Regina Mills had spent her whole life fighting Love, or Evil. When she was younger she fought for the love she had for Daniel, and tried her hardest to fight her mother's evil, ultimately ending in losing Daniel. For a while, she tried to fight the evil that began festering inside after the loss, and she lost that battle too. Then, for years she fought the love that Snow White and Prince Charming had for eachother, doing everything in her incredibly vast power to try and ruin it for them. Everything she did fought off love, deep down she felt unworthy of it, even from her own son who she truly loved but still kept at arm's length. When she met Emma Swan, it was different. Emma didn't even try to suck up to the mayor, she didn't care about Henry's stories of her evil-doing, though she did believe him. She wasn't scared of Regina, so she had no love to fight.
It felt wrong, but for that very reason, Regina found herself with fondness for Emma. How odd, that the younger woman's lack of love caused the older woman to become fascinated.
It felt wrong, and it felt scary, and Regina Mills didn't like feeling scared.
Set after 3x11 Going Home, after Pan's curse hits. This fic ignores ANYTHING that comes after this episode.
What if everyone hadn't met Zelena in the Enchanted Forest? What if everything was peaceful there, save for the absence of Henry and Emma? What if Hook hadn't needed to find Emma and give her her memories a year after she'd been in New York with Henry? What if everyone only finally found a way back to Our World six years later?
When Regina travels to New York and finds Emma and her now eighteen-year-old son who, of course, both have not the slightest recollection of who she is, things turn out to be much more complicated than she'd imagined. But Regina had never expected to fall for her son's other mother after building an entirely new relationship with her.....
Can Emma and Regina fall in love and build a relationship on this illusion of a perfect life? What happens if they're forced to return to Storybrooke and the truth comes out about their past?
A Once Upon a Time Swanqueen fanfiction. I do not own these characters.
Cover by @saltedcaramcl