Regina is concentrating on her last swirl of frosting, wielding the piping bag like a familiar old weapon, and it's only when the blue swirl is perfect that the burgundy leather jacket registers in her sight line.
"Sheriff Swan," Regina greets her crisply. "Are you actually still claiming that title? Only no one seems to have seen much of you this past week."
"David was covering," Emma says, eyes obscured behind dark glasses despite the weak spring sunshine that's barely filtering through the kitchen windows. "And I figured you'd appreciate the extra time with Henry."
"I did," Regina admits, running her hands under the faucet for a moment before drying them on a clean towel. "That doesn't mean you can use me as a nanny service."
"What about other services?" Emma asks, the suggestive lift of her eyebrows at odds with her slumped posture.
"I thought you made your position quite clear on that when you laughed in my face," Regina reminds her, lifting the cupcakes into place on the silver cake stand. "Besides, Henry will be done with school soon."
"What?" Emma approaches now, eyeing the cakes like someone who hasn't eaten in a couple of days; her pallor and thinner-than-usual face certainly don't suggest any time has been spent at Snow White's dinner table. "Are you saying we can't have sex because I didn't accept a joking offer for me to move in with you?"
"I wasn't joking," Regina snaps.
"Right," Emma nods in understanding. "You don't joke. Sidney told me that. Where is he, anyway?"
"Now you think to ask?" Regina sighs, sliding the cake stand away from Emma's slowly extending arm. "He's in the hospital, recovering. The curse took its toll on him. Mentally."
"And he's one of the ones you liked," Emma accuses, but there's more mischief than malice in it. "Speaking of the effects of your curse, any chance you could tell my mother that short hair really doesn't suit her? I tried mentioning it the other day, and it didn't go well."
Regina sniffs, because talking about Snow is never on her list of priorities.
"Is that where you've been hiding out all week?" Regina demands, checking the clock on the wall. She's been trying desperately not to fall into the habit again, but expecting Henry home has made each of the last few days considerably easier. His lectures about the evils of magic have been less fun, admittedly, and the resulting headaches have had her reaching for the little orange bottles just a bit more frequently.
"I was at my place," Emma says, snatching a cupcake when Regina looks away for another moment. She speaks around a mouthful of sponge and frosting. "Withdrawal, it turns out, is an even bigger bitch than you."
"I thought you didn't really have a problem? And those are for Henry," Regina protests, clutching at her apron to prevent her snatching the baked goods back.
"All twelve of them?" Emma mocks. "And I had you pegged for one of those health freak moms, all organic vegetables and tofu."
"Which just goes to show," Regina answers. "That you really don't know the first thing about me. Sugar isn't poison. Everything in moderation."
"Yeah that sounds like you," Emma fires back. "Like when you spiked a turnover with a moderate amount of sleeping curse."
"Did you want something?" Regina snaps, knuckles whitening now. "If it's just to take Henry from me, surely you could collect him from school?"
"I just came to say hi," Emma says, and the lie isn't smooth enough to pass. "I mean, I haven't seen you since Friday. Or maybe I could just smell the baking."
"Touch another cake and lose those fingers," Regina warns, but Emma is already on the move, prize claimed. Instead of retreating though, she advances on Regina, who backs up against her kitchen sink despite telling herself to stand her ground. "Don't you have an addiction meeting to go to?" Regina asks, attempting to regain some traction.
"Not right now, no," Emma answers, undeterred. There's barely a few inches of space between them, and Emma pushes her aviators up into unruly blonde curls, revealing an expression that's hungry for a lot more than cupcakes. "Although speaking of your little interruption, I wouldn't say no to some of your back pills."
"What happened to withdrawal?" Regina presses.
"It sucks, so I have no intention of going through it again," Emma says, shrugging in that affable way she has. "Like you just said, everything in moderation. That's the new plan. That and spending less time around my family."
"Your addicts' group would disagree," Regina feels the upper hand returning as Emma's face scrunches in irritation. "Am I to assume you're not embracing their path to recovery?"
"Turns out when your concerned relatives are fairytale characters, you don't really need to do the whole thing," Emma confesses. "Just look like you are. I'm guessing you guys didn't have a lot of counseling back in the Enchanted Forest."
"You guess correctly," Regina says.
"Well, that explains you, then," Emma says, pulling back just in time to avoid Regina's slap of frustration. "Hey, less of the domestic violence, your Majesty."
