Author's note: This chapter has not been betaed, so all mistakes are mine.
Thank you all for the alerts and the reviews. I hope you enjoy this even if only half as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
Much Love
Jane
Chapter 1
This is a love story and it began, once upon a time at 8.15. It was 8.15 Storybrook time which is to say that it was a whole time zone of its own since no one had ever seen anything else on the town clock- nor any other clock or watch. It bothered no one. They were hardwired- spellbound, if you like- for compliance. No one could quite remember being younger or being any other way other than what they were now. You see, time was not the only thing that did not change. People did not change. No one grew up, no one grew old. And no one died. No was born either. It was designed that way. Everything stayed the same. The seasons passed them but the years did not.
Until the day Madam Mayor Regina Mills grew tired of the sameness and wished for a child. But no one was born in Storybrook. Being mayor of the town made her no different from anyone else. She could not conceive or birth a child. Except that she knew it– she was the only one who knew that nothing ever changed. It was a special brand of hell to which she was doomed.
She desired that child with every fibre of her being. And one day, she sold the last little bit of herself to ensure it would happen. She struck a deal. Which was when she realised that, even if she had not been the only one in Storybrook that knew how things never changed, she still did not have a single person to share that loneliness with. It made her long for that child even more.
She did not stop to question whether she could afford the terms of the deal. She had money- which she could pay. Anything else had already been taken from her, so there was nothing she would miss.
How wrong was she.
.
.
How quickly can an army be raised out of villagers? In no time, it seemed.
They came for her at dawn when Regina still lay in Emma's arms. For the very first time she felt happy. She had a heart to feel happy with. And arms that held her and were never letting go. That all elusive happiness that had escaped since those shy kisses with Daniel by the creek was in her now. And it refused to give way to fear or experience. She was happy.
In her sleep, Emma tightened her arms around her, a haven safe from harm. And then they were on them. There were hands prying them apart and words spat at her and she was pulled from happiness as surely as from that embrace.
You can't trust happiness.
The last thing she heard were Emma's screams as her hands tried to hold on to Emma's fingers.
.
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The child was brought to her- a baby boy - and that very first night she fell in love. Or as much in love as she could be. She spent the night with the child in her arms, wondering how it could be that someone did not want that baby, so perfect, so untouched by everything evil and corrupt. As she smelled his hair and admired his tiny fingers gripping around hers, she swore that no harm would come to him. That she would be his mother, his guardian, his dragon. She named him Henry.
Henry was all that there was good about her, about her life. Her greatest achievement, her crown of glory. Henry was her heart.
And then, one day, he was gone- even though he was still there. Her son was different. He hated her. She could not think of what she had done. She raked her brain. What had she said? What had she done? What had she refused him?
She couldn't recall a single whim she had not indulged.
But Henry was gone standing right there. Until one day that absence was physical and he did not come down for breakfast. She knew from the first moment something was wrong. A mother knows these things. They just do. She called the Sheriff once she had run the house with a fine tooth comb. They searched the town, the beach, the woods. They called and knocked on doors. Henry was not in Storybrook.
And she was imprisoned there. Because no one ever left or arrived in Storybrook. Her son was gone and she could not follow. She could not go to him and save him if saving was required.
She had never felt so helpless.
He returned. Henry returned to Storybrook. Though when she opened the door and flew to him, even though he was standing right there, he still had not come back to her.
"I found my real mom!"
.
.
Regina was marched through the streets in her night clothes, her skin rapidly losing the warmth Emma's touch had created in her. If this had happened a few hours before she would not have been afraid. There been, after all, very little left by way of encouragement to endure. Material things could not, after all, persuade a soul to stay. Hansel and Gretel had made that abundantly clear.
But now? She felt like she still had things unlived. Now, she knew there was something for her, light and warm and she was about to lose it even before she'd had a half decent chance at happiness. She did what she always did when she was terrified: she put on her stoic mask and raised her chin high. Which was the same as screaming out loud Do your worse!
.
.
Henry had her. He had her now. The one had not wanted him. She hated the woman right there and then. She hated her on Henry's behalf because how could you not want him? How could you not cherish him and love him. She knew. Of course she knew that if the woman had wanted Henry, he would have not been her son. And she could not even conceive her life without him. But she hated the woman just the same.
Though it was difficult. It was so very difficult because desperate souls recognize each other. And hers recognized a desperate soul in Emma Swan's. As sure as the time that did not change in Storybrook.
It was just that hate was such a safe, well trodden path.
It broke Emma a little to see the woman run out of the house only to be shunned by the kid. The tears were real enough. The trembling of the hands and of the lips. Emma knew. She had a supper power- her one ability in life- to know when people were lying. This woman was the real deal. A mother through and through. The fact that she had never had one did not incapacitate her to judge. It just made it more clear. This was a mom.
So it broke her heart on the woman's behalf to see the kid trample all over hear heart as if what she offered was unrequired and insulting. She wanted to berate him, to tell him Hey kid, be thankful for what you got here because some of us spent a life time waiting for it and it never arrived. Be thankful because I could not have given this to you.
.
