Author's notes at the end of this chapter...

"Emma…"

The voice is like silk against her skin.

"Emma… wake up."

The sensual whisper is near her ear and even in her sleep addled state, Emma can feel goosebumps forming along her skin at the sound.

"Emma… please... wake up. I want you… I need you… touch me, Emma…"

Teeth bite down tenderly on her earlobe and before her eyes can even open, Emma feels warmth pooling in her core.

"Regina?" She knows it is the other woman, knows it like she knows her own name. Her voice is like honey sliding from her tongue onto Emma's skin. How was it that in such a short time she had already memorized the scent of her, not just the expensive perfume she wore, or the shampoo scent lingering in her raven hair… but the scent of her? "Regina, what—"

"Shhhh." A finger fell gently against Emma's lips, silencing her questions. "We have to be quiet."

Emma opened her eyes. Even in the dim light of the moon spilling through a break in the drapes, Emma could see cognac irises looking at her from above. The other woman's shoulder, naked but for a string trying to hold up her nightgown, seemed to glow in the silver light. On reflex Emma's hand flew up to grip a silk covered waist.

"Regina… what are you doing?" The blonde whispered, remembering that Henry was somewhere close.

"Something we've both wanted for a long time." Regina's full lips fell against Emma's then and kissed her softly. Emma was helpless against it. She did want this… so badly. In the back of her mind though she wondered how knowing this woman only a week could possibly be called a long time.

Her thoughts were silenced by a nip on her bottom lip, soothed by a warm tongue. Suddenly Emma wanted to know nothing except the taste of this woman beyond full lips. She ached to slide her tongue against golden skin. With wanton desperation, she needed to know every inch of her intimately.

But it was Regina who deepened the kiss first. Yes… it was honey that made her voice drip from sinful lips. Honey under her tongue that Emma was all too happy to steal. She moaned into the mouth above her and got one in return. Regina's mouth moved and soon was against her throat. Teeth nipped and tongue laved until Emma was sure she could endure no more without crying out into the darkness.

The exploring mouth continued until it was back at her ear, whispering hotly against her skin words too provocative to resist. A serpentine tongue danced against that most sensitive place beneath her ear stoking the warmth at the apex of her thighs. Perfect white teeth bit down hard, marking her, and Emma's back arched off the bed in response. She had never felt such desire and she knew she would never get enough.

Easing her mouth down, Regina lapped against the soft mounds of Emma's breasts peeking out from the top of her tank top. A slender leg moved between the blonde's own and pressed against her mound, changing glowing warmth to a raging fire. She gasped at the contact and rolled her hips forward toward the dark angel above her.

Not willing to be a pillow queen for anyone, Emma cleared her mind of the haze of arousal and grabbed Regina's tiny waist tighter, flipping them. Her mouth crashed against Regina's and kissed her deeply. Her mind was free from thoughts of anything but this woman and the burning trail her hands were leaving as they smoothed up Emma's back under her shirt. Above the object of her desire, looking down through a curtain of flaxen curls into the perfect face beneath her, Emma felt her heart swell with feelings she was afraid to name. She gazed into brown eyes and saw full lips pulled into a perfect smile… but there were tears in her eyes.

Tears?

"Regina? Are you alright?" Emma stopped moving against the woman beneath her.

In a flash Emma was standing in the road near the place she and Henry had broken down. It was bright and cold and Regina was holding her hand, tears in her eyes. Emma felt confused but unable to do anything about it.

"My gift to you is good memories… a good life for you…" Regina paused and reached back for Henry. Only now did Emma see the people, a few she recognized from her time in town, standing behind Regina. And beyond them an eerie green smoke rolled toward them. "…and Henry. You'll have never given him up. You'll have always been together." Regina was crying now, her voice breaking as Henry stood next to Emma.

Emma could feel the wind stinging against her face. Was she crying too? But why? What was happening? She heard her own voice speak in a disbelieving whisper. "You would do that?"

Regina went on but Emma couldn't hear her for the sound of her own shouts inside her head.

No! This is wrong! Don't do this! We should be together. There has to be another way. Please don't send me away, Regina, please!

The sound was deafening and drowning out the voice of… was it Mary Margaret?... now speaking to her. She didn't know what was happening but she knew she didn't want it.

Her body moved without her permission and soon she and Henry were driving away from Regina and the others. She watched in the rearview as purple light shot from Regina's gloved hands and into the green smoke. In a moment, they all disappeared… but Regina faded out last, a silhouette watching them go until she was invisible too.