"Says the woman who tied me up and... well. In this very room," Regina accuses, folding her arms over her chest. She feels the crackle of magic in her veins again, a side-effect of any strong emotion. Thankfully the pills she took with a light lunch are still dulling the full effect of it, and not giving in is a little easier than usual.
"Still too shy to say I fucked you?" Emma is back in Regina's space again, closer than ever, cupcake still in hand. "You should loosen up a little, you priss. Here, have some cake."
"I don't want any," Regina insists as the small cake hovers in front of her mouth.
"Oh, Regina," Emma breathes, pressing the creamy blue frosting against Regina's lips. She darts her tongue out to lick it away, instinct more than anything. The instant rush of sugar makes her regret it. "We both know that's not true."
"Emma-"
"Self-denial is just so fucking boring, don't you think?" Emma says, but any hope Regina has of responding disappears in the pressure of Emma's mouth on hers, cupcake tossed to the floor like an afterthought.
"You've got a lot of nerve," Regina seethes when Emma releases her, but there's no denying the spike in Regina's heart rate or the tingling in her lips that's insisting on more, more, more. How ridiculous that a woman who tastes like strawberry chapstick and the antiseptic aftertaste of alcohol should provoke this reaction, over and over again.
"That's not all I've got a lot of," Emma says, running her finger through the frosting of another cupcake on the stand, ruining it in one stroke. She contemplates for a moment, seemingly intent on sucking her own finger, but instead she smears the cool cream in a brisk line down Regina's neck, making her recoil on instinct.
"That is not what I...oh," Regina can't finish the scolding when Emma's tongue is boldly licking that trail of blue from her neck, lingering at first in the sensitive hollow at the base, before setting nerve endings alight in one long stripe that ends with a less-than-gentle sucking of the skin beneath Regina's ear. It's enough to make her weak in the knees, and there's nothing she can do about the whimper that passes her lips.
"Pick a surface," Emma murmurs against her collarbone. "Or I'll fuck you right here on the floor."
Regina could respond in a hundred different ways, not least shoving Emma away once and for all, but that's just not what her body is insisting she do.
Instead she pushes Emma back against the counter, and drops to her knees with as much grace as she can summon. Emma doesn't require instruction to unbutton her jeans and push them down her legs, and Regina pulls them free along with the omnipresent boots, not caring how rough she is in the process.
"Thought your back hurt," Emma teases, and Regina responds by running her fingers over wet flesh, making the tease dissolve into a hiss of need. It would seem a week alone has become just too long for Emma Swan, and if that pains her to realize, Regina's glad to have caused it.
"Do you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice?" Regina questions, but she doesn't wait for a response before leaning in to let her tongue flicker over Emma's exposed clit.
Twenty minutes later, nobody is tired of the sobbing, desperate way Emma is burbling Regina's name.
After forty, there are no longer actual words in there, but Regina finds she still doesn't mind.
Emma has four fingers inside Regina, and is insisting she's wet enough for another without any additional help, when the front door opens with its usual creak of hinges. Funny, Regina thinks in that moment, that in an otherwise spotless and modern house, she's kept that one trait of a castle in her home.
It takes them both a long moment. But the realization, when it dawns, is as sudden as it is horrifying. Regina pulls away so hard that it hurts when Emma's fingers are wrenched out of her, but she can't focus on that when she's scrambling to pull her clothes back into some kind of order.
Footsteps sound in the hall leading to the kitchen, and although Regina is almost presentable, Emma is still half-naked and clutching at random items in a bid to organize herself. She's holding one boot and a cheese grater, which would make Regina laugh if the situation weren't so dire.
"In here," Regina hisses, steering Emma into the pantry, kicking her jeans and other boot in behind her. "Not a peep out of you."
She closes the pantry just in time, as Henry comes bounding into the room.
"Hi Mom, did you-hey, are those cupcakes?"
"Yes, Henry," Regina breathes, hoping her panic won't show. Luckily, it seems the lure of baked goods is about to save the day.
"Uh, I think I want to go back to Emma's," Henry says, fork hovering over his plate. Regina manages not to wince at the thought of Emma creeping out of the kitchen door, redressed and mortified. "I mean, it doesn't have to be tonight, but I want to."
"Okay," Regina says, putting her glass down carefully, because she's just a fraction away from crushing it altogether. "Just call her, when you're ready for her to come get you."
