A/N: The song for this chapter is "Any Other World," by MIKA. You can listen to it on YouTube. Just add /watch?v=As61-cmK4OI after the YouTube URL.

Emma is looking at her like she can't quite believe what is happening, which Regina thinks is kind of idiotic, all things considered. For the child of two fairy tale characters, she can be awfully slow to accept things. But Regina remembers what it was like as a girl, lost and alone, desperate for her mother's love, staring disbelievingly up at Cora brushing off her hands of the dust of Daniel's heart like the residue didn't represent the end of everything Regina had ever wanted, and she thinks that maybe she and Emma are not so different after all.

"We have no choice. You have to go."

And Emma looks at her, just looks at her for a long moment, and at the same time that Regina is thinking that there isn't time, there's no time, she's also thinking that she almost wishes this moment could go on forever.

But then Emma speaks, shattering the illusion, and Regina is thrust back into the reality of the situation. "Okay."

And then she is saying goodbye to her parents, and Henry is looking at her with those same baleful eyes, blaming himself, and of all the things that have happened today, she thinks that this one is the one that she is least able to bear. "It wasn't your fault," she tells him. "It's mine. I cast a curse out of vengeance. And I'm… I'm a villain. And you heard Mr. Gold. Villains don't get happy endings."

"You're not a villain. You're my mom." And Regina swears that she can feel the exact moment that her heart breaks. Because Henry's mom is all she has ever wanted to be for the past 11 years, and she has done it without recognition, without ever wanting anything but to see Henry smile, and here he is, her little boy, her baby, wiping away the wrongs of the past 46 years of her life and leaving her as just Regina, and she doesn't know for sure, but she thinks that it feels a little bit like redemption.

And then Emma is walking away, and Regina is chasing after her because there's so much left to say, so much she still has to tell her. "Emma. There's something I haven't told you yet."

"What now?" And she knows, then, that Emma is already at her breaking point, already about to snap under the weight of this newfound burden, and Regina, just Regina, isn't cruel enough to add even more for her own selfish relief. So she swallows down the words she was going to say and instead tells her a half truth. "We just go back to being stories again."

"That doesn't sound like much of a happy ending."

And Regina laughs, short and strangled, because if she doesn't, she knows she will cry. "It's not. But I can give you one."

She takes Emma's hand and holds it, grounding herself to this conversation, this moment. "My gift to you is good memories… a good life for you… and Henry. You'll have never given him up. You'll have always been together." She feels her face crumpling with the force of the words she is not saying.

"You would do that?" The quiet question brings her back to reality. It is said in the voice of a girl who never had anyone do anything just for her, only ever had incidental kindnesses thrown her way like occasional scraps to a mutt under the kitchen table. It is said in the voice of a girl who only ever knew it was her birthday because the calendar said so and only ever knew it was Christmas because the truancy officer didn't come after her for not being in school. It is said in the voice of a girl that Regina recognizes, and she thinks that her heart just might break all over again.

"When I stop Pan's curse and you cross that town line, you will have the life you always wanted." It is a poor comfort, but it is all that Regina has to give.

"But it won't be real." And Emma is holding back tears, now, too.

"Well, your past won't. But your future will. Now go. There isn't much time left, and the curse will be here any minute." And the words sound like something else entirely.

Emma looks at her like she holds all the answers, and it makes Regina want to squirm underneath her gaze because she doesn't. She doesn't have the answers to anything. So she pulls Henry to her, kisses his forehead so she doesn't have to look at Emma looking at her.

And then Emma is gone, and so is Henry, and Regina is left alone like she has always been, like she will always be, watching her happiness drive away in a yellow Volkswagen Bug and wondering how she will ever bear to live a half-life now that she has had the taste of a full one.

A/N: Although I've been writing fanfiction for several years now, this is my very first OUaT fic, so feel free to let me know if the characterizations I've got going on are wrong or if there was something you didn't like. I'll never improve without your help.

Also, obligatory comment about how the version of this story on AO3 is more complete because it contains the song lyrics I drew on. It's under the same username.

Thanks for reading!