"Regina!"

Emma sat up with a start, her heart pounding in her chest. Rapidly blinking, she looked around in confusion. Where was she? What was going on? Was she dreaming?

But it felt so real…

"Emma? Emma, are you ok?" Regina appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a gray silk robe and looking rather disheveled.

"Yeah? I dunno. I… where am I?" Green eyes tried not to look at long legs visible in the not fully closed robe. Darting up to look into brown, Emma felt her heart breaking but she didn't know why. She refused the tears trying to escape her tired eyes.

Regina eased closer with a calming hand held in front of her. "You are in my guest room. Apparently we both had a bit too much to drink last night and Henry helped us to bed. Smart young man… he knew you couldn't make it back to Granny's like that." Coming closer still, Regina sat on the edge of the bed. "Are you alright? I was just going down to make us some breakfast when I heard you crying in your sleep and then you called for me."

Emma reached slim fingers up to her face. It was indeed wet with tears. "I… I, uh, I guess I had a bad dream. Nothing serious. Thanks for… you know… checking on me." Emma gave a lopsided grin and looked away, embarrassed.

"Are you sure you are ok?" Regina's own fingers closed around Emma's hand and squeezed gently.

The blonde stared at the hands and remembered the hands from her dream, desperate and sad, holding onto each other. She pulled her hand away and smiled. "Yeah. It's all good. Thanks."

Regina eyed her curiously for a moment and hesitantly stood. "Well, if you are sure… I will go make you a nice, strong cup of coffee. You may use my bathroom if you like to shower. Henry is in the guest bath." A worried look passed over Regina's face as she stepped toward the door. "My room is just down the hall."

Emma forced a smile and nodded. As the door closed behind Regina, she flopped back onto her back. It was just a dream… but why did it feel so real?

No more cider for you, Swan.

~ (SQ) ~

Regina stood at the counter in the kitchen, a cup of steaming coffee in her hands. She knew something was wrong with Emma, but she wasn't sure just what. The way she had called out Regina's name in her sleep… and the tears? Why was she crying?

"Morning, Mom. Is Ma up yet?" Henry's arms slipped around his mother's waist and he squeezed tight. She hadn't even heard him coming down the stairs.

"Yes, she… she's awake. But something is wrong, Henry. She had a nightmare and she was crying when I went to check on her." Regina frowned and took another sip of the soothing black liquid in her cup.

"A nightmare?" Henry stopped with his hand on a bowl in the cabinet above him. "You don't think she had a memory do you?"

The boy set the bowl on the island and put a hand on his mother's arm. Could Emma finally be getting some of her memories back?

"I don't know. She didn't tell me anything about the dream and I didn't want to push—"

"Didn't want to push?!" Henry's voice was incredulous. "Since when do you not push? No offense, Mom, but pushing is sort of you and Ma's thing."

Regina looked away from the boy. He was right. She wouldn't have hesitated to push to find out what she wanted to know under normal circumstances… but this wasn't normal. Part of her was not ready to know… not ready for Emma to remember.

"Mom? Is there something you aren't telling me here? We almost left town yesterday. We don't have time to waste on this. Ma's got to get her memories back. What if she was dreaming a memory?" Henry moved so he could catch his mother's eye but she still looked away. "Mom? Seriously. What's going on?"

"Nothing, Henry. I just…" Brown eyes darted from Henry's face to the coffee maker to the empty bowl on the island and back.

"You just what?" The boy who was swiftly becoming a man squeezed his mother's arm gently.

Regina drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "I just don't know if I'm ready for her to remember yet." The woman frowned and looked ashamed at her own words.

"What?! But why? If she doesn't remember soon she's going to take me back to New York! I mean, unless the curse won't let us leave and then who knows! Maybe the car will break down… or she will wreck like she did when she first came here. Do you want that? I don't understand." The boy's eyes flashed with disbelief and Regina saw Emma in them. He was so much like her sometimes.

"No, of course I don't want that!" Regina folded her arms protectively across her stomach and backed away from him. "I want her to remember. I do, Henry. But…"

"But what?" His voice was small and it cut through to her heart.

"But… I love her, Henry. And things are going nicely between us. She… she seems to even feel something for me. When we were dancing in the park… I saw it. I could see it in her eyes. She's falling in love with me, too." Regina paused. Her voice was thick with emotion.