"Thanks, Mom," Henry says, between mouthfuls of linguine. "She's trying really hard. And you are, too. I just want everyone to be happy."
"You know all I need to be happy is you, Henry," Regina reminds him, blinking back scalding and unexpected tears.
"I think maybe you need more than that," Henry says, and Regina can't help wondering why he worked that out so much quicker than she did.
He can't make it to bedtime without calling.
Emma, in her rattling yellow car, is there a half hour later. She doesn't dare approach the house this time, at least, and Henry runs out to her, doubling back for an awkward hug that Regina still doesn't want to end.
"Call me," Regina blurts when he wriggles from her grasp. "If there's any problem with Emma, and drinking... it's no problem to come here, any time."
She resents saying things like this to Emma, or worse her odious family, but making the offer to Henry feels like the very least Regina can do in this endless, painful quest to win him back. She feels like one of the unlucky characters from folk tales (which, she remembers now, she actually is to the rest of this world) doomed to try and fail and just keep trying, the plucky idiot who can never take the damn hint.
"Thanks, Mom," Henry says, and the fact that he hesitates before running down the path to Emma is the highlight of Regina's week.
That, she realizes, is why she has to achieve a far more permanent way of bringing Henry home where he belongs.
Kathryn looks entirely out of place in Regina's old office, right until Regina knocks on the open door. Then, a familiar shift occurs, and Regina watches the seamless transition from distracted Kathryn to focused and regal Abigail. They might have been allies, once upon a time, but Regina's pursuit of the curse closed off those more sensible alternatives all too quickly.
"Regina!" Kathryn exclaims, rushing out from behind the messy stacks of paper on Regina's desk. "You are just the person I wanted to see."
Even now, Regina still finds that impossible to believe. Kathryn's bottomless well of forgiveness-after a reprimand that left Regina's ears ringing and her heart somewhere in her boots-is so alien to Regina that it makes her skin crawl every time it's demonstrated. Even Snow and Charming are easier to be around, their antipathy familiar enough to handle competently.
"Having fun with the property deeds?" Regina asks. "I'm sorry they're not more organized. As you've probably discovered, it took a few different configurations to get everything running smoothly."
"How you kept all of this in your head, I will never know," Kathryn admits, and forgiveness or not, she can't quite bring herself to offer her arms in a hug. Instead she pats Regina gingerly on the upper arm and shows her to the empty visitor's chair. "Did you need something?"
"I came to ask a small favor," Regina admits. "About the converted warehouse property on-"
"You mean Mary Margaret's old place?" Kathryn is already reaching for some papers. "Yeah, that one is still in your name, although the rest of the building is owned by Gold.
"Right," Regina agrees. "Only these days, Mary Margaret has taken up residence in your former home."
"I don't mind," Kathryn says, although there's a twitch at the corner of her mouth that just possibly suggests otherwise. "It was never a real marriage, was it?"
"Your feelings probably seemed real," Regina tells her. "You shouldn't ignore them just because other things have changed."
"Well, luckily I don't have time to dwell," Kathryn says, gesturing at the paperwork all over the room. "Once the property is settled we need to move on to some kind of permanent government, the interim measures are causing a lot of discontent."
"You could always reinstate the monarchy," Regina muses. "Although if you do, perhaps it's better to count me out."
"I think we're going to stick with democracy," Kathryn says, and it isn't entirely unkind. "Maybe not this time, but maybe in the future you could run for Mayor again. You're the only one who knows how this town really works."
"Maybe," Regina dismisses the idea with a wave of her hand. "But about that property, I need it to be unavailable to Emma Swan."
"Regina," Kathryn warns. "I've let a lot of things go, but if you think our friendship means you can drag me into your feud with David and his family..."
"Not at all," Regina says. "I simply want to offer her some space in my oversized mansion."
"Because it means Henry comes home, too," Kathryn puts the pieces together after just a moment. "I know you miss him, but surely there's a better way than making someone homeless?"
Regina knows she's going to need something else to generate sympathy, and though the words already stick to her tongue like a cloying poison, she knows she has to say them.
"It's not just for Henry," she admits, eyes fixed firmly on the toes of her own burgundy pumps. "I don't know if you've heard on the town grapevine, but-"
"I've heard," Kathryn acknowledges, putting the papers down altogether.
"We're very difficult people," Regina says, making the understatement of the century, and possibly the one before, too. "But I've come to realize that having Emma around might be as good for me as it is for Henry."
