HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN! So I decided to do something special for you since this is technically your first birthday that I've been friends with you so, with a lot of help from some friends, we wrote you a bunch of mini fics to one shots to ficlets on a whole range of your favorite Once characters. Have an absolutely fantastic, amazing, awesome, hilarious magical birthday you lovely lady. You absolutely deserve it you Emma Swan you ;) Hope you like them!

8. In a last ditch attempt to get rid of Emma, Regina casts a spell that turns back time. Emma hasn't come to Storybrooke yet. But now, Regina is stuck in the same loop, and this time, unless she goes loooking for her, Emma might never arrive.

Written by: Lisa

In an act of desperation, at three in the morning, she snaps.

Regina sat up slowly in bed, unblinking as she dressed herself as quietly as she could manage so as to not wake Henry. The clock's brilliantly luminescent display hurt her eyes. She grabbed her phone, slipped her shoes on and padded down the hall.

She peeked into Henry's room, really looking to make sure he hadn't abandoned her again.

He was sound asleep.

Regina left.

"Can you do this?"

"It will require a lot of my precious resources. And let me tell you, most of them are rather hard to come by here on Earth."

"Do it. At whatever cost."

"Oh, I'm completely willing. The question is, Your Majesty: are you willing to foot the bill?"

"I know this is a massive undertaking and I understand that the risks could be huge. But if anybody could make this work, it's you. I just… I want her gone."

"As you wish. Tomorrow morning, everything will be as it was. Just you wait and see."

When Regina woke up the next morning, she remembered Emma Swan. The anguish and hatred that welled up was quashed and replaced with a split second of mind-numbing fear.

Graham Humbert was in her bed.

He sighed sleepily and moved his head a little, and settled.

He was alive. That was… an unforeseen development.

Regina climbed out of bed and examined her belongings. She looked out the window. People moved down below. People she hated. People she wanted dead.

But… they were moving. She knew those patterns, those little tells. They were stuck again. Stuck, like winding gears without the metal chains threaded between them to make the big seething machine go. She looked up at the clock.

Eight-fifteen.

Her heart leapt a little with joy.

"Regina?" Graham muttered, his accent slurring the words together. Regina went back to him and nudged his shoulder until he sleepily opened his eyes and made vague sounds of protest about being dragged back to the land of the living.

"Where is Miss Swan?" Regina asked carefully. Graham furrowed his brows a little as he stared up at her.

"Sorry, who?" he asked, shifting around. Regina felt her pulse quicken. Triumph was slowly closing in, and oh, how she had missed winning.

"Emma Swan. The woman who arrived in that tacky yellow buggy. Blonde hair, tall, twenty-eight years old?"

"Haven't seen her," Graham replied, "Why, is it important? Want me to look around for her? Is she in Storybrooke?"

"No," Regina replied, genuinely smiling for the first time in years, "No, it's fine. She's not here, it wasn't important… She's not here."

Graham made coffee and then let himself out.

"Henry," Regina asked as she picked him up from school, Mary Margaret slinging her bag over her shoulder and lost in her own world, "Have you spoken to Emma today?"

Henry looked up at her, clearly puzzled.

"Who?' He asked.

Regina hugged him tight and bought him dinner out that night.

A week passed. And yet it was the exact same day.

Regina felt the familiar feeling settle into her ribcage. The need to split out of her own skin and fly far, far away from the say day, stuck on replay forever and ever.

Henry was obedient. Mary Margaret cowered away from her whenever Regina bumped into her. David Nolan was cold and immobile on a hospital bed.

Nobody else knew.

Nothing happened. Ever.

A year passed.

On the anniversary of Regina's triumph, she went to the bathroom long after Graham had fallen asleep and stifled her sobs into a towel.

"I'm leaving. For a little while."

Henry looked up from his project and blinked in surprise.

"What? Why?" he asked.

"I have some business there," Regina replied, her voice far away and disconnected, "I need to consult somebody about a problem."

"Well… how long will you be gone? What'll I do?"

Regina swallowed. Henry hadn't been right since the curse. He wasn't curious, he wasn't heroic. He didn't go looking for answers, he wasn't particularly resourceful. He wasn't fiercely independent and her beacon, her only remaining moral compass. He was just… a normal boy.

Regina missed her real son dearly.

"You'll stay with Ruby and her grandmother at their place for a few nights," Regina said, "Pack your things."

She got one last hug from Henry and drove away, unsure if she'd even make it over the town line without dying.

"Emma Swan?"

The words came out on autopilot. Emma blinked, looking Regina up and down.

"Yeah? What can I do for you?"

"I- you see, I- I mean- may I come in?"

After a moment of examining her – a moment without a trace of recognition – Emma let her in.

And in that moment, Regina understood.

She was never meant to win.

Her whole existence was blackened beyond repair, and it was up to her now to choose the method of slowly dying on the inside. She could almost hear Gold's snide voice. Pick your poison, dearie.

They talked long into the night.

Regina lied through her teeth.

Anything to set things back into motion. Anything to leave that rotting, stagnant existence. Even if it meant… losing.

Emma came back to Storybrooke with her the next day.

Eye contact.

That's all it took.

The minute Emma and Henry lay eyes on each other, they remembered.

"Mom?"

"Oh my God, Henry!"

Everything moved. Everything advanced.

Regina felt her heart collapse in on itself.

The end, she thought dreamily as she watched Henry clutch to his mother with all his might.