One
“It’s not our price, it’s mine. It is what I felt when I first held it. I have to say goodbye to the thing I love most.” When the words fall from Regina’s tightened lips, Emma thinks that she must have misheard the dark haired beauty. This whole situation has gotten so out of hand, so very quickly. Hell, her entire life has suddenly been that way, hasn’t it? One second, she is sitting in her empty apartment, making a wish on her cupcake that she would not have to spend another birthday alone. Little did she know that wish would send her spiraling into a world of fairy tales, spiraling into a world of heartbreak with just an equal amount of despair and anguish hanging in the air. It sent her spiraling into finding out who her true parents are, into finding the son she gave up for adoption years ago and into finding her.
Regina Mills is a complex creature when mentioned in terms of Emma Swan’s life. Not only is she the Mayor of this little quaint town that everyone calls home, but she is also the mother of her son. She is the one who took Henry in and saved him from the world of social work; she is the one who has clothed and fed her son for several years now and loved him to the best of her ability. She gave Henry something that Emma had never had, a better chance at life.
And for a very long time that is all that Regina was- just the adoptive mother of her son. Then, she became the Evil Queen. She became the reason that she spent her entire life in foster care, being sent from one home to the next because she was never ‘good enough’. She became the reason that she never actually got to grow up with the parents that loved her and wanted her more than anything. She became the reason that Emma has done nothing but struggled and failed her entire life. And by God, she hated her for it with so much passion and rage that it nearly destroyed her.
Yet, somehow, in the mess of all of this, Regina simply became Regina. She may have been the Evil Queen in the Enchanted Forest, but in Storybrooke, Maine, at least as far as Emma is concerned, she is simply Regina. She is the woman who is afraid of falling in love because everyone she loves always leaves her. She is the woman who has the quickest wit of anyone that Emma has ever met in her life, only to have that wit balanced with incredibly good looks and a very intelligent brain. Regina became the person who saved her and saved her son without Emma ever truly knowing about. She became the dark to Emma’s light and it slowly, but ever so surely, consumed her. Regina became the purpose that the sheriff had been looking for; Henry had brought her Storybrooke to return the happy ever afters and she knew that she could not stop until Regina got hers. After all, she may have been the person who deserved it the most.
And now? Now Regina is the hero; she is the woman who is making the ultimate sacrifice, even though it is going to kill her to do so. Emma can tell just how much this whole situation pains her by the reflection within her dark brown eyes.
“Henry?” Emma whispers, glancing back at their freckled, but worried son with frantic eyes. Regina’s gaze follows her counterpart’s to stare at her son who is nestled in the protected embrace of his father, tears burning within his own eyes. Sucking in a gentle gasp, Emma takes a step towards the Mayor, eyes searching for some type of answer that would not be found in a string of pretty words that would not even remotely make sense when said aloud. Regina bites her bottom lip, rocking on her heels softly as she looks up at the sky, trying desperately to keep the tears at bay.
