Regina settled in her backyard to pull weeds from her flowerbeds, stopping occasionally to prune a dead stem or a wayward leaf. She had been working on her yard since returning from dropping Henry at school that morning, and, once she began, she had decided to make a day of it.
What had started out as a simple chore to fill her time had turned into a semi meditation. She allowed the soundtrack that was quietly playing in the background from the speakers strategically installed on her back porch to fill her thoughts with varying images of both of her lives interlaced with visuals the songs brought from the story in which the music came. In time, her playlist had found its way to the soundtrack of Les Miserables, and it quietly seeped through the peacefulness of her bubble. It was sad, often heart-wrenching, and completely painful.
She found she cried, and she found she didn't care. She cried often now, and, though the tears were normally from pain, this time they were simply cathartic, so she let them fall as she systematically went through the motions of tending to her flowers and ornate bushes that surrounded her house and fence line.
Time passed, but time was irrelevant to her. In the former mayor's world, time didn't matter because she had no one to keep a schedule for and no reason to keep a schedule of her own, so she tended to her yard as one would tend to something as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world.
So hyper-focused was she that she didn't hear the approaching footsteps until they were too close to bother to care about. Instead of acknowledging her unwanted guest, she focused on tending to the flowers before her.
"Don't you thinking listening to 'One Day More' is a little melodramatic, even for you?" Mary Margaret's voice cut through Regina's solitude.
"I think that what I choose to listen to is of no concern to you, Ms. Blanchard, and I would appreciate it if you'd leave my property immediately." The older woman kept her eyes on her work.
"I'm not leaving until you tell me what you're up to." The smaller woman crossed her arms and looked down at the woman still on the ground. "No one else is here. It's just you and me, and I think it's time you told me the truth instead of trying to win Emma's sympathies by playing her emotions."
Regina's jaw flexed and her muscles tightened. Carefully, she turned to look up at the woman attempting to tower above her. "If you're here to try to force me to admit to something of which I have no intention or desire to do, then you are wasting your time. The sheriff is here of her own accord. I have nothing to do with it. In fact," she said as she stood up and dusted the dirt from her clothes, "I understand it was your actions, not mine, that have Ms. Swan choosing to stay somewhere other than yours and David Nolan's happy little home. So, if there's anyone you want to speak with regarding your sudden decline in the number of people occupying that little box you call an apartment, perhaps you should start by talking to yourself."
With a quirk of her eyebrow and a smirk on her lips, Regina walked past Mary Margaret and toward her tool shed to put her tools up for the evening. It was clearly getting later in the afternoon, and the former mayor had no plans to be grimy and unkempt should the sheriff decide to stay another night. After all, it irritated the young blonde to no end that Regina always looked perfectly put together, and the former queen had no intention of breaking that level of irritation and giving Emma Swan ammunition for later.
"What happens in our home is none of your business, Regina," Mary Margaret snapped as she followed behind.
"I would say the same thought applies to you as well, Ms. Blanchard." Regina began to carefully clean her tools with the garden hose by the shed. "You are not welcome here. I'll ask you again, nicely. Please leave my property."
"I've already told you that I'm not leaving until you tell me why you're doing this to us, to my family. Haven't you done enough? Haven't you destroyed enough lives? Caused enough devastation?" The younger woman's eyes were wide with her anger, and her hands clenched at her sides. "Why can't you leave me and my family alone?"
"I believe we've already had this discussion, and it didn't turn out well for you, if I recall correctly." With an eerie calm, Regina dried each piece of equipment before placing it in its designated location in the shed. "This time, there is no sheriff or Prince Charming to save you."
The smaller woman stepped up, coming completely into the other woman's personal space. "I'm not afraid of you, Regina, and I will protect my family."
The older woman's eyes had grown frigid, and her face displayed no emotion. When she finally spoke, after giving the smaller woman a long, cool look, her voice was just as chilly as her demeanor. "Yes," she said with a touch of velvet in the acrid harshness of her voice, "I know you would at least try to, dear, but," she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, "at what cost?"