"Careful," Kathryn teases. "Don't get too romantic, now."
"Romance is for princesses," Regina reminds her. "This world is considerably more real."
"I can't make any promises," Kathryn sighs. "And frankly, I don't think I should be encouraging this kind of manipulation."
"Fine," Regina says, trying not to sound huffy as she stands to leave. "You'll do what you think is best, I'm sure."
"Regina," Kathryn says, the tone of her voice pleading now. "If I can give you a little happiness? I absolutely will. But I won't make Emma miserable in the process."
"Because living with me would make anyone miserable?" Regina asks, raising an eyebrow in a failed attempt at nonchalance. "Good luck with the property, Kathryn. I'll see myself out."
Regina's so intent on getting to her car that she doesn't see the man crossing her path until it's far too late and the collision course is set. She sends him tumbling towards the asphalt, and steps over him like he's nothing more than a simple distraction.
"Wait!" He calls out, scrambling to his feet. Regina stops, sighs deeply, and turns around, only to be confronted with Henry's other biological parent and accordingly, one of her least favorite people.
"Run along, son of Rumple," Regina sighs. "I'm in no mood."
"You're not gonna apologize for knocking me to the ground?" Neal demands, but he's smiling around the words. "Never mind, I'm glad we ran into one another. Literally."
"If you want to discuss access to Henry, I suggest you stick with your ex-girlfriend," Regina says through gritted teeth.
"No, that's all cool," Neal insists. "It's just... I wanted to tell you something, because I don't think I should tell Emma. Or at least, I don't want to be the one who does tell Emma."
"If this is a 'contact all your previous sexual partners' situation, I'm not interested," Regina says, starting to move towards her car again. The arches of her feet are aching from the now unfamiliar situation of a day spent entirely on three-inch heels.
"But I heard that you should be," Neal butts in again, and he catches up in easy strides, before leaning against the side of Regina's car, effectively block her access to the door lock. He looks as casual as ever, in a blue windbreaker and worn jeans, and try though she might, Regina can't discern what attracted Emma to the man in the first place.
"I don't see how that's any of your business," Regina snaps. "And if Charming was so horrified at the idea, he should have kept his stupid mouth shut."
"I got it from Ruby, actually," Neal says. "And if it's something that's gonna affect Henry, I guess I do want to know."
"Listen here, Baelfire," Regina threatens, and the magical grip on his throat is pure instinct. His eyes bug out as she slams him against the car. "It's bad enough you donated the sperm to make Henry in the first place. But I will not stand here and make small talk with the man who killed my mother."
"I didn't kill anyone," Neal protests when Regina's grip slackens. "I'm sorry for bringing Tamara here, but I had no idea she was looking to drain magic. From what I heard your Mom's passing wasn't exactly-"
Regina squeezes hard enough to break bones this time, but nothing gives.
"You don't mention her, do you hear me?" Regina is aware of the red mist rising, of the stretching feeling somewhere in the front of her head that serves as a warning. Get too angry, let them take too much, and it's back to elaborate dresses and hopeless schemes, lashing out at everyone who comes near; if nothing else, Regina won't let these idiots drag her back to that particular misery.
She lets Neal go, and he slumps, coughing and spluttering.
"Like I said," Regina follows up. "I'm in no mood."
"Regina," Neal insists, face a livid shade of puce still. "Mary Margaret came to see me the other day."
"So what?" Regina snaps, unlocking her car.
"She suggested I... well, she made it very clear that this would be a good time to make a move on Emma. That she would support it, because I'm Henry's father."
"You're kidding," Regina says, trying not to roll her eyes at the predictability. "Snow White, the walking tourist brochure for True Love, is trying to forced some kind of... arranged courtship?"
"David suggested marriage would be on the table. Started talking about land and castles back in the Enchanted Forest, I swear to God," Neal supplies. "So you see why I'm not bringing this to Emma, right? Kinda feels like she already has enough on her plate."
"And I'm currently picking through the bowl of cherries that my life has become, hmm?" Regina asks, although her heart isn't in the accusation, not with her mind already whirling over this latest development. "Wait, are you planning to make a move on Emma?"
"Not that it's any of your business," Neal wiseasses, scrunching up his face as he echoes Regina's words back at her. "But no. I care about her, I don't think that's a secret. But I'm here for Henry. And to see if my father is ever going to give up magic."
"I wouldn't hold my breath on that," Regina advises him, and there's a moment of camaraderie in it that she doesn't expect. In another configuration of events, Neal might even have been a brother to her, Regina knows, but they'd all be such different people that she can't bear to think about it. "Still, the two idiots must be particularly panicked about my... influence, if they came to you. That news has brightened my day, just a little."
"It wasn't pretty," Neal admits. "To hear them tell it, you're pouring bourbon down her throat every night. Everything would all be magically better if Emma could just find a nice man and turn into a prince. They don't understand why she wants anything other than to be a mother and a wife."
"Snow should know better," Regina muses. "But then she was always good at overlooking the misery of others."
"Anyway, I did my duty here," Neal says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Tell Emma, don't tell Emma. But if she finds out some other way, I guess you know how freaked out and angry she's gonna be."
"Well, you'd know all about causing that reaction," Regina admits. "I have to go."
She sits behind the wheel for a full five minutes, grinding her teeth as Neal walks down the street and ducks out of sight into the park.
A light rain is starting to fall, but once her mind is made up, Regina has no choice but to open the car door again and jog through the change in weather to re-enter the Town Hall.
Kathryn looks up with an apology forming on her lips, but Regina doesn't let her speak.
"Forget everything I asked you," Regina says. "Let Emma keep the apartment, whatever you want. But don't do anything because I asked."
"Regina, are you-"
"Just... I can't make that decision for her," Regina admits, a lifetime of her own decisions being ripped away coming to the fore. "And I won't."
She stops at the mausoleum on the way home, thankful at least that in the divide and conquer mode the town finds itself in, no one has thought to encroach on her sanctuary.
Paying her respects to mother and father alike, Regina lays carefully selected flowers on top of each block of stone, willing herself to remember the isolated happy memories, not the tears or the bruises, not the pleading or disappointment.
A wave of her hand opens the door to her hideaway, and Regina scolds herself for using magic again, without thinking, only to remember that the real Henry doesn't know it exists. Just another unpleasant surprise from mother, and only in this privacy does Regina let her feelings for the woman bubble to the surface. To outsiders, like Neal, Cora is to be defended to the hilt. He doesn't get to know about the magical straps or forced marriages, especially not when his fiancée's attempt to steal magic killed Cora and very nearly killed Rumplestiltskin, too, but for his dagger's last strands of protection.
Now Cora lies here in cold stone, never again to threaten or praise, and Tamara is adrift somewhere in Neverland, banished by hastily performed magic that Emma could neither understand nor control; perhaps the state she's in now is simply payment for that act, but Regina can still see the unfairness in it.
She fishes the pill bottle from her purse, since the cold down here brings out the aches, right down to the bone. Dry-swallowing two, Regina follows with another two, because she's too busy to be distracted by what feels like tearing in her lower back every time she moves. Thinking is an active proposition for her, pacing and working things out with the sweep of her hands come as naturally as breathing.
There has to be a way to get Henry back without blowing everything up in the process. More than any desire to do good instead of evil, Regina simply lacks the patience for the carnage that her more wicked acts have caused. She wants some love and acceptance now, not rejection and more public scolding.
At a loss, she sinks into a once-favorite chair, the velvet now coated with a thin layer of dust and surveys the trinkets of a life she never wanted.
It's late when she returns home to an empty house, a chill to the building that not even her top-of-the-range heating system can do anything about.
Regina's hanging her coat, a little sluggish from the extra dose she took before driving home. The deserted streets of Storybrooke pose no threat to her slower reactions, and frankly she's not sure Emma would dare arrest her right now anyway. She's confident of that, until there's a loud knock and she opens the door to find Emma standing on the porch.
"Where's Henry?" Regina demands, insisting to herself that it's the only reason Emma might show up there.
"You want me to move in with you?" Emma demands, and Regina notices then that the slur is back in the words, and the feet are very deliberately planted to stop Emma from swaying too much. A bottle of Maker's Mark appears from where Emma's holding it behind her back, already two-thirds gone. "What are you gonna do about this?"
"I'm not going to do anything," Regina says, and she means it, too. "We all have our ways of coping."
"You're high right now, aren't you?" Emma asks, squinting under the porch light to see if Regina's pupils are dilated, no doubt.
"Yes," Regina says, because she's tired of lying about prescriptions, and she's too aware now to claim the pain is anywhere but in her head, or in places that no painkiller will ever touch. "And it makes me not want to do magic, so that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. You tell me: do I look like I can't function right now?"
