Chapter XXIX

"Mother"

"Go." Esmeralda had shooed her out of the house after she'd picked at but not eaten her lunch. "You need fresh air. You need to clear your head."

She hadn't been wrong about that. Regina's mind had been full and buzzing since she'd all but shoved Emma out of the door. When she'd opened her eyes that she was warm and comfortable, peaceful. Emma had her wrapped up in her strong arms. Tousled blonde hair had tangled with her own and fallen over her face. For a second Regina's world had a golden filter. It had been sweet, beautiful in a way that she couldn't describe. She hadn't wanted to get up, to leave the warm nest of their-her bed.

So she'd made herself get up. She had to put distance between herself and Emma. Which had worked for about fifteen minutes. Emma had still been there, on her bed. She'd been a little pitiful, and a lot cute. How could she resist? Emma was-she was light and laughter and comfort. Emma made her feel. She had spent so many years numb and cold inside but the minute Emma Swan had strutted into her world, she'd felt a spark. It was like Emma filled an emptiness inside. Maleficent had said that the curse would take a toll on her. That it would leave a void inside of her, one that she would never be able to fill.

Her dear old friend had been half right. There had been a void in her heart, but it had been there a long, long time. Since Daniel. The idea that anyone could fill that void in her heart was terrifying. That, and not the newspaper, had been the real reason she'd closed the door on Emma. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since.

Esmeralda had wanted to go to the woods to look for herbs and meditate. Regina had wanted to scream no, to drag her feet, or at least put up a protest. She hadn't though, because Esmeralda was right. She wasn't a baby anymore, she couldn't hide behind her Nan's skirts. She couldn't stay in the manor. She had to go out, interact and show Storybrooke that she was still alive and flourishing.

Besides, she needed to get some groceries.

So she'd left, but instead of grocery shopping, she'd found herself at the library. She'd spent her afternoon translating centuries old elvish texts. With Belle French of all people. Regina actually enjoyed research and ancient texts. They had been a sort of hobby for her for many years. Hobby, obsession, escape from reality. She was certain that this was a collection of poetry and lore. There were a few very specific passages that dealt with summoning a wraith, though. It had taken hours, and Regina wasn't sure about a few of the words. Maleficent would have known. She had been a master linguist. She'd been the one to teach Regina Elvish as well as a few other things. She missed the dragon woman.

Belle, enthusiastic as she was altruistic, was excited about her ideas. She showed her the research and information she and Mulan had gathered. Regina had to give credit where credit was due, the Bookworm had done a good job. If she had the determination and the stomach for it, the woman could be a powerful sorceress in her own right. That was not a surprise, Rumplestiltskin had no taste for weak willed women.

With everything laid out in front of her, Regina could see that it would work. On paper everything was perfect. In reality it was a treacherous undertaking. Wraiths were strong and incorporeal. A basic binding spell, or even a complex binding circle, would not hold it in place. She remembered that all too well. The wraith was intense, indomitable, and unstoppable. It was terrifying. The circle of silver, salt and sage to protect them, though, was a cunning loophole. One that she would have never thought herself. It was different magic, light magic, and was defencive in nature. She'd never particularly cared for either of those brands of magic. She'd never seen them as useful or powerful enough to learn. What a deluded fool she'd been.

Regina thought about it for hours and Belle was onto something with her little loophole. They could push it further. Threes would strengthen the protection. Regina knew enough magical theory to know that. Three circles. Three torches. Three women. The strongest connection to the creature would be in city hall, in the jail cell and the council chambers. The trick would be how to get there, perform the ritual and leave. She had to disappear before the good citizens of Storybrooke found out. Everyone would assume that she was cooking up another Dark Curse.

Belle wasn't exactly a subterfuge expert, but she was intelligent and fast on the uptake. She also didn't pay attention to gossip. They weren't best buddies, but they made good colleagues. It was all very cordial, efficient and oddly friendly. Between the two of them they had translated the text and formulated a plan. Forget the library, she needed at least five more Belle Frenches in City Hall. Not that she would ever say that out loud.