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Do you know how a single twig can be broken with not much more than a thought but a bunch a twigs is unbreakable? Emma screamed till she was hoarse, held back by Ruby and Leroy and Michael and Granny. She shook them off and fought, scratched and bit. Their hold on her was relentless.
"Princess." It was that word out of Granny's mouth more than anything that stilled her.
"What?"
"The curse, Emma…" There was no need for any more words. No, none at all.
In the end, it took one word from her. On word only: "Please" and they released her so far as the window.
Outside, Regina was frog marched with her hands tied behind her back, barefoot. But with her head held high in defiance.
She had never seemed quite so beautiful to Emma.
.
.
She cringed because she saw the woman pull a mask over her face as if that rebuttal of her love had not crushed her. She invited her into her home, a welcome of sorts, like a wounded animal assessing the possibility of escaping. Or the need to attack to save itself.
Emma knew the feeling well. It was the law of the jungle and she had lived by it her whole life.
It seemed that Regina Mills had decided the threat was too great to not attack.
She used all she could to drive Emma Swan out of town. Out of her town. She had paid in blood for it so it was her town. She fought. She plotted. Not even terribly inventive plots, but she did what she could to get Henry's birth mother out. To neutralise the threat.
It was then she realised the price she would pay for her son. The cost of the deal, it seemed, was the only thing she had gained from it. She would lose her son, even with him standing right there.
But the more she struggled, the more she tried to hold on to her end of the bargain, the more the woman stuck her feet on the ground. It didn't occur to Regina until later that Emma should not have been able to come into Storybrook. The same way no one ever left, no one ever came in. And by then it was too late. Ms Swan had carved herself a little place to stay and people cared for her in a way that one ever had cared for Regina. And that was especially true when it came to Henry.
She realised that she could not- even if she tried- eradicate the threat because Henry was so rooted in that woman that she would drive him away if she tried. And she tried. Back then, she'd had no compunctions about eradicating such a great threat.
She lied, she cheated. And then, she killed.
.
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They missed the corner to the Sheriff's station. They made her walk out of town. She thought wildly they were going to hang her by the road. Her throat closed on her. She didn't get to say goodbye to Henry. But they didn't stop as they passed the first few oak trees. They just pushed her further when her steps began to falter, her feet bitten by the sharp sand and stones on the path they had taken to the old mine. It occurred to her they might just toss her down the shaft of the mine and be done with it. How would it feel? Would she have the time to feel anything? Would it be immediate or was that more than she deserved?
It seemed to her that she could see Graham above the entrance of the mine, his hands carelessly shoved in his pockets, his smile not at all different from before… before she had killed him. But when she looked again, he was not longer there.
And it felt lonely. She would die alone. Which was fitting because she had lived alone.
.
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Her fresh start, what she had paid so dearly for, was gone in a few words from Gold and few seconds of anger. She took the Hunter's heart in her hand and she squeezed the life out of him. She squeezed and reduced a good, kind heart to dust because Gold presented him as a threat. But it wasn't that at all, was it?
She cried over him. In the privacy of her room, in the dead of the night, she mourned the man who had been the only solace to her in Storybrook, the only one that had been brave enough to touch her, to put his hands on her and make the loneliness not so unbearable. She mourned the Hunter because she had killed him in a fit of jealousy, because he was leaving her for someone else, leaving her behind.
Leaving her behind and lone.
She hated Emma Swan more and more until it became unbearable and difficult to hold on to her mask of perfectly composed person. Her appearance to others was that of someone totally in control. But ever since Emma Swan had arrived in Storybrook, her life, her perfectly organised life, was a chaos of mending things that were fraying around the edges, trying to hold on rather than commanding.
She hated Emma. She hated her every day, devotedly, with commitment. Never more so when Emma was the one who came back for her, though the fire, to get her, to take her in her arms and save her. She just couldn't hate her perfectly. Henry, it seemed, had cast his own spell: his belief in Emma as the saviour became her own. Henry's need to break the curse became her own. No longer was she happy to hold on to Storybrook. She had tired of living a lie. Her perfectly ordered world was collapsing before her eyes, exposing the cracks in her life, the frayed tissue that lay underneath, all that was missing. While the curse had been untouched, she had been able to believe she was happy. After Emma, she could no longer believe. She found she could no longer carry on. Whatever a broken curse would bring, it was about time. She had stolen 28 years. It was time to pay the price for that time of respite.
Emma knew one fundamental thing about Regina Mills: she was dead inside though she was still alive. It tugged at her heart. It wasn't just Henry that made it impossible to leave.
She was a fighter. Not by choice but by life giving her so many opportunities to rise to the occasion. She lied to herself, first. That if she were to leave Henry with his legal mother she would have to make sure the woman was sane and a good mother and… well, OK, really. And Regina was so not OK, anything you said was an understatement.
One day she woke up and it was too much. A few deeds of misguided helpfulness and suddenly everyone wanted a hero. Everyone expected her to be a saviour from some sort of evil they could not quite identify. She had greatness thrust upon her but she'd be damned if she would take it.
She tried leaving.
.
.
"Please let me go" Emma was not above grovelling or crying if it had to be done. But it never came to it. The desolate tone had been sufficient for Ruby to relent.
