A/N: I am overwhelmed by the response this story has got already. I just had to write something tonight! Please continue to give feedback etc.; it is honestly the best thing for a developing writer. It is kind of hard to keep Emma's tone within the letters, especially when I want to romanticise and use incredibly un-Emma like pretentious vocabulary and descriptions. Still though, I like a challenge!
Dear Regina,
I am so sorry. Please meet me at your vault at 8:30 pm tonight.
Don't do anything you'll regret.
Emma
The letters have crinkled under Regina's tears. They fell slowly at first; now a torrent of unevaporated pain for the lost Emma Swan. She was everything. Now everything is just too much. She doesn't remember ever receiving that letter. Again, a letter that she never read... though perhaps that one, she was meant to.
She inhales then retrieves the next scrap of paper from its crusted envelope, fearful of the inevitable.
Regina,
You've fallen. I never sent you that last letter. I was meant to, this time I really was, but you needed someone to catch you, not hug you. I guess you caught your mother instead.
I don't believe you would have killed my family. You want Henry and will stop at nothing until he is in your grasp: does that make you a bad person?
Maybe.
I don't believe in black and white. You're grey, Regina. A dark grey, yes, but grey all the same. Kind of like a dark storm. There's thunder and lightning and rain but when the storm clears it is just so beautiful. You're a beautiful grey and I think I can accept that.
My mother is a beautiful grey too. I imagine you are going to be swimming with revenge, as she is swimming with regret but… I'm not asking you to forgive her. I'm asking you to find something else to cling on to. I read in one of Belle's books that it is the "acceptance of fragility that keeps us stable". I'm not too sure what this means exactly (you're the smart mother, not me) but I think I can take a pretty good guess: as soon as you accept that your mother died, that you're lonely, that you're afraid… you will be even stronger than you were when walls used to tower above you. You don't have to be the puppet of everyone else's play. I just want you to be you, Regina. Regina Mills.
I didn't know you back then. I've read Henry's book and I've heard accounts from various Storybrookers. The only version I've never heard is Regina's story. And I want to.
Have you ever thought that maybe it is the other way round? That it was your fairytale identity denying your true self? Because I know that Mary Margaret is not just snowy white… just as Regina Mills is not just evil.
Simply 'Emma'
Regina,
Don't do this. Please. Don't hurt my son.
Our son.
Emma
To the mother of my son,
Look at my little boy, sorting out our problems because we are too cowardly to face them ourselves. You would rather curse a child then open your heart. I would rather kill you then understand why. I think I need to stop writing you letters for a while… It's too confusing and I'm too conflicted.
Goodbye
Dear Regina,
I've been staring at the blank sheet swarming with words to come. Not writing but staring. And thinking. Neal is dead. I think I might just leave that there. Elaborating will not help. How can I express what I feel when what I feel is inexpressible? Love is a horrible horrible poison that strikes in the most unexpected of ways.
You almost died too. Strange- two people I didn't think I would care if they died, but I did and I would. Henry almost lost you. I think I would have lost you too. I shudder every time I think of those cold bands strapped around your wrists. Regina Mills is the strongest woman I know, no one hurts her- not physically anyway. Maybe you deserved it? Maybe you have had it coming for a long time? The pain: the feeling of absolute helplessness as he tears apart everything and everyone that you love.
But…
You stood there, over that blue diamond, like it was your duty to save. And once again you were a beautiful storm, a beautiful grey. "Let me die as Regina." I don't think I'll ever forget those words, yet I don't want them to be the last words either.
You were the brightest of any storm.
Together. The Saviour and The Evil Queen- an unlikely pair but an unstoppable one. And like how we saved the town, let's save Henry. Let's save our son.
WE were strong enough,
Emma
A/N: End of S2! The letters are going to get longer and more heartfelt now. I think S3 began to show us elements of romance between the two. I'm excited to get all my ideas out- I hope you are too!