The Most Resilient Heart.

I Doubt I'd Ever Forget Meeting You.

Okay, so this is the last chapter and I really hope that everyone reads this before the premiere but I suppose it's a big ask... IT'S IN SIX HOURS!!!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!! Or maybe less but I'm gonna have to wait until tomorrow night... these time differences!!!!

Good luck everyone and FINGERS CROSSED!!! ;)

Regina stares. "Snow, I can't."

Snow just smiles. She just smiles. "Can't?"

Regina gulps and speaks softly, weakly: "I can't rip out his heart. I just can't..."

Snow's smile disappears and it was this that touched Regina. Snow White was still in there, somewhere. She hadn't been lost in the wickness of the guilt and anger poisoning her pure heart. Regina found this reassuring because it told her that Snow was still human; that, very much like the Evil Queen, there was a side that nobody seemed to know.

"You have no idea, Regina!" The anger was bubbling inside of her and the tears were there, threatening her pride. "You have no idea what it's like to lose a child and miss the first 28 years of her life and then your second child comes along, and you have to watch them grow in a way you will never see your first one grow. You have to love them with your whole being though you know that you're always thinking about the other child. That your always thinking: Hmmm, I could've seen this, I could've been there for her, why does is this child so lucky? And do you know how much it kills inside to see this child grow and watch Emma... watch Emma all grown-up.... see everything that could have been hers?" The tears were streaming now and Regina couldn't do anything. She just watched her step-daughter with this sincere look in her eye. A sincere look of apology that she knew would never make up for all she had done.

Snow looks at the ground and fiddles with her jacket. It was all coming back; her terrible sacrifice to save the rest of the Enchanted Forest. Her and Charming's sacrifice. She may have saved him afterwards, but what had she known before that? She didn't know that he was going to live. And she did it all the same. Her smile disappeared at the memory. She was not about to force Regina to do the same as she did. She was not about to force Regina to pull out the heart of the man she loved, and only for her own happiness. 

It seemed to hit her, in that moment: this is wrong. This is all wrong. And she kept wondering why it was coming to her only now. Why could it not have come before? Before everything she had done? And then, in her defense, she tells herself that Regina did this to herself. But somewhere deep inside, she knows it all comes back to her. It all comes back to her.

"There's another way..." She whispers.

And Regina steps closer in eagerness, and Snow stares into the desperate face in front of her. "How?"

Snow sighs. She had researched it all. All the magic, all the curses, everything. Belle had been really confused lately at the amount of hours she would catch Snow in the library. She was reading about all she could find and only with the aim to use it against Regina. But now, she had to use it all to save her. "Every other curse that's been enacted her in Storybrooke or in the Enchanted Forest, has been done to benifit the conjurer. To wipe everyone else's memories, replace them with new ones. But the difference between those other times and this, is that you, Regina, are not going to gain anything from this."

Regina stares, confused. "But I will. I won't remember. And that's all I need."

"You won't remember, that's right. But you won't remember anything about him; the good times, the bad times, all gone. You don't gain anything from this, Regina... you just lose it all." Snow starts to walk away. She was done here. There was nothing more she could do. Nothing more could save Regina.