"Ok. So what's the problem? Isn't that a good thing? Maybe she's dreaming memories because the whole True Love thing is trying to happen." Henry huffed and planted his hands on his hips, looking more like Regina than anyone. "You'll have to explain better than that, Mom."

Regina turned from her son and sat her mug in the sink. Gripping the counter she looked out over her yard as the soft morning light made the dew on the grass glisten. It was beautiful. But soon it disappeared as tears clouded her vision.

Still looking out, she spoke to her son. "I know you don't understand, Henry. Life is always so simple when you are a child. Good wins. Monsters under the bed are banished with a mother's kiss. But when you grow up… life isn't like that anymore. I love Emma. And Emma is falling in love with me. But it isn't the real me. It's this me. The mayor who has been nothing but kind to her since she got here. The woman who cooks for her and flirts with her and smiles at her like she's the center of the universe. The woman who dances in the park. But that isn't all of me, Henry. The real me, the me she knows with her memories… she could never love her. And… it might be selfish, it might be wrong… but I am not in a hurry to lose the way she looks at me now for the way she will look at me when she remembers who I am."

Tears were streaming down her face now and her shoulders slumped forward. Henry hugged her from behind. "Oh, Mom…"

Regina sniffled and tried to calm herself. "I know it's wrong. And it isn't fair to Emma or you or anyone else. But… I don't think I could bear to lose that light in her eyes when she smiles at me. I don't want to see the memories flood back in and make her see me as the Evil Queen. I like just being Regina."

Henry turned his mother and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Mom… you know she's never seen you as the Evil Queen. You've always been Regina to her. And you are right. It isn't fair to her or to me… but it isn't fair to you either. Do you really want to love someone who just looks like Ma? Because we both know that she isn't fully herself and she never will be without her memories. She deserves to be made whole… and you deserve to love and be loved by a complete Emma… not just a piece of her."

Brown eyes gazed into green and Regina knew he was right. She couldn't keep Emma in her cursed state forever. That was something the old Regina would do. But she wasn't her anymore and she couldn't allow Emma to suffer any longer.

"You… you are right." Regina offered a wet smile to her son. "How'd you get so smart?"

Henry grinned and squeezed her arms under his hands. "I get it from my mom… both of them."

Turning to the counter, Regina filled a cup with coffee and added sugar and cream—just like Emma liked it—and adopted a confident, regal posture. She stepped out of the kitchen and headed upstairs, calling back over her shoulder. "Wish me luck."

A/N: People are mean. It's a fact of life I guess but it always shocks. When I posted that I wasn't going to finish these stories, I did it because I wanted to let you guys know what was going on. I did it because I know as an avid reader of fanfic that an abandoned, orphaned story is the worst. I get invested then I get let down. I wanted you all to know that I was leaving but that I'd try to wrap up the stories with an outline or a complete chapter. I wanted you to know so you'd have closure.

I've had so many nice responses and lovely encouraging words... its true. So many of you have reached out and warmed my heart with your love and light and well wishes. Beauty in black and white on a screen. I thank you for that love... you have been healing balm in a difficult time in my life.

But I've also been hit with some cruel words too. Words like I'm awful for not finishing. Words like I'm an attention seeker for trying to keep you all informed. Words like its pathetic and manipulative to suggest that I will post a closing chapter if you want to see it... a desperate attempt to ramp up comments. People are mean.

And if they knew me... or anything about me... they'd know nothing could be further from the truth. They'd know that I love these stories, these characters and all of you. And deciding to walk away from it, for whatever reasons I deem necessary, is one the hardest things I've ever had to do. I've managed to write a few condensed chapters to finish this tale because I feel that is the right thing to do. But I would never manipulate anyone... especially not for reviews. Look at my stories. I have so many faithful readers, followers, faves and comments. I'm lucky to have thousands of hits EVERY DAMN DAY. I don't need to... nor would I ever... abuse any of you by tricking you just to increase numbers. And for even one person, let alone a dozen, to hide behind anonymous and suggest it hurts my tender heart like hell.

So... people are mean. But they don't tell me what to do, when to write or how to feel. I have one more chapter to this story and it will be complete. Then I will be wrapping up Pictures of You and Take Me Home Tonight. And then... I will be gone. These stories will be left up for readers to enjoy.

You... the kind, sweet, patient readers deserve an ending and I shall give you one if it is the last thing I do.

Fuck the mean people. They don't run me...