A/N This chapter has a T/W for a character death

Chapter thirteen

"Why would you make me do that?" Regina whispered as she sensed smoke billowing behind her.

Zelena laughed heartily and replied, "Because I could feel the pain oozing through each pore of your body while you were helpless to stop me."

Regina clenched one of her fists and quickly spun around on her heels with a fireball in the other. However, as soon as she faced her sister, she felt a silent command and extinguish the magical flame.

"Have you not yet learnt that you are not strong enough, Regina? You will never be strong enough to keep your happy ending, someone more powerful will always come along to take it from you."

Regina took a shaky breath and replied, "you won, you can go back to Oz now."

Zelena shook her head with a smirk, "so that you can just explain to your dear saviour that you were forced to break up with her? Do you honestly think that after a life time of work I would be content to simply leave without watching your complete and utter misery as your family live without you?"

"They wouldn't…" Regina began, but then she began to feel the familiar voice return.

They could easily live without you.

Henry spent months without you and not once did he even think about going back to you.

Emma will move on from you, she won't take long to start going out with the pirate.

Regina brought her hand up to her temple and light rubbed it as if she could will the thoughts away, and after clearing her throat continued, "they wouldn't be able to move on."

"You sound unsure, dear," Zelena said in fake sympathy.

"What else do you want from me?" Regina growled.

Zelena tilted her head in consideration and a huge smirk appeared across her face, "I suppose I could make her completely hate you."

S

"Emma calm down, what's wrong?" Snow asked as calmly as possible after she heard her daughter's tearful explanation of the day's events through her phone's loudspeaker.

Emma took a heaving breath and finally managed some coherent words, "Regina broke up with me."

Snow and David were silent for a moment as the words registered.

Snow felt guilty for a second when she realised that she had not long ago been wishing for this to happen, but now she could hardly deny that Emma and Regina made the perfect couple and that the town was certainly safer with a happy mayor and sheriff who were actually able to work together effectively.

"Why?" David managed to say.

"She said that since she's immortal, she could find someone better," Emma sniffled.

Anger contorted David's face at the thought that the woman who he had finally stopped considering his mortal enemy, could have done this to his daughter.

"Well then so can you," he replied.

"David!" Snow said incredulously.

"What?"

Snow rolled her eyes and grabbed the phone, and after taking it off loud speaker brought it to her ear, "it's going to be okay sweetheart."

"It doesn't feel that way," she returned.

Snow sighed and nodded in understanding, before she realised that her daughter couldn't see her and replied, "Do you want us to come back and take Neal off your hands?"

"Ruby offered to look after him."

"Okay, but do you want us to come back anyway?" she tried, desperately hoping that her daughter was adjusted enough to not reject the idea of needing her parents.

Emma was silent for a moment and then replied in a small voice, "Yes please, mom."

"We'll pack up as fast as possible, we should be back in about an hour, okay?"

"Okay."

Emma stared at her phone for five minutes straight and finally the ringer went off, "are you nearly here?" she asked without pretence.

"Emma, it's only been ten minutes," Snow laughed, "I just wanted to let you know that we're all packed."

"Okay," she sighed, "please hurry up, I need cocoa."

Snow laughed again, she was about to reply that Emma could have all the cocoa in the world, but she was interrupted by the distinct swooshing noise of magic.

Emma recognised the sound instantly and jumped up from the multiple duvets she was covered in, "mom?"

No reply came from the pixie haired woman, but instead she heard somewhat distantly, "Regina?"

Panic began to run rapidly through the blonde's system and without a second thought, white smoke engulfed her body taking her to her parents.

Snow blinked a few times as her disheveled looking daughter appeared directly in front of her.

Regina rolled her eyes and said, "do you never give up, Miss Swan?"

The other brunette noticed instantly the defeated sag of the blonde's shoulders and instantly felt angry at her former stepmother for thinking even for a second that she could treat her daughter that way, though a small part of her knew that there was something amiss about the mayor.

"What are you doing here?" Emma asked in a slightly hoarse voice.

"That doesn't concern you," Regina replied casually.

"I disagree," the saviour retorted, her stance changing into one of a protector, "I don't care what happened in the past, I won't let you hurt my parents."

Regina laughed and began walking towards her ex-girlfriend, "you say that as if you have a choice in the matter."

"Mom?" a voice called.

Regina turned around to see the child she had been forced to give up, and the darkness just about managed to force her to maintain the façade.

"What is he doing here?" she scowled.

"You said I could go camping with Snow and David months ago," Henry replied with a furrowed brow as he inspected the odd appearances of his two mothers, "I was just getting firewood."

Emma noticed as a muscle twitched in Regina's jaw and she seemed to be unable to stop herself from asking, "they let you go out into the woods alone?"

Henry looked between his grandparents and replied, "yes..."

Regina took a deep breath and finally recomposed herself, turning away from the child she had raised for more than a decade.

