After the curse breaks she's hugging Henry's pillow and crying, crying because she almost killed her little boy over a petty feud. Because she thought her son's heart wasn't big enough to love them both together.
Because Emma crashed through every single carefully-built wall around her heart. And left a hole behind, a hole shaped just like her, convenient for a quick exit.
She is sure she will face the Savior in the prophesied Final Battle, and she'll-
(the knocking on the door sounds like funeral drums. when else is one supposed to indulge in a little morbidity?)
She gathers herself up. She will die as she lived, as the Evil Queen. She doesn't have anything to live for, not now.
She rallies her Charming family behind her, protects her, and jumps through the hat to a realm that no longer exists.
(Emma brings back her magic. This is not to be dwelled upon.)
Regina can only thank god the genetic idiocy seems to have skipped Henry.
Maybe nurture prevails over nature.
And maybe her curse is to love each and every generation of the Charmings, no matter how blinding the light is from where she stands.
Again and again she wakes up to soft lips being dragged down her spine. Ghost lips. They leave her hollow when she wakes up, but they're still better than the dreams with the smell of burning flesh and a screaming Henry, or the ones where they keep running faster and faster away from her.
She shakes herself and works on her promise to Henry. She will get her back if its the last thing she does.
Her mark didn't fade when Daniel died.
She guesses it's because she was destined to bring him back like this. More than dead, less than alive. Bring him back so she would have to kill him herself.
(She is afraid to look at her mark after that.)
When her mark first came in, Mother made sure to introduce her to all the suitable matches by her name, first. Hoping that such a brazen form of address meant a match made above her station.
(Daniel's mark just said You)
(But they'd loved each other for so long before either of their marks came in, it didn't matter. They couldn't really remember what they'd said when they met.)
(Comfort under Mother's onslaught. How else were soulmates supposed to feel?)
Leopold's first words to her were "No. I should bow to you.", not, "Regina".
(Emma's was "Hi.")
In the Enchanted Forest, the words were supposed to be written by fairies, when humans were sleeping. There were legends of a dwarf who fell in love his fairy, because she was muttering the words as she wrote them, and they were the first he heard.
It was said the faeries started to hide under invisibility after that.
(It was sometimes said the dwarf and the fairy were punished, and couldn't be together.)
Regina was the one Snow ran to find when her Show your face, coward appeared on her forearm.
Her parents had married despite other markings, so Snow hadn't grown up hearing tales of soul mates, hadn't known, until Regina told her.
Regina's information comes from Daniel, from the scullery maid and from the village girls before she is told a proper lady oughtn't gallivant about with them. Later, her knowledge comes from Mother, always Mother, teaching her about freedom, escape and having a choice. About words that never fit, because soulmates were never meant to be prisons..
She gets her back. She absorbs the spell so her son can reunite with his mother, and leave her gasping, aching, and alone by the well.
(Now she has to get him back. From her.)
The phone ringing wakes her up, and she's not sure who she is. Or where, or when.
The phone. Maybe Henr-
"Regina?"
"What do you want?"
"Hey. Are you okay? You don't sound okay."
"I'm tired, Ms Swan. What do you want?"
"Right, sorry. Everyone wants to celebrate us getting back, at Granny's later today."
"I fail to see what this has to do with me."
"I was hoping you could come to the party," and then a hastily added, "Henry will be there."
"Oh." For a moment she's lost for words, so she seizes upon the first thing that, "Should I bring anything?"
"Uh. Henry's asking if you would bring make the lasagna he likes?"
"I can do that."
"Good. I'll see you tonight?"
"Yes. Goodbye."
The bedroom window remains unlatched, but untouched.
Regina can't really blame her. Running, always running, even with the mark she tries to hide.
Henry doesn't want to see her. She hopes it's because he's not allowed to see her.
(She hopes her boy is given all that he wants, all he deserves. She hopes Ms Swan can be the mother he needs.)
She is accused of crimes she never committed. She might be a monster, but she's a monster on the mend. She thought the two of them could see that.
Sometimes she wishes Daniel wasn't her soulmate.
That they're still out there, waiting to sweep her off her feet.
But she wouldn't want to curse someone with her writing, branding them for life.
(maybe unless she really, really hated them)
Then she remembers Daniel again.
Mother dies.
(If she has nobody, why be good?)
The torture, at least, is based on her fault. For killing her father, she must go through pain.
No, for killing her mother.
No, the boy's father.
That isn't right, Henry doesn't have a father. He has Emma.
Something about Emma-?
She isn't sure anymore. She closes her eyes. It must be time.
Snow is sitting by the bedside, eyes too understanding for her comfort, when she comes to.
(Everything Regina felt, she felt. Regina wants to inexplicably avert her eyes. )
She tries to say something about love, before Emma comes bursting in with the pirate, something about and earthquake, and the failsafe.
When she goes to meet her death this time, there's more fueling her than just desperate bravado.
And Emma Swan's mark will fade once she's dead.
She will find someone she isn't bound to, someone who she's not ashamed of, someone who deserves her.
(She is tired, so tired, why won't they let her die?)