Regina carried her two bags of groceries home. She had a lot on her mind: Henry, Emma, Belle's plan, her own journey. She had no job, but she felt busier than ever. She shook her head. That didn't even make sense.

She fished her keys out of her jacket pocket and balanced the bags on her arms and hip. It was delightfully mundane. She let herself in and made her way to the kitchen. It was habit and she caught up in her own thoughts. Then everything ground to a screeching halt.

Roses. There were red roses in her foyer. She never had red roses in her home. She set the bags on the floor. Her fingers were trembling too much to keep holding them. The color was a jarring scarlet red. It was like fresh blood splattered on her creme walls. The smell was cloying, metallic and foul. It made every inch of her skin break out into goosebumps and cold sweat slide down her back. There was magic here, her mother's magic.

Regina didn't have, couldn't even if she wanted, to get any closer to them. She knew they had long and sharp thorns. She knew they were garden roses,not a weak hot-house imitation. These were Wonderland roses.

Fear came first. It was cold, like a chunk of ice in her stomach. Then fury rushed through her system. It was hot and bubbling in her blood. She clenched her fists and could feel her nails cutting into her palms. She should have known this was coming.

Regina took a deep breath. She could not allow herself to be weak. Not in front of her mother.

She took off her jacket and hung it in the coat closet. She smoothed her hair in the mirror. She did not need to search the house or call out, she knew where her mother was. She knew how Cora's mind games worked. She knew but she still let herself get caught up in her mother's machinations. She had read countless books and had visited websites and forums. She had taught herself about abuse and recovery. She'd had a million conversations with her mother over the last twenty eight years. She was a modern adult, a mother to her own child. She could deal with her mother.

*

Cora had watched her daughter all day. Regina lead a small and frivolous life and that was unacceptable. She had made sacrifices, navigated deals and had plans. She had guided, educated and groomed Regina for greatness. She had handed her a crown on a golden platter. She had raised a Queen, not some failed bureaucrat. She had not raised a weakling who clung to their nursemaid and a problematic female suitor.

No. Regina needed to remember where she was from and who she was destined to be. Regina had a nasty habit of of running away. Cora would not let her run away from her destiny anymore.

She had made herself so small. She had let her ambitions shrink. She had let herself slip from royalty to a miller's granddaughter. Even her home was disappointing. The walls were bland beige and the art on the walls were pedestrian and shoddy. Regina's home was bleak and unimpressive. It was like the life she had designed for herself in the last twenty-eight years.

Cora twisted her fingers and the flowers in the foyer turned from white to blood red roses, her favorite. She wandered into Regina's study. It wasn't all beige, which was a nice change, but neither was it regal. It reminded her of her dearly departed husband's study. It was all dark wood shelves and rows of books filled with fantasy and daydreams. The art was equally offensive: woodland creatures, countryside scenery and horses.

She would never understand how a prince could be so dull and complacent. She would also never understand why her stubborn child took so much after him.

She flicked her wrist and covered the ghastly picture of a bird over the fireplace with a tapestry. It was Regina's chosen coat of arms, the mark of The Evil Queen. It was a small tapestry, but it made her point well enough. Regina was not a nobody.

Cora pursed her lips and flicked her wrist again. The wall, fireplace and mantle cracked, groaned and expanded. She enlarged it and watched the decorative blue tile fall away. She replaced it with exquisite red marble. The new space allowed for two more tapestries, one on either side of Regina's dark symbol.

She conjured a red banner with a gold heart and crown. It was her own. The other was Henry's-Xavier's, his family's coat of arms. Regina was not a nobody. She had a pedigree, gilded with gold and infused with magic. She was royal, whether she liked it or not. Cora tossed a fireball onto the stacked wood in the new and improved fireplace. The fire crackled to life, wild and hungry. Cora made herself comfortable on one of the matched creme couches and waited. Regina would not keep her waiting for very long-she knew better.

