For the one person who suggested I make this a multi chapter shot, well I hope you're happy! See what you've made me do? I'm joking, came up with this while listening to music. I hope you enjoy!

She hears the trashing before entering the room.

It's dark in the deepest corners of her vault, but the sound of glass breaking and something crashing to the floor resonates throughout the empty halls. Regina shudders at the sound. It's angry and desperate and she feels her heart twist and squeeze with guilt. She knows what's out there, she knows it's going to be terrible when she finally reaches the source of the noise, but most importantly she knows she caused this to happen… As she walks she can't help but want to run the other way.

She feels horrible.

But fighting against her better instincts she continues in the dimly lit hallways, brushing her fingers against the cool brick walls hoping to gain strength and a little more composure. She wishes not for the first time that the Queen wouldn't have been the only one with poise and composure… It's a long way from the entrance to the sub chamber she finds herself drawn to, it's a long way to run if the need to would suddenly arise. A surge of panic rises in her chest at the thought, but with a sharp intake of breath she suppresses it.

She caused this, she's going to fix it.

If she hadn't decided to rip apart her own mind, to split herself from her darkest moments, she wouldn't be in this mess… She wouldn't feel the pull of her heart leading her here in the middle of the night. Wouldn't feel the pain and the hatred her other half is wallowing in. And she definitely wouldn't suffocate under the pressure of grief and betrayal as she tries to finally have a night devoid of any nightmares.

No if she hadn't set the Queen loose she wouldn't be here…

She'd probably be home, drinking until she cannot remember. Or maybe she'd find herself wrapped around Henry's ever growing form, trying to forget all the horrible things she's done in her life by telling herself that at least she's done this one thing right… But things are as they are and she finds herself in her gray satin pajamas, a pair of flat fluffy boots and a thick coat, roaming the halls that only serve as a reminder that try as she might she'll never escape her past, looking for the one person she never thought she'd be looking for.

She almost wishes she'd never went to New York…

Another object collides with a mirror and the sound of glass shattering and crumbling to the floor echoes in the silence surrounding her. Regina squares her shoulders, her posture rigid and every muscle in her body tensing under the weight of an upcoming confrontation. She's afraid, suddenly aware of how difficult the situation really is. Her head is pounding. Her heart hammering away in her chest as if it were ready to spring free. Her hands trembling slightly. She's nearing her final destination, can see the large mahogany doors that replicate the ones she had in her castle, doors that lead to her chambers, to all the remnants of who the Evil Queen used to be. She's just about to twist the handle, when her breath catches on an exhale, her body freezing in the middle of her actions a loud bang resonating in her ears and the clashing of metal against wood ringing in her head. Panic rises from the darkness in her heart. She tames it down, takes a deep fortifying breath.

Breathe in, breathe out.

This is where it ends. This is where she finally faces her demon. This is what she needs to do. She grabs the door knob once more, this time as tightly as she can, her knuckles turning bone white. Releasing a breath she wasn't aware she was holding, she presses her other hand to the wood of the door as she twists the knob once and for all. She enters the room quietly as to not disrupt the chaos reigning on the other side of the room. But when she steps inside her rooms, all chaos has vanished. There's nothing but silence and the desolate remains of what used to be her furniture.

She's relieved somehow.

The sight before her is glorious, it's all broken shards of glass and blood and dismembered pieces of wood. There are boxes that used to hold hearts lithering the marble flooring, some of them so torn and twisted they could hardly resemble a box anymore. The smell of burning flesh assaults her nostrils and for the first time she realises there is a fire raging in the hearth, angry red pulsating hearts burning away into nothingness in its depth. A hurricane couldn't have done it better, Regina bitterly thinks… She looks around once more, taking in all the carnage, her eyes frantically searching for the only person aware of the existence of this room, searching for the responsible of such havoc.

Her eyes latch on the slumped form draped in the darkness of the room.

She slowly makes her way to it, hoping this will be resolved quickly and without bloodshed.

A hand embraces one of her shoulders. It's tiny and the touch is fairly light as if to let her know she can move out of its grasp if she so wishes… but for some reason she finds it hard to move away from it. It's comforting to know someone is there with her, in all this disarray she finds herself in, that there's still someone wishing for her wellbeing. But despite all of that, her body tenses, her shoulders square and her back takes on the quality of a ramrod, it sends a message to the holder of the hand draped around her, and as soon as the touch was on her, it is gone. Message received loud and clear.

