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Chapter Text

6 a.m. Monday. After a chilling night, Regina mills woke up with a tired mind and a sore body. Taking a death curse to save your enemies usually takes a toll on yourself, but she never thought it would be such a boresome toll. Physically, she felt like she had been dragged through the forest, tied to a horse. Mentally, she had too much to think about.

But at least she still seemed to have a job. Something to distract her. Good.

Getting up, she headed towards the bathroom to take a warm shower and get ready for the day.

As she started lazily to take off her nightgown, she felt something, someone staring at her.

Nevermind, it was probably the paranoia of her mother’s supposed arrival to town. Everything was quiet and she still had almost two hours to get ready, have breakfast, and go to work.

As she rubbed the honey scented gel on her skin, she thought of what this would mean. Was she finally becoming a hero? Or at least, something less of a villain?

“Hi!”, a high-pitched voice said from behind, startling the brunette. A short teenager was sitting on the sink facing the shower, wearing ripped jeans and a Queen vintage tee shirt with a white turtleneck underneath. Regina dropped the gel bottle and she almost tripped. The girl, with longer hair and a straight, fluffy fringe was staring at her. Her lips were of a muted orange, glossy, and stretched out on an eerie smile. Her eyes had some sharp, black eyeliner and her eyelashes collided against the crystal of her metal framed glasses.

She looked so familiar…

“It’s me, Nina!”, the girl, no older than fourteen, said.

The curse had given Regina some physical proof of her life in this world, so she recognized immediately why that girl was so familiar: if she had been cursed as well, that’s how she would have looked like (more like how everyone would have remembered her) as a teenage girl.

This couldn’t be happening.

This was…

Magic, of course.

The girl’s face scrunched up in disgust.

“You really shouldn’t stay that much under the sun. It’s making you tan”.

Regina blinked a few times.

She slowly grabbed the nearest towel and wