Hi, so here is another chapter and we are now officially over halfway! Hope you enjoy this one and I will being you the next one sooner rather than later.

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See Previous chapters for all character notes.

I don't like Snow. I really don't like her mother. Damn I was routing for Cora the first time I watched OUAT back. The apple did not fall far from the hypocritical tree.

Storybook Love (Every Version Of You)

Chapter 13-Nature's Empty Throne

Regina decides to give her heart away (literally and emotionally) as the truth about Cora/Zelena/Eva comes tumbling out. And with the plan finally exposed two old enemies come to an impasse.

This was an odd moment in time.

Her and Snow. Finally for once on the same side with no injured Henry between them.

Finally.

Had only taken a séance to do it.

She sighed and winced as the pain hit her lower back again. This child had hit her around the kidneys and she was struggling with it. The whole thing hurt, her back, her sides, her front…there was no comfortable middle ground as she entered the final stretch of the race. She was three weeks away according to Whale but he openly admittedly that they would not know much until the curse was broken and seeing as she did not know a way to do that successfully….

Regina was screwed.

Utterly, utterly screwed.

And for once it was not Snow's fault.

It was her mothers.

As if Regina needed another reason to hate the insipid bitch.

She had to concede though that it made sense, the steps that her mother had taken. Eva had taken more than her place at the King's side, she had taken her daughter, taken her child and had tossed it aside as if it was a toy that the rich could play with. Regina could not look at Snow and to save herself the headache she was never going to say it but she thought that the bitch had gotten off lightly. She had never liked Eva, had always considered her sainthood an act—naively she had thought that nobody could be that sweet—and now she thought that the woman had ensnared a king and a kingdom and built up a reputation for being good even when she was rotten, like mould on the shower. Nothing good in her.

Evil through and through.

Christ. To think that about Snow's mother…she would laugh if she wasn't so filled with sorrow for her mother and the actions that she now understood better with each passing moment. She found oddly that Cora was the one person now she wanted to talk to…

Well…not the one person. There was another person she wanted so badly it was hard to breathe but considering her track path with men…

Well…it was best to leave that alone.

She took another sip of coffee and winced. Good Lord did she hate decaf.

She was not made for this, she really wasn't. She'd always envisioned adopting if she'd wanted another child…she had never considered pregnancy and quite frankly she was never going to consider it again.

Snow was speaking with her husband and daughter in hushed voices. Regina would have watched them, interjected, tried to come up with a plan but she was too emotional right now. Snow must be feeling it too she reckoned. Snow had hero worshiped her mother—to know that she was just as evil as the woman who had killed her was going to be a bitter blow. Even though she suspected Snow would find a way to try and justify it.

Now though…

Regina found that she could understand her mother a bit more. Now that she was able to she found that she could see why her mother had pushed her to Leopold. Once again her mother had been living through her child, with Rumple, with Leopold…Christ she had spent a lifetime sleeping with the men her mother had been with first.

She wondered for a second what the cricket would make of that and she had to hide her smile.

Leopold mustn't have known…indeed maybe he had not cared. She couldn't see the man who had thrown the woman he professed to love because she was pregnant having her daughter. She did not know what to make of that if he'd had. Quite frankly Leopold had neither the cruelty nor the brains to make such a plan work. God knows he had never been the brains of the operation in either one of his marriages. Regina had been twenty and was running the kingdom in her first year of marriage and she held no doubt that Eva had been the same. Leopold had never been a man for the hard pressed duties of Kingship and when she had come along he had given over completely. Snow would have lasted five minutes running that kingdom Regina was sure because to put it bluntly nobody had bothered to teach Snow how to run a kingdom. It was not all powerful speeches and having a handsome man on your arm and farming out thirty babies before you hit thirty.

To be cruel Regina suspected that the woman would have lasted six months before the Kingdom was bankrupt or being ran by someone else.

To be honest she thought the same of Storybrooke. For all their attempts to lead she had seen very little substance from them…Emma maybe but Emma had personality so there was that.

But Eva…

She did not think that there was anything that could describe her depth of hatred for that woman.

Regina had done many things, evil things and she had admitted that, freely. She had separated parents from children too she was sure but she had never done it out of spite, maybe it had been an afterthought but what Eva had done was to shame a woman for a mistake. And considering the Enchanted Forest back then and it's attitude to woman it was a minor miracle that her mother had made it out of that alive.

So there had been her mother, begging Rumple to hear their knees crack.

And Regina finally understood.

Ironic that she could no longer tell her mother that.

Snow had denied her that opportunity too.

It appeared mothers and daughters were an uncomfortable parallel in this town and in this odd ragbag family that they had created.

She took another sip of coffee and then another and then gave up on the whole thing. Now that she knew she wanted these people out of her house so that she could anticipate her half sisters next move. She was sure that she had it down, the plan, but she was still working on the execution of it.

And her own feelings about it.

"You alright love?" came a voice to her left and she turned to see Hook there sitting on the edge of her sofa as if it was a normal Sunday afternoon.

"So far" she said dryly. "Not every day you realise that your mother was actually wronged so much it makes up for all the wrong she did to you—well—some of it anyway"

"Aye" Hook said conversationally. "I have to admit I now have sympathy for Cora." He uncorked a bottle with his teeth and then.

"They won't like it if it gets out" he said dryly and though his eyes were on Emma, Regina thought she heard a flicker of amusement in his tone and she smiled.

"It will" she said quietly. "It's what I'd do—shout it to the rooftops, won't make a bit of difference but…humiliation is a visual medium. Even if the person your humiliating is dead"

Hook looked at her sideways for a second and then.

"What are you two talking about?"

Emma.

"I was asking Hook to be the father of my child" Regina deadpanned.

Hook spat a mouthful of rum onto her rug.

Regina smirked. Emma blinked. Hook wheezed.

"Zelena…do you know what her plan is?"

"To go back in time and kill Snow's mother" Regina said and she heaved herself—well Hook helped her—up onto two feet.

"How do you know?"

"Because it's what I would have done, she's took courage, a heart, a spell…Rumple…I can see what she is attempting to do and I know understand why. If my mother marries Leopold then Zelena is the one that is tutored by Rumple, Cora keeps her daughter. Zelena has a family"

It was all rather sad when you thought about it.

"If she kills my mother I will never have been born" Snow says finally. Regina nodded.

"So your not helping—"

"Oh think it through Emma" she snapped. "Snow. You. Henry. Besides I am not entirely sure if I will be born during this and I am not risking my baby for revenge. I don't know what she wants with it but she wants something. Probably the final ingredient."

She meant to be flippant but she knew that it was true. She had not been kidding when she had said the amount of spells that required baby parts would surprise you.

Hook grimaced.

"So what do we do?"

The truth was nothing. Regina needed to plan, she needed to think and plan and put things in place and to do that she needed to be alone. Right now she was the Queen, she was clinging to that title and the composure that came with it with everything she had but at some point she was going to slip off the cliff and the mother that she was would come out and she did not want to show these people that she was so bone terrified it was chilling. She had never felt fear such as this before. With Henry she had been murderous, terrified perhaps but she had always gone to Neverland with the view that she would get him back and kill Pan. She had not gone there expecting to take back the Lost Boys. As far as she was concerned she had gone to save one not the rest. She had not cared.

But this baby was her whole reason for being, her second shot of motherhood, the one thing that she had, she didn't care if it was boy or girl so long as they were healthy and happy and she didn't care who the father was anymore.

All she cared about was getting this baby to a safe place.

And if that meant giving her or him up…

For the first time she was able to look at Snow White and concede that she was the Evil Queen.

For the first time she was able to admit that she had gotten it wrong.

That was no small thing for Regina it had to be said.

For a second the two of them looked at each other and Regina said nothing and Snow said nothing.

But it was there.

For both of them it was there.

An understanding.

And an impasse.

Robin watched has as she handed him her heart.

She had told him the bare bones of it and he had been silent and only dark flashes across his face told her what he thought about it.

"So you have to protect your heart"

"And my baby"

And here came the tricky thing.

"I need to ask you another favour"

"You've already given me your heart my lady. One would think that's enough. What more do you want to ask of me?"

"To take my baby"

Robin started as if she'd hit him but she didn't have time to talk to him. She was acutely aware that her sister had spies everywhere. She didn't have time for this.

"I have time now but Zelena and I are going to have to come to blows eventually. I don't know if Rumple can do it and I know that Emma cannot. So it has to be me and if the baby is the price to cast this spell—"

"How do you know that—"

"Because I've been doing this for a very long time" Regina said and feeling emboldened she took his hand. "I need you to take my baby and keep him or her safe while I fight I think…no I know that you are the only man that I can trust—"

She never got to finish that sentence because he reached out and curled one hand around her back and dragged her forwards his hands finding her belly and he kissed her again. It was harsh and hot and amazing and lovely and passionate and dare she even think…loving? Either way it was all of that and more and it was like he wanted to eat her, drink her, take her in and make her his own.

And Regina…Regina…the one Evil Queen?

Well…she melted like sugar in a source pot at the sight of him.

She trusted him.

She knew she loved him.

And the rest of that moment as they say, was history.

And there you go. Slowly we are nearing the end.

Next Chapter-Zelena sends Rumple after Zelena's heart with near devastating consequences for Robin. In the process a new living arrangement is formed.