"Go away." She growls, clearly annoyed by the intrusion.

She hopes it'll be enough. She's in no mood to fight against a recalcitrant character. She wants to be alone. She wants to throw stuff at the wall and yell and rage and bleed out on the floor until all the pain in her heart eases. She listens for the sounds of someone retreating, but they never come and her temper flares a little, hot and boiling in the pit of her stomach.

"I said, GO AWAY!" She roars, throwing a shard of the mirror she'd been huddling in at the intruder.

The shard falls on the ground, its thudding dull and hollow against the marble. At that the Queen turns around, visibly confused as to how her projectile hasn't hit its target. She sees Regina then, with her hands thrown out in front of her, shield of lilac magick still glimmering in the darkness of the room. It makes a small burst of laughter erupt from her. It clashes horridly with the grim atmosphere her and her doppelganger find themselves in. Makes a visible shudder run through her smaller half and somewhat it doesn't bring joy to her heart. Only sorrow.

"I won't go away. Not this time." Regina says, and even to the Queen it sounds self-righteous.

"Why? Because you feel entitled to fixing this?!" The Queen's arms fling around wildly, blood dripping from her scraped open palms.

Regina's small utterance of a yes sounds somewhat pathetic –pitiful almost- and the Queen finds herself furious. She rises to her feet then, her body oddly hunched over and deformed but still incredibly threatening. Regina takes a step back at that, clearly feeling the wrath she finds herself the object of.

"What!" the Queens utters, her voice verging on the edge of a scream, "aren't you happy to see me like this? Aren't you here to gloat?" Regina's response dies in her throat when the Queen chuckles darkly. "No, wait! I know! You're here because you can finally tell me 'I told you so', is that it?"

Regina shudders once more as the Evil Queen prowls closer.

Her back hits the remnants of an armoire and she has no choice but to press herself against it in the hopes her double will finally stop stepping into her comfort zone. As it is, the Queen takes one final step, her breath hot against her smaller twin's cheek, her bloody hand snaking its way to the column of her throat and slowly squeezing until Regina has trouble breathing properly, making the Queen gasp as well.

"You… can't hurt… me-" Regina wheezes.

"- without hurting myself… I know, I know." Queenie finishes, releasing the Mayor's throat reluctantly. "It simply felt satisfying to see you scared." She tells her, suddenly deflated. Her Majesty walks back towards the hearth, her eyes searching the fire for the remains of the hearts she threw in there, her left arm finding purchase on the mantel to keep her upright.

Regina watches as her evil clone's eyes grow glassy, her expression faraway, and for a moment she wonders if she shouldn't just leave. Maybe it would be best, wouldn't it? To just let the Queen sulk around and fight through whatever it is that put her in such turmoil. She takes a few cautious steps towards the entrance and coincidentally the only exit of the room, careful to keep her eyes on her twin. She feels defeated. She's never been good at this. Especially with herself…

She's never been good at calming herself down.

She's almost out the door when the Queen finally looks up again. Her dark stormy eyes latching onto Regina's retreating form. "I'm sorry" Regina mouths before taking hold of the door knob and twisting it open.

"Don't be. You were right…" her Highness says, it makes Regina stop in her tracks.

The Queen faces her fully then. "You were right. He doesn't love me. He was playing me." A quiet burst of laughter erupts from her then and it makes Regina uneasy. "Again… It would seem I never learn. Don't I?"

The mayor shakes her head at that, saddened by her other self's train of thought.

"Maybe not, but you will. Eventually. I did."

The Queen laughs. It's broken and raspy and so unlike anything Regina has ever done or heard.

"It just makes me so angry, Regina!"

The Queen takes a step towards her, threatening again, but somewhat this time her rage seems focused inward and Regina doesn't feel the need to flee.

"I'm so damned foolish! How could I not see it?! YOU did! Why couldn't I?!" she howls, loud enough to resonate against the high ceilings of the room.

There's fire erupting from the Queen's hands, licking its way up her arms and trailing behind her on the marble floor. Regina's eyes grow wide and scared, but instinctively she takes a step forward, slowly but surely making her way across the room and into the Queen's space. Her evil half's magick assaults her the minute she steps too close, it's in her mouth, her eyes, her nose even and it's putrid. It's never been like that before. Never has it felt like it was rotting on the inside, not even back when she was in such a mood it would run out of her control as it presently is doing with her stronger half.