"Whatever it takes," Mary Margaret answered without hesitation.
They silently stood-off against each other. Neither was willing to back down, but neither was willing to move forward, and the situation suddenly struck Regina with the odd analogy of what was now her life.
She began to chuckle, which turned into a harsh and mirthless laugh. The bitter laughter unsettled the other woman, who finally took a much needed step back, face full of confusion.
"Go home, Ms. Blanchard," Regina said though her chuckles of self pity. "I am doing nothing more than what I've told you, which is to try to be a better person for Henry. Luckily for you, that means I won't risk doing anything to harm what little respect my son has for me. Go back to your true love and your happy home, and, when your daughter has calmed down, I'm sure she'll no doubt leave me and return to you with Henry in tow."
"Are you trying to throw me off guard?" The younger woman's eyes narrowed. "It's not that easy."
"No," Regina finally calmed down, wiping at her face with one dirty hand and managing to leave smudges of dirt across it, "I'm well aware of how difficult it is to keep you from your goals. However, my goals have nothing to do with you or yours. At least, they no longer are so intertwined." She closed the shed and locked it, pocketing the key.
Mary Margaret stepped into Regina's path to the back door. "Then let Emma and Henry come home."
"I am not forcing them to stay here," the older woman said with a roll of her eyes. "Whatever issues you have with your daughter are none of my concern. I suggest you take them up with her and leave me out of it."
"You are my problems with my daughter," the other woman lashed out, anger filling her words. "You're the reason we're in this mess, you're the reason Emma and I are fighting right now, and you're the reason why I can't get to my daughter. You're the problem here, Regina. You've been the problem for almost three decades. I should have," Mary Margaret stopped herself. She was clearly shocked by what was about to come from her mouth, and she placed her hand over it as if to keep the words from accidentally tumbling out.
"You should have what?" Regina lifted an eyebrow in a dare. "What should you have done? Hmm? Let me guess." Her voice was all Evil Queen. "You should have let your little squad of archers kill me when you had the chance? You should never have spared my life? Is that what you meant to say?"
"No," the younger woman shook her head. "No, that's not it. I'm not like you, Regina. I don't kill people. I'm not a murder."
"If that's what you think," Regina snarled, "then you are truly delusional. You killed or allowed to be killed just as many people as I. Your reasons may have been 'good', but the outcome was all the same. How many of my men did your people put to death because they refused to cooperate with you? How many of my loyal subjects did you subject to methods that would make this world's agencies cringe in horror because you were trying to coerce them into telling you my secrets? How many?"
Regina stepped closer to her adversary. "Do not lie to me, Snow White," she spit the name out. "I know who you are, I know what you've done, and you cannot lie to me. You and I," her voice practically slithered around the other woman, "are far more alike than we are different, and your threats are of no consequence to me." She tilted her head back to look down her nose at the smaller woman. "Ms. Swan is a free agent. She will do, say, and learn what she pleases. I will not lie to her for you or anyone else, and, if your fear is that your daughter learns the whole truth from all sides, then I suggest you prepare for the worse because I assure you, dear, I will tell her everything she wants to know. You've given away your hand. You don't want her to know the whole truth. I will see that she does because you wish it to not be so."
"You don't know what you're talking about, Regina." Mary Margaret took another step back.
"Don't I?" Smirking, Regina pulled her work gloves off and held them in one hand, letting her free hand drop casually to her side.
"I'm warning you," the pixie haired brunette said in her best menacing voice. "If you hurt them in anyway before Emma comes to her senses and comes back home, I will make you pay."
"So you say," Regina replied in a suddenly mild tone. "If you'll excuse me, I need to freshen up before Henry gets home." Her smirk turned fiendish as she added, "Have a nice evening, Ms. Blanchard." With a final look that spoke volumes about the information she planned to tell Emma the next time they were alone together, Regina turned and walked into her home, leaving the other woman alone outside.
Mary Margaret let out a frustrated sigh as she ran a hand through her hair and the last melodic strings of the reprise of "Do You Hear the People Sing" filled the quiet of the backyard.