"No," Emma admits. "But isn't it a condition of living here? You don't want me to stop?"
"You're a mess," Regina points out. "I'm not sure I want to get to what's underneath your whisky buzz, honestly. At least a drunk mess is something specific, something to deal with."
"I'm not a drunk," Emma wails, but she follows up by taking a mouthful straight from the bottle, sloppy and careless as some splashes over her lips and trails over her chin. "But this is what you're asking for, Regina."
"We'll keep each other in check," Regina drawls, leaning against the doorframe like Emma's a particularly persistent trick or treater who really wants to sing a song for her candy. "Everything in moderation, you said. With both of us here, one can look after Henry if the other needs something... more to take the edge off."
"And if I move in here, you also get Henry," Emma seizes on the obvious point.
"I won't pretend I don't want my son back," Regina confesses. "But I've learned that this new reality means sharing him; I've learned a lot of things."
"Because you understand," Emma says. "Everyone else, they think they know what suffering is, but they have no clue. My parents want me to move in there. They have room."
"They also want you to marry Neal," Regina blurts out, before she can think better of it. "He told me, that they tried to push him to 'rescue' you from me."
"What the fuck?" Emma gasps, and before Regina can so much as duck, the bottle is sailing over her shoulder to smash spectacularly in the foyer.
"Emma!" Regina cautions.
"Oh, magic it clean," Emma sighs. "I won't tell Henry if you don't. Neal really told you that?"
"I have nothing to gain by lying about that."
"You usually find a silver lining, when you lie," Emma accuses. "But no more meetings, no more preaching? Just two people making their own rules, and raising their kid. We're going to fuck it up so badly, Regina."
She moves closer, eyes raking over Regina's slightly-rumpled dress. "But let's face it, you want me so bad you'd do anything to get me to come here. Bad enough to cry about it."
"Stop it," Regina warns, telling herself the shimmer in her eyes is just another side-effect of the Vicodin, but her fingers are reaching for the belt loops of Emma's jeans. "I'm not bringing you here so you can hurt me even more. I won't let you."
"Sure you will," Emma says, right before they kiss.
Regina kisses back with lazy enjoyment, and tells herself that Emma's words aren't true.
Thank you all for your reviews, favourites and follows, especially after my insecurity about Chapter Seven. We've got a bit of a rollercoaster over the final four chapters, so I'd love to know how you're feeling about the story at this stage. Reviews and reactions really do help more than you know!
EDIT: In response to a valid criticism, I wanted to share my response to that, with regards to Tamara and the AU nature of this story:
First of all, I apologise. I unreservedly do.
If this explanation helps, here it is, but feel free to ignore it, because I know intent is not a magic wand. I just wanted to make clear my conscious intent in 'using' Tamara in this way.
I needed, because this story was started way before Miller's Daughter, for Cora to die in a way that wasn't at Snow or Neal's hand - because both of them are directly in Emma's life in the story, and I can't see Regina (much like on the show) going anywhere near Emma while that's the case. Snow killing Cora is a major setback for Swan Queen, and so I stuck with my AU and created a different sequence of events.
Tamara was an addition made while I was editing the story and Cora dying by draining of magic seemed like an appealing way to tie up that loose end - I wasn't happy with the alternatives I had already tried, but it's in no way the focus of or really anything to do with this story. It's an aside, not because I don't like Tamara or dismiss her because of her race/gender, but rather because it's simply a canon fact I needed to establish, but not go on a tangent to explain in any depth. It's, for example, what I wish the show had done to tell us a bunch of backstories we don't need: Nova, Grumpy, Tiny, Frankenstein's brother, James, Jacqueline, etc.
In the same way that I might reference a traumatic event in Regina or Emma's past but not expand upon it.
Tamara deserves her own stories, I completely agree. But in this AU, she and Cora did meet, it's simply not the focus of the story. To my mind, defeating Cora in a non-cowardly way could actually be considered an heroic act, since Cora was dangerous, and that's why Tamara is mentioned as banished and not killed. Also, I hate Snow with the heat of a nova, so any absolution here is just to keep her whiny ass out of my story more than strictly necessary.
Despite all that, I do see how it could read the way you said and I apologise for the hurt and offence caused. I hope my explanation can be taken as a genuine attempt to shed some light on my thinking, and not as an excuse.