The Queen has kept rambling on as Regina was set on helping her down.

It's only when Regina takes her hands in her own that the Queen finally trails off, her eyes no longer glassy, but slowly focussing on the smaller brunette in front of her. The fire does not burn her, it envelops her fingers and starts rolling against her skin just as it does the Queen, recognizing her as its owner as well. Surely enough both women are encased in a fiery hold, its warmth soothing Regina, but doing nothing to settle the Queen's self-deprecating mood.

"I don't understand, Regina." She mutters, her smaller half only acknowledging her answer.

"Don't bother. Gold was never worth your time. I told you that earlier because I thought I wanted you to hurt, but truth is, seeing you try and be good to him made me want to retch." She whispers in the space between herself and the Queen. "It made me sick seeing you reduced to that."

"Everything just hurts so much…"

Regina's hands made their way up the Queen's arms, sliding around her waist and slowly holding her tighter to her, almost forcing the Queen into her embrace. Queenie's head made its way to Regina's shoulder upon instinct, her arms following shortly after her brain had caught up with the motion of her original self.

"I can't think straight, everything is ringing so loudly in my ears!" she tells Regina without moving from her spot on her shoulder.

"Hush now." Regina says, tracing soothing patterns upon the Queen's back, "I'm here now. Just breathe and you'll pull through this."

Her twin's faint nod goes almost unnoticed if not for the rustling of her necklace. The fire has started receding as Regina has started casting a spell to absorb it into her own magick, making sure the excessively volatile magick of her doppelganger's out of control spell finally falls in line with the rest of the magick residing in Storybrooke.

-/-

Her Majesty has no idea how long she stays in her twin's embrace, slowly taking a breath in and out and then in again, but she finds she does not care one single bit. She finds it soothing to say the least. She hasn't felt this kind of comfort in a long time and she's going to bask in it until Regina finally comes to her senses and realises that she shouldn't be here with a psychotic murderer in a total destructive spree.

She sighs softly into Regina's neck.

"Why are you truly here?" she whispers.

Regina takes a step back at that, careful not to let the Queen's hand go.

"Because I felt you needed me. You were in such a distressed state that your heart beckoned mine to come to you. I had to come and help."

It's simple, it could be a lie, but for some reason her Highness knows it's the truth. She feels the sheer love Regina's trying to pass unto her, feels it pour into her through their linked hands and it makes her somewhat uneasy, but all the same appreciated.

"Thank you."

Regina nods then, her smile broad beyond belief and the Queen finds she has a matching expression of her own bearing her features. She squeezes her hands then, letting go of one and then leading the high heeled brunette towards what's left of the gigantic bed that used to be the center of the room.

"You need sleep, dear. Come on."

The Queen finds she has no energy left to protest Regina's demand. There's a warm glow surrounding her bones and fuzzing out her brain and she cannot fight against it even if she had tried to. She knows its Regina's doing, but she doesn't care. It feels welcome. Feels like home. Feels like she's finally cared for and acknowledged as a human being.

She finds herself sitting on the bed shortly after.

Her head slowly slumping forward, her eyes closing on their own accord, Regina's soft hands pulling off her elaborate gown to replace it with a dark nightgown, the lull of her magick stitching her wounds back together, are a few of the things she can still catch onto. Her reality is slowly fading, replaced by the land of dreams, but when she feels Regina retreating her eyes grow wide and panicked and her hands shoot out in an attempt to keep her smaller half close.

"Wait!" she says, and there's urgency in her voice.

Enough of it for Regina to turn around immediately, concern on her features.

"Stay. Please."

Regina agrees with a small nod of her head and the Queen tugs on her hand leading her to the empty space behind her on the bed.

"Thank you." She says her voice sleepy and faraway, as she places her head over her gentler twin's heart, listening intently to its beating.

They lay together like that for hours. Until the Queen is fast asleep, until any traces of her frustrations and anger are long gone, until there's not a line of worry on her forehead, until there's nothing but the sweetness of a gentler self's features marring the Queen's, until all there is in the room is the sound of their combined breathing and that of the cracking embers still in the hearth. They stay like that until the sun gets up and Regina definitely has to go… but even then the Queen does not stir her sleep undisturbed for the first time in over forty years.

For that Regina cannot help but take credit.

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