power higher than the little heart here and one in another world connected to hers.

Snow broke wide open with clarity as truth of an untold story woke up feelings she never thought she'd have again. The dark curse cast so their kingdom could remain intact and she'd have a chance to regain her happiness. Price to save her life was the life of one person she knew Regina treasured beyond a shadow of doubt. And when Snow had her own doubts about the Queen's love so long ago Regina had truly loved her. Sacrificed, protected, and long suffered in silent bearing.

For her.

For their people.

The jaws of pain chewed Snow's throat and eyes and promptly spit her out. She doubled over in sobs and was lifted up into the arms of the one that had truly saved them all from a hell she could only imagine.

And she couldn't imagine.

That was always her problem. Near sighted within her little own world and selfish she had been and still Regina had loved her this whole time through it. Sacrificed so she could live and have a chance to be happy. Snow was sure she didn't deserve this love. The unconditional kind holding the pulsing fragments of her heart together right now.

Yet Regina was here holding her just so.

Lunch more than forgotten Regina moved them upstairs and right into Snow's room. Right to the bed she laid down with the little one curled up into her chest with Mr. Thumper as she began soothing. Snow fisted her sweater tight with one hand around the stuffed comfort as another rubbed at green swollen orbs.

"I didn't know. I should have known you… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…" Trailing as Snow's throat closed and she buried her face into Regina. No not Regina she realized and she cried more for the realization of just who was holding her. Who had never actually left her and who she hoped would forgive her greatest trespass that had kept their hearts apart forever to long.

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A/N – I'm crying, they are crying,… Thoughts?

Next Time: Regina and Snow…..?

Also life got super busy on me—so I won't be posting until next Saturday 2/9. Hugs until then!