Once Upon A Time: Goldilocks comes to Storybrooke

Chapter 18 (Flashback)

It had been about twenty seven years since Regina had set her dark curse. She and all the other fairytale characters were brought to Storybrooke, where they couldn't remember their fairytale life at all, not even the powerful Rumpelstiltskin, who had even more magic then Regina herself. Time was frozen too.

Only Regina remembered, and she didn't make any plans to help everyone else to remember. She loved this town. She loved her life in Storybrooke. It was the one place she truly had her happy ending.

Nine years before she adopted Henry, and did everything she could to be a good mother to him. She would take him out different places, and buy him gifts. Henry seemed very happy, and Regina was too. However, one day Henry came home from school. But not with a smile on his face like normal: he had a scowl, like he was trying to remember something important.

"Henry, honey is that you?" Regina called when she heard the front door open and them slam shut. She was busy drying up one of the frying pans.

She heard a faint grumble.

"Henry?" She put the pan down and walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway. Henry was stood there. He had taken one of his shoes off, and it was laid down next to him. She still had his other shoe on, and his backpack was hung on one shoulder. In his hands he held a huge landscape book and was reading it, his eyebrows narrowed as he concentrated.

"Did something happen to you on the way back home?" She joked. It wasn't normally like Henry to ignore her. "Henry, what is that?" She had only just noticed the book.

Henry looked up. "Mom?" He asked. "Would you mind if I found my real mother?"

Regina paused for a moment, blinking. "But-I'm your - well, if you really -what?"

"I just don't want to live with The Evil Queen," he said, pulling off his other shoe and running upstairs.

The Evil Queen? How did he know?...

"Henry, wait a moment, honey!" Regina followed him up the stairs and into his bedroom. "The Evil Queen? What are you talking about?"

"I know!" Henry shouted. "You're The Evil Queen from the Snow White story!"

"And what put that - ridiculous idea in your mind?" Regina asked, trying her best not to give her true identity away.

"I read it," Henry nodded at the book in his hand.

Regina snatched the book off him and began to flip through the pages. Each page had a different story of all the fairytale charter's life in The Enchanted Forest.

And all the stories were correct, as if somebody had been watching everyone's exact moves, and writing it down. And what Regina found even more interesting: there were pictures to match.

"Where did you get this?" Regina asked after a few minutes of reading.

"Miss Blanchard gave it to me," Henry replied.

Miss Blanchard. Mary Margaret Blanchard. The former Snow White. Regina's eyebrows narrowed with hate. Why would Mary Margaret do this?

"All the citizens of Storybrooke are fairytale characters, brought here by your evil curse!" Henry tried to grab his book but Regina held it out of his way.

"Henry Daniel Mills, I don't know who put these ideas in your mind, but I'm not The Evil Queen, and the people who live here are not fairytale characters. They are simply, ordinary people! These fairytales are - just made up stories."

Regina closed the book. "You can stay in your room until dinner is ready. And I don't want to hear anymore of this - fairytale nonsense!"

Regina stormed out of Henry's bedroom and down stairs into her office. Henry couldn't find out she was The Evil Queen. He just couldn't! What would he think of her? What if he tried to get everyone to believe again? Regina had to dispose of the book.

But Regina just couldn't find herself to do it. She was intrigued by this book. How did it know all their stories? Regina sat down at her desk and opened the book at the first page. There was a huge picture of Rumpelstiltskin.

Goldilocks turned to another random page, and saw a picture of Snow White.

Regina scowled. How she hated Snow White.

Regina read.

And read.

And read.

There were pictures of herself, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Pinocchio... every single character Regina knew, they were in this book!

But finally she got to one page, which caused her to stop. There, near the beginning of the book, was her story with Goldilocks. There was a picture of her as a child, with Goldilocks at next to her, on the bench behind the huge chair. They were looking at each other, and smiling.

Goldilocks. Just seeing the picture of her, just seeing her name written on the page, it brought back too many painful memories.

Regina closed her eyes, and blinked back tears. She didn't want Henry reading about this. Regina's one weakness: being reminded of Goldilocks's death, and knowing deep down it was her fault.

Regina looked away from the book and ripped out the page. She held it in her hand, but she couldn't bring herself to rip it into several little pieces. She just looked at the detailed painting, before finally crumpling it into a ball the throwing it to the other side of the room, where it handed in the fire, by accidentally.

It pained Regina so much, but she didn't want to be reminded of Goldilocks anymore. Regina blinked beck her tears and flicked her wrist lightly, causing a fire to appear, and slowly, the page of Henry's book burnt until it was nothing but ash, cinders, and forgotten memories...