Regina entered the study only a few minutes after she arrived home. She didn't bother to pause or even feign shock at her presence. "Mother." She looked around the room and took in all the changes. "I see you've made yourself at home." Her tone was chilly and reserved. She sounded regal.

"Well I was starting to doubt that I would receive an invitation, Regina."

Regina sat on the couch across from her. Her posture was perfect and her face was calm and she had a polite smile on her lips. She probably thought she was controlling herself well. She was wrong, of course. Cora could see her fingers tangled together, wringing on her lap. The muscle in her cheek was ticking and her eyes were a storm of messy emotions. Regina could play-act all she wanted, but it would do her no good. She could read her daughter like a book.

"I thought I'd made myself clear years ago, there will never be an invitation for you, Mother. I don't want you in my life."

Twenty eight years had made her bold. It showed in her attitude and words. As the Evil Queen, she'd had a flair for the dramatic, and she clung to that even now.

"But you need me. I am your mother, Regina." She smiled, "And a mother loves you no matter how long or how far apart they are from you. When everyone else abandons you, I will still be here." Regina would have nowhere else to turn, no one else to help her. She would come back to her, because she craved love and acceptance. Regina loved her. More importantly, she needed her and the sooner she remembered that, the better.

"Now that you're a mother, I would-"

"Don't" Regina interrupted her. "you dare talk about my son."

Cora held back a smirk. That boy was Regina's greatest weakness. She would use that to her advantage, but not yet. It was too soon.

"And don't you dare" Regina continued, her voice was shaking now. It betrayed her emotions and highlighted her weaknesses. "Say one word about Esmeralda."

Some things never changed. Regina had always idolized that wretched barbarian. That was one more reason to despise her. It was one thing to take a woman's husband (they were easy to replace). Taking their child was a different matter. She had killed people for less. She should have killed Esmeralda.

"Regina-"

Her daughter's hands curled into fists, "You lied to me. You told me it was her heart. You crushed it right in front of me. I was only a child." She blinked, "Do you even remember whose heart it actually was?"

No. She did not remember. That had been many years and many hearts ago.

"It was time for her to go. You weren't a baby anymore, you didn't need a nursemaid." She paused for a beat, "I did it for you, everything I did was for-"

"No." Regina's voice rose and snapped like a whip. "You did it for yourself, Mother. You never cared about my happiness." Darkness, the madness that made her daughter in the well known and feared Evil Queen, flared up in Regina. The vein in her forehead started to pound and her voice dropped to a low and dangerous tone.

Cora sighed, "You're having a tantrum. Again."

Regina stood up and walked to the improved fireplace. "This is why I hired that good-for-nothing pirate to kill you." She stared into the flames. "For all the good that did me." She chuckled at herself, "Huntsmen and pirates. The next time I need someone murdered I'll do it myself."

There. There was the Queen she'd raised. She was her mother's daughter at heart.

"Do calm down,Darling. That is all in the past. This is a new time and place, your own little realm. I'm here to help you, to help you make them remember you, to obey you, to kneel to you again." She came to her daughter's side at the fire. "You'll see." She smoothed her hand over Regina's hair, "They will all bow to you. All the peasants, all the nobles and royals. Even those Charmings. They will remember who their true queen is."

Regina turned away from her touch. "And will that queen be you or me, Mother?"

Petulant and belligerent child.

"You, Regina. You are-"

Regina stepped away. "No. I'm not. I am not a Queen. I'm not even a Mayor anymore. I am just Regina, Mother. I'm not a title or an avenue to more power or glory. Can't you let me be me? Won't I ever be enough for you?"

She was trembling now, letting her emotions control her. Love had made Regina soft, left her heart weak.

"Regina, Darling, you know I love you. You are my whole world. You, my child, are my greatest acheivment. I've spent twenty eight years thinking only of getting to you, of seeing you again." Which was technically true. She stepped closer to Regina, closed the gap between them and took her daughter's face in her hands. It was a tad narcissistic, but when she looked at Regina, she saw herself. It was in her cheekbones and brows. It was the shape of her eyes. "We've been through so much, separation, misunderstandings, and even bloodshed, but I'm here now. We're together again, you and me against the world, a family again."