"I hope you know what you're getting yourself into, Emma. They are not going to let her go. You better stay out of it."
"Would you, Ruby?"
"They'll kill you, too"
"Would you, Ruby?"
"I guess not"
But she didn't wait for the reply. She pushed onto her feet and ran down the staircase and through the empty streets, not quite knowing what she could or would do.
.
.
In the end, she had decided to leave without Henry, which was the natural order of things and the only thing she knew how to cope with. Henry would hate her for a little while but then he would get over it. And everybody else would get on with their lives, forget her in a little while. If she stayed she would be crushing Regina into dust. And that was not what good people did.
You just didn't.
It would never have occurred to her that Regina would sit in that oversized kitchen of hers and just listen. Actually listen. Emma proposed some sort of arrangement where Henry could perhaps visit her in Boston a few days of the year. Life in Storybrook would remain Emma free.
And then Regina got up, sliced apples, baked a turnover and placed it in a Tupperware in front of her.
"This used to be Henry's favourite." Emma took it as a statement of fact and nothing further. Like an offer to share information on their son over telephone calls in the future, when the longing became too great not to call. What she didn't get immediately was something else altogether different. "Make sure he brushes his teeth every night. He tries to get away with it, when he can." And still it did not sink in. Advice for the future, she thought. "I'm not what he needs, Miss Swan. I hope you're right and that you can be better for him than me." Regina turned on her heels and moved to the staircase. "I'll pack his things now" There was a crack in her voice, as if she was talking with something stuck in her throat. "I'll send the rest when you have a fixed address".
Realisation hit Emma like a sledgehammer. "You what?" She thought about all the mind games Regina could be playing with her now. But she did have that supper power of hers. And Regina was not lying.
"Madam Mayor…"
"I'll be right back" And she bounded up the stairs, no hint of the grace Regina did the smallest things with.
.
.
Emma saw them going into the old mine. Regina was no longer in sight. Her heart tightened in her chest. And then she saw Mary Margaret running. Only even by the way she was running, Emma could tell that was not Mary Margaret. Or no longer Mary Margaret.
This was Snow.
She feared her then. She knew Mary Margaret, the school teacher, who was kind and sweet. This was someone fierce and with purpose in her eyes. This was someone as regal as Regina. And probably, just as deadly.
But Snow did nothing more than grab her into a tight hold and murmur disconnected things and cry and laugh all at the same time.
"My Emma".
Emma was torn between the urgency of Regina's situation and having, for the very first time, the fierce love of a mother thrown her way. She gave into Snow's embrace for a few precious seconds. She wanted the words to come out of her mouth. She wanted to say Mom and have everything that had ever been wrong with her life right itself. At that moment, she was a child so desperately in need of her mother. And then she was Emma Swan again, and though she knew she would hurt her mother, she had to take a step back.
"They're going to kill her…"
"Who?" Snow had not given anyone else but her daughter a second thought.
"Regina" The very name was like a punch that sobered her up. "Please…"
"Emma…" But she took in her daughter's pained expression. "Ok… ok. " She took Emma's hand in hers filling her chest with air, she marched into the mine.
.
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Emma bounded up the stairs two, three steps at a time.
Regina had managed to compose her features and stop any tears that had wanted to fall.
"Lady, you have no heart." Regina did not reply. But Emma was beyond anything now. Storybrook was far too much. Momentarily, she lost it, she lost her grip on her temper. She pulled Regina by her arm and pushed her into a wall. "YOU. HAVE. NO. HEART" she spat each word. Her arms pressed Regina in a choke hold, and that's when she saw them, the tears burning like fire in Regina's black eyes.
"I really don't". Emma felt like she had never heard such a hurt sound. And then Regina took her hand and pressed it against her chest, where her heart should be beating. But there was nothing. Not even the faintest rumour.
"It's impossible" The only reply she got was the hand that Regina did not allow her to move. Emma tried to pull her hand, as you do when touching a scar or a wound or an amputated limb, in a sort of horror that is half disgust. But Regina did not let her pull away. Did not let that hand pull away until Emma's eye lids closed in acceptance.
"You need to take Henry. Please…"
Emma saw it then, that woman that had flown down to Henry when he'd first dragged her out here from Boston. Broken but with her mask in place. Emma wondered how an unbroken Regina would have looked like. That Regina before this one. No one was born like this.
"So Henry was… right?"
"About the Evil Queen? Yes. And about the curse. But I do love him. So, please, Ms Swan, take him away."
It was all too much to understand. All too big and exaggerated, like a pastiche of reality. Emma wanted to leave. Fast. "How?" Regina crumbled then, silently, until all that was left of her were broken jagged pieces on the floor of Henry's room. And that brought Emma back.
"I asked. I asked to have it removed."
"Do you want it back?"
She did. Gods, yes, she did. But she would send no one for it. Not even Emma Swan whom she so devotedly hated. It wasn't – she wasn't - worth it. "No, I don't" Regina thought there was nothing else to say. So she closed down on herself, Henry's pillow to her chest like life vest.
Emma pulled at her hair sure of what she needed to do, unable to persuade herself not to do it.