"No matter, I have something important to do," she said without looking back at Henry.

"Which is?" Emma asked carefully.

"I do not enjoy having one very well known weakness, so I wish to remedy the situation. Of course I need the heart of someone who knew me before I was consumed by darkness, Rumple, Jefferson and Snow were the only options, so I chose the one that I would enjoy the most. And just to make everything so much better, the two idiots share a heart."

With a wave of her hand, the saviour went flying against a tree where she was held firmly in place, in the same move she froze each of the Charmings in place.

Henry watched in shock as Regina raised both of her hands to his grandparents chests, but as some of it stopped clouding his thoughts, he noticed a slight resistant twitch in her hand and everything came together in his mind. He knew that Regina would never willingly be apart from him and Emma and over the last few weeks she had been ignoring each of them.

A theory began rapidly forming, and without another thought, he ran forward and grabbed her arm.

"Mom, you have got to fight whoever is controlling you."

A slow clapping could be heard from behind them, and each person turned to see the formerly green woman walking towards them, "well isn't my dear nephew just so clever?"

Regina took a deep breath and looked away from her, instead looking into Henry's green eyes that looked so much like Emma's. For a moment, she felt the darkness's hold recede and she dropped her arms to her sides, her spells disappeared and each adult Charming was set free.

Emma balanced herself against the tree so that she wouldn't fall to the ground and then saw the dagger firmly in Zelena's hand and instantly she knew that her mother really was an idiot.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, though she felt a burst of hope at the prospect that the heart crushing break up had not been real.

"I didn't exactly have the option," the mayor replied through gritted teeth as her body was desperately trying to get her to bring her arms back up.

Emma nodded with a huge smile on her face and ran over to the woman who she was now sure was her happy ending.

Bringing her hand up, she lightly placed it on her cheek which made Regina visibly relax.

"You can fight it, Regina," she whispered.

Zelena laughed and said, "well I suppose I should have expected you Charmings to foil my plan, but lucky for me there are still many ways for me to make my dear sister miserable. I command you to kill the love of your life, Dark One."

Instantly Regina's hand sank into her girlfriend's chest, and she furrowed her brow as she felt no resistance while ripping out the saviour's heart.

"I thought that was impossible," Snow said in shock while her daughter fell to the ground.

Emma shook her head and looked up at the former Evil Queen who literally held her life in her hands, "it already belongs to her."

As soon as the words left the blonde's mouth she relaxed as Regina loosened her grip on the glowing organ.

Zelena rolled her eyes and tried again, "I command you to crush her heart."

Regina swallowed hard and just about managed to only slightly squeeze the heart, which caused the saviour to groan in pain for a moment.

"I know you can fight this, Regina," Emma said once she had opened her eyes.

Regina shook her head, and instantly Emma got an idea, just as Henry said they needed to show her that they would stand by her, and there was one very specific way she could think of to do that.

Pulling up one of her knees, she managed to get to balance despite the pain radiating throughout her body, and with a small cloud of smoke above her outstretched hand made a velvet box appear.

"I know you can fight this Regina, you are more powerful than the darkness," Emma insisted, "so when all of this is over, will you marry me?"

"Kill her!" Zelena shouted.

Regina looked between the saviour and the Wicked Witch and finally completely loosened her grip on the heart. Falling to her knees, she thrust her arm forward and returned the vital organ to the blonde.

Bringing her hand up to her cheek, she leaned forward and quickly captured her lips, "yes," she whispered.

Once she adjusted to having her heart back, a huge smile spread across Emma's face and she lightly took the ring out of its box and placed it on her fiance's finger.

"No!" Zelena shouted while stamping her foot, "that's not fair!" she whined. "How can you always get everything you could ever want, it's not fair!"

Regina stood regally, and walked over to the woman who was shaking and holding out the dagger in a vain attempt to regain control of the situation.

"I get what I want because I no longer spend my life fixated on making other people miserable. But obviously you will never stop being the bane of my life," she growled and sank her hand into her sister's chest as pure rage consumed her at the thought of the possibility that she could have actually taken Emma's life.

Before anyone could make a protest, Zelena fell to the ground while the dust of her heart followed her.

Silence fell over the clearing, and Regina stared blankly at the dead body at her feet.

Instantly she felt regret for the first time following taking a life and she was about to tell the other people as much, but when she turned around she saw someone that no one else seemed to even register was there.

Her mouth fell open at the scaly appearance that she hadn't seen since just before she cast the curse, and she didn't even look at the disapproving looks that were being shot her way.

Her suspicions were confirmed when nobody so much as looked in his direction as Rumpelstiltskin said, "did you really think it was over, dearie?"

A/N Sorry for not updating for a while, but as I've said I have to be in a certain mood to write this one and I wouldn't want the quality to decrease just for the sake of updating, so I won't be able to guarantee when the next chapter is, but just know that it will come :)

Reviews would be much appreciated XD