"Family."

She could feel and hear her daughter whisper. It was a single word, reverant like a prayer. It was a holy tenant to those who thought with their hearts and not their heads. She ran her thumb across Regina's cheek. "That's right. I'm here now, and everything will be okay. Mother knows best."

Regina tilted her head into her touch, and smiled. There were tears welling in her eyes. She placed her hand onto of her own and pulled it away from her face gently. "No."

No?

"No. This is my life and my journey. I am trying to be a better person and you-" She swallowed and Cora could see the cords in her neck working. "And you are toxic, Mother. I don't want you here, not around me and not around Henry. Family isn't blood, it's love and you don't love anyone, Mother. You don't know how."

How dare she? Her hand rose to slap Regina, but she stayed it. Esmeralda had filled her head with nonsense, and worse, Emma Swan had filled her heart with hope.

"They don't love you, Regina. Not the way that I do. They can't. This town, these people, even Esmeralda and that wretched blonde, they don't see you. They see the Evil Queen. They will turn on you at the first sign of trouble. They will run away. They will leave you alone. Even your son. Mark my words, they will all leave you. Only I stay, Regina."

"Go!" The fire crackled high and wild, fueled by Regina's uncontrolled emotions. She'd thrown tantrums before and Cora hadn't cared for them then either. Regina was only hurting herself.

"Regina Xaviera!"

"Go!" Violence and madness flashed in her daughter's eyes. It was the shadow of the Queen who had ruled with an iron and bloody fist. The fire was scorching the new marble fireplace and mantle. It had started to lick at the black tapestry that hung above it. "Go!"

"I will be back, Regina, when you need me."

It was a promise and a prediction. She took one last look at the girl she had borne and raised then she teleported away in a swirl of smoke.

*

Her mother couldn't leave anything untouched. She had to put her signature on everything, which included Regina. She had invaded her study. It was her quiet place, where she could read, relax and think of her father. This was where she and Henry read and did homework together. It was where she had brought Emma the first night they'd met. So of course Cora had chosen to invade this room. She had invaded her tidy life. Then in typical Cora fashion she had started damaging things to her liking. Regina hated it, hated her.

The red marble was hideous. She was glad that it was being destroyed. The enchanted fire was scorching the stone and it was cracking in the heat. The tapestries that hung over the now ruined mantle was were smoldering. Hot embers ate away at them, destroying the pieces of her past. The one in the middle was the banner of the Evil Queen. Regina reached up and tore at it. It ripped in half and she stumbled backwards, unbalanced on her heels. She threw the ragged half of the banner in the fire. It was only reminded her of days she'd spent a long time trying to forget. She ripped at the other ragged half on the wall. She wanted it off of the wall and out of her house. She wanted it gone and destroyed. She didn't want that thing, that reminder, anywhere around her.

She wanted it gone. All the pain. All the memories. All the blood on her hands. How did you forget the taste of blood on your tongue or the feeling of a heart turning to dust in your fist? You didn't. The Evil Queen was always there, bubbling under the surface of her skin. Regina had long ago resigned herself to the fact that she would always be there. Her dark impulses would never go away. They were written in her DNA. It wasn't even a nature versus nurture in her case, it was both. Add her abusive mother and husband and a dark mentor and she was a Lifetime Movie of the Week. If Lifetime did horror movies.

She couldn't regret it, though. The curse had given her Henry, Emma and Storybrooke. Even if she cursed everyone and burnt every piece of evidence, The Evil Queen would never leave her. Regina's curse was to remember.

Another tapestry, her Mother's personal coat of arms, mocked her. The golden heart and crown against the blood red background made a chill go up her spine. She hated it. She always had. It made her feel guilty. She had pushed her mother through the mirror to escape her, and to punish her. Instead, her Mother had become a queen, The Queen of Hearts, the most feared woman in Wonderland. Regina knew that her mother's bloody reign was partially her fault. The same way she knew that Prince Phillip's death could be laid at her feet. Many deaths, countless bodies, lay at her feet.

She stared at the tapestry and the red assaulted her vision. Blood roared in her head. She screamed. The sound tore out of her. It was a hoarse and wild sound made her throat burn. She tore her Cora's banner from the wall. She removed Cora's toxic touch from her life. She clenched her fists around the tapestry and she smiled. The destruction was good, powerful. She threw the offencive cloth into the roaring fire. It was a cleansing fire and it crackled high and hot like her anger. Like her pain.

It wasn't enough. Regina tore through the room. She tore art off the walls. She ripped fabric, broke wood and glass, and scorched the walls with magic. She lashed out and when she destroyed, she didn't hurt.

The violence numbed her pain, but it didn't dim the hatred in her. It burned high and hot, like the fire in the hearth. She hated, oh she hated. She hated her mother. She hated Snow. She hated Storybrooke. She hated Rumple. She hated herself. Hate. Hate. Hate.

Regina destroyed her study. She only stopped moving when she'd come full circle and was back in front of the fireplace. There was one last tapestry. She reached for it,but she hesitated. Her fingernails snagged in the silk threads and she took a deep breath. The banner was her father's, his family's. Her father had displayed a banner like it in his study when she'd been a child.

Her father had been one of several sons and had always known he would never be king. He had loved his kingdom and people, though. The memories were hazy now, but once her grandfather had passed, her uncle had became king. He would come and her mother would give him gold, but something had changed, and they left. They moved to the northernmost fiefdom. It was small, modest, and bordered the next kingdom. As a child she had not understood why. Now she understood. Her father had been disgraced and dismissed from court. His own brother had sent him away. She suspected Cora had something to do with it.

Her mother had thought it was a good thing. It had moved them closer to the noble households and royal courts of the Enchanted Forest. Closer to where Cora wanted to be. Closer to where Cora wanted to rule. Daddy had hated it, but he had never stopped loving his kingdom. He had never stopped being a prince to his people, disgraced or not. He'd traded and bred horses, and after she married Leopold, he had been an ambassador of sorts.

She smiled a little. He and Esmeralda had taught her about the Southern language and traditions in secret. Even when they'd lived at the Southern Court it had always been a secret. Cora had wanted her to fit in with the Enchanted Forest royals. Cora had trained her and Leopold had reinforced that training. She had become a beautiful and untouchable queen for them.

Regina had then become the great and terrible evil queen for herself. For her vengeance. For her magic. For her power. For her curse. She had been born into a beautiful and vibrant kingdom but had never experienced it. So she had made her own kingdom out of terror and death.

She let herself relax for a moment, and let her forehead rest against the cool silk banner. She would leave it. Daddy would like it. It was a little piece of his homeland. She was calmer now. The red that had flooded her vision had started to recede. She let her magic flow from her fingers and into the banner. She had ruined it. The banner was soot-covered and scorched. Her magic repaired it to a brilliant green and luminous gold. She moved it to the center over the fireplace, the place of honor. The fire flickered, wavered and shrank back into its rightful grate.

"Oh."

She looked around. The room was an absolute wreck. She had given herself over to temper and darkness. She had lost control. Lost control in a way that she hadn't since she'd cast the curse.

Her knees were weak. Regina stumbled backwards and sat on the couch that she hadn't turned on it's back and set on fire. It wasn't just her knees, she was shaking. She buried her face in her hands and started to sob. Her emotions were a wreck too. Her magic was out of control and she felt lost.

She couldn't redeem herself. The very first time she was by herself, the very first time something was hard, she had snapped. Everyone still saw The Evil Queen because she was The Evil Queen. The destruction around her was all the evidence anyone needed.

The first time she didn't have someone to ground her, she had turned back into a soulless monster. She would never-ever be able to escape her past.

Emma had seen it. Even before she had believed in the curse, or fairy tales or good and evil. "You have no soul. How in the hell did you get like this?"

Tears. Her anger, hurt and despair slid down her cheeks. She curled up on the couch, arms around her knees, and cried.

How indeed.