I'm back! I have been away for a couple of weeks but I am now ready to fully immerse myself in this story. There should only be a short wait for the chapter that follows this one- I am writing as much as I can today! Thank you for the continued support.

Chapter 6

Then there is a knock and Leopold himself is calling through the door, demanding his prisoner.

There is a splinter of silence before Emma's eyes flash threatening purple: a sudden injection of venom that craves pain. She stalks towards the door and, with the young queen watching in flabbergasted amazement, Regina extends her fingertips and momentarily stupefies Emma in to a standstill. All the happiness that has settled atop the trio beforehand has evaporated; eradicated by anger, fear and regret (the latter being Regina's).

"Emma." She says it carefully enough as not to shatter the fragile shell of the Dark One, yet stern enough to penetrate through it and find… "Emma." Responding to her name the second time, the blonde pivots to face Regina. Tiny dark sparks dart tangibly around her arms, fusing together in a majestic display of power. And fear. Even now, with a heart marred by darkness, Emma is radiant. A supernova: a collision of everything dangerous and beautiful. Unstoppable. Regina's eyes have a tenacious grip on the bright fireworks that are Emma's own. She cannot stop her. You cannot stop the formation of galaxy. And Emma is just that- threatening to collapse in on herself over and over until she drains out. Emma Swan can never drain out. She can never lose her spark.

"Do you really think I can let this… this animal use you over and over again?" she snarls back.

"Used," Regina whispers. "Not anymore."

"No!" snaps Emma, gesturing wildly towards Regina's frightened younger self. "What about her? What about you, Regina? Do you really think you deserve any of this? I'll kill him. You cannot stop me! No one can stop me." She growls her last line, eyes a haze of fierce protection. Regina is momentarily taken aback. Emma is so angry, shaking whilst magic courses through the veins of her humanity. Emma is so angry because… because… she refuses to succumb to the thought. Her focus needs to be here.

"Emma if you change history, this history, you won't ever have been born. Henry won't ever have been born." Regina is pleading here: pleading with the power of the darkest sorceress, attempting to uncover the beauty that is shielded by the darkest of fates.

Emma raises her arms and Regina winces. "I'll find you," Emma says coolly before swallowing herself in a tangle of dark lines. Relief floods Regina's senses in an instant. She had found her, Emma, she had found her spark.

"Regina, what on earth is going on in there?" His voice is like a stone, shedding fear over both the remaining women. The brunette straightens and smooths over her dress. It is only as she makes for the door that she remembers the sheltering ghost in the corner.

"Why does Emma have dark magic?" The question is so timid, yet threaded with something that sounds like doubt.

"Regina? I'm coming in!" His voice is louder now, even more threatening as she hears the door creak open. And suddenly he is there. His presence is all consuming, expanding rapidly in the door frame. Her heart begins to proliferate as he stares at her, finding her. She feels naked under his gaze, bruised and scarred from years of pain that have only just started to heal. Something shrinks away from him within her. Something that is now a tangible figure of the past, cowering in to the deepest crevice she can find in the chamber… inside herself.

Regina hears the young queen's sharp intake of breath as Leopold does, his eyes narrowing immediately in suspicion. She shakes her head, "I am feeling unwell. I will come to you later… at dusk."

He's smirking at her, disbelieving. She braces herself for her next words, "I want you to leave. Now."

And he does.

…

"How can you stand up to him like that?" The young queen still remains in her corner. She wears Emma's jacket like a shield. Afraid.

Regina presents her with a sad smile, "You'll soon learn that power is merely a facade, my dear."

"You never did answer my question… about Emma?"

She struggles with her words as they feel alien on her tongue. "Emma has… is… Emma has become the Dark One."

The expression that shrouds the reigning queen's features emulates Regina's own: despair. She is shaking her head, refusing to believe that someone so obviously good now bares the label of the antithesis of this. Regina moves to crouch down to her former self's eye line and clutches both of the young woman's delicate hands.

"Emma is strong. I'm strong. We're strong. Emma became the Dark One to save me." Regina has never admitted that statement aloud before. And now it inflates her head with a giddy happiness, elation that Emma, Emma, sacrificed herself. "We are here to save Emma."

"And save me?" the young queen is gazing at her with such naivety that Regina almost lets out a sob.

"No. We can't save you, I'm sorry. You're so important to… to everything. It does get better, I promise you," the words come out in a series of robotic pulses, willing her past self to believe it.

And because she is a queen and has had her love ripped from her very grasp, and because she is fuelled with proliferating anger towards a young princess who destroyed her happiness, and because she is a prisoner of her own prison, Regina's former self straightens and says, "Tell me what I have to do."

…

Dusk is settling over the kingdom and Regina is pacing her bed chambers. The young queen is sitting elegantly atop of the balcony rail, careful not to fall, humming to herself as she watches her older model. Where is Emma? She'll find us when? Stupid, immature Emma! Why can't she just obey instructions!

"You should not stress so much, Regina," the queen states primly, shaking her head disapprovingly. "Mother would tell you to smooth over the lines immediately or it will-"

"-Marr your beauty. Yes, I am quite aware." She is snapping back, worried for Emma and the enormity of what she has to endure shortly. How she cannot fail.

Regina had explained to the young queen that she must stay out of sight when she demands her to, yet listen in very carefully to the conversation. "It is imperative that you follow the instructions that I am given by Rumplestiltskin. This changes everything and effectively writes your future, my history. I am recreating the scene that you would have been in and I was in. Nothing will be different so your destiny will remain. Do you understand?" Her former self had nodded her clarity.

"I get the impression that this is quite monumental for us both?" young Regina sighs, swinging her legs a little before remembering her position in royalty.

"Well if you call shaping the past and present monumental then yes, I'd say so," she mutters back grimly.

"You are quite fond of Emma, are you not?"

Regina swivels round to face the teenager, eyes narrowing at her accusingly. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"You look at her with such happiness when she laughs and such pain when you remember her fate. As does she, with pain like she knows that she will hurt you and hates to think of it." She speaks so wisely, each word tinged with both sadness and hope. "I cannot wait to love her."

Regina opens her mouth then remembers there are no words to say. He eyes flutter shut for a moment as she feels the knowing gaze of the past on her face. Then she climbs in to her bed and awaits the knocks that follow. The little girl calling for her step mother, the guards becoming increasingly agitated and then…

"Today is Daniel's birthday," young Regina whispers from behind the curtain that shields the balcony.

The older brunette nods, then remembers she cannot be seen and says, "Yes. I believe that is why we have ignored the knocks on the door." She hears a sigh in response.

"The king is most upset, dearie!"

Rumplestiltskin's words startle Regina. A tiny tremor begins in her finger tips as she tries to silence the sputtering of magic beneath the bed linen. Do what you have to do.

"I don't have a lesson today, Rumple. What are you doing here?" Her words are knitted together. She's doing it wrong. She can't go wrong.

"Paying you a little surprise visit! I have a rather exciting proposition for my young queen," he trills, giggling with the excitement of his knowledge… knowledge that Regina shares also.

"A deal?" she says innocently and regrets the words as Rumple's mouth twists. Foolish.

"Something like that, yes," his eyes are glittering wickedly and Regina hates him, hates him.

"What is it you seek?" she snaps at him, irritated at his tangible enjoyment.

"Oh nothing much, dearie. Nothing that you would miss," Rumple squeals, his hands clasped tightly in anticipation for his next words, "I want you to kill the King!"

Regina pretends to evaluate his proposal, urging Rumple to ensue his persuasiveness.

"You would be free, Regina. Free to roam around the castle. Free to mourn your poor twoo love," Rumple whimpers the last line, mockingly.

"Free to rule," breathes a voice laced with excitement… a voice behind the curtain.

If Rumple notices that the words do not come out of the woman's mouth in front of him, he doesn't acknowledge it, much to Regina's relief. "And in return I will help you exact vengeance on the princess, the beloved Snow White."

"Yes! Yes! I will," Regina clothes her tone with false excitement, emulating the desire she once had. The desire that the other figure in the chamber still clings to so vehemently.

Rumple giggles, "So eager, my young queen! Alas, you must wait. In several years from now, a foreigner will enter this kingdom and seek your love. You will use this genie to silence Leopold and then, and only then, will the beginnings of your evil reign and the princess' death commence!"

And suddenly she is a young queen again, poisoned by that one word: "Evil? I'm not evil! My mother was evil, not I!"

"No Regina, you're not evil. But that is only because of one simple fact: evil is not born, dearie, it is made."

And with that she is left with an empty silence- a combined void of the past and the present as the weight of Rumple's words ignite entirely different emotions on both the ghost and the flesh.