A/N: I noticed some verb confusion as I was rereading earlier chapters, specially the last few I posted. I plan on going back and fixing that later. Sorry for that. This is gearing towards the end and I wanted to finish before I started nitpicking what I already wrote.

Chapter 13

They are sitting by the pond, with a lot of clothing between them, faces turned up to the weak winter sun that fails to warm them. It is still strange to be like this, so close, amicably sitting side by side. Even through all those years of forced coexistence, this kind of peaceful silence is still very disconcerting and new. Conversation doesn't quite come so easily as the silence and they continue to look away, at the sky, the water and everything else, but each other.

"Regina?", the whispered call is low.

"Snow." Regina had stopped calling her Miss Blanchard and never quite graduated to Mary Margaret. She supposed there was too much shared history for them to get lost in Storybrooke's dual identities and all that crap.

"Can I ask you something?"

Regina let loose a small, bitter chuckle that sounded sarcastic and so very her, that Snow rolled her eyes and smiled as well. It was strangely nice to still see her stepmother there, beneath the trauma and everything else that had occurred in the last year.

"You're asking permission, Snow?" Eyes still lost in the small waves on the otherwise calm pond, Regina's voice lacked their usual bite.

"Well, thought I tried something new, for a change." The quip hit Regina and prompted a laugh. Which was also strange… when had they evolved from open hostility to quiet acceptance, she wondered. And why did it feel so natural?

"Well, since we are being so civil all of a sudden..." Regina's good humor seemed to have evaporated from one moment to the next and her voice went from quiet to openly disheartened.

"Regina… were you ever pregnant while married to my father?" Even Snow winced at the direct route her big mouth chose to take, despite having promised Charming that she would broach this subject with a minimum of tact.

Regina's answer was silence. And such heavy, meaningful silence it was.

"I know it's none of my business…"

"You're right. It is none of your business." Regina finally said, voice more hostile than it had been in months. She didn't get up, though, or storm off in a rage. Snow considered it progress.

"I know… But, were you?"

Her stepmother finally turned around to meet her gaze. Such bottomless eyes she had. Had always had. How could she have ever missed the things hidden there? The sadness and the despair? Snow shuddered just recalling her last dream.

"Snow. Why are you asking me this?"

Swallowing hard, Snow worked hard not to look away. "I had… these dreams. But they were not dreams."

Regina frowned and squinted her eyes and returned to gazing the pond. "Dreams?"

"Gold led me to believe that they were actually memories. Not dreams. Though he didn't say it outright, so I'm not sure."

"Snow…" Regina's voice extended the word in warning.

"I was you. And you were pregnant. And my father knew and it wasn't his, it was Da…" She breathes in deeply. "It was Daniel's."

Regina is frowning and Snow can't tell what her stepmother is thinking. "And?"

"And he t-threatened you about the baby. And Rumplestiltskin came and taunted you and then, something happened and the baby was g…" She paused again, not able to control her emotions. "Gone. And you were crying."

"I've never been pregnant, Snow. I-I ca-can't get pregnant." Regina confessed, eyes lost beyond the pond now, into the trees and the past.

"There were other dreams, too…"

Swallowing hard, Snow saw Regina turning on her seat to fully face her, gaze and expression a mask of nothingness that did little to fool her. More and more, Snow could see all the little nuances that made her stepmother who she was. Regina hadn't been so good at hiding things as much as Snow had been blind to seeing them plastered on her expressive face and deep eyes.

"Snow… I was never pregnant."

"I think you willed those memories away. And I was at the right place and time to retain them before they got lost." She insisted.

"Gold told you that?" Regina still seemed unconvinced.

"Well… if they were transferred once to me, it might be possible to transfer them back to you, right?" Snow bit her lower lip. "Couldn't we try that?"

"No."

"Well, maybe Gold will help us. Maybe even Bell-"

"No." Regina reinterred, voice still in whispers, though her tone sounded very firm and sure.

"Why?" She didn't want to let the tears blooming in her eyes to fall and she felt silly for not being able to control them better.

"I… I believe you, Snow. There has always been a blank. A period of memories I knew I had lost in those first few months after the marriage. After… After sending my mother through the looking glass." Regina glanced at her hands, bare of any gloves and slightly bluish from the cold. "I just never tried to get them back."

"You knew…?"

Regina breathed in deeply, the action a burden that seemed almost hard to achieve. A shudder went through her body as she exhaled. "I didn't want to know."

She finally met her stepmother's scared gaze and Snow tried to see it through her perspective. "Now that you have an inkling of what they were… You still don't want them?"

"No. I don't want them." Regina brushed a stray tear away before it could properly fall. "I can't carry anymore than I already have on my shoulders. I can't."

Snow nodded. She wanted to protest, to somehow seek to convince the other woman of the importance of knowing, of having these memories that were hers to have in the first place. Maybe time had tempered her naive spirit, after all. For she may not understand Regina's decision, but she saw that it was not her decision to make."

"Months?" Snow deviated a little on the subject. "Months of memories?"

Regina nodded.

"Will I keep dreaming them? These memories?"

"It's possible. You may have gotten them all or only a few of them. If I didn't send these memories to you specifically, it's impossible to know how much hit you and how much was already lost before you got in their path." Red lips curved in a mirthless smile, as she closed her eyes and tilted her head up to the sun. "And besides… I only learned magic years later. Heaven only knows how I managed to accomplish such complicated magic in the first place, if Rumplestiltskin was involved after all."

And just like that, Snow understood Regina a little bit better. The thought of having those dreams, those memories plaguing her indefinately made her shudder. She could finally understand not wanting them.

"Could you take them away?"

Regina faced her once more. Her hand raised almost subconsciously to Snow's growing bangs, before falling back down. There they were again, caught between who they had been and who they were. "I can."

"Please."

No more words were exchanged and the quiet trust that fell between them in that moment felt foreign and familiar all at once. It was not like Snow's visit to the mansion following Cora's death. It wasn't the trust of someone who yearned for punishment and sought out their tormenter. And it wasn't the trust of a child, who saw only what she had wanted to see.

It was different. It was new.

Regina raised her hand to Snow's head and her cold fingers ghosted over her temple, not quite touching. Soft and clear light filled the space between them for a moment and then was gone into the mist of winter.

"Was that… light magic?" Snow asked, eyes wide.

"I-I don't know…" Regina replied, eyes transfixed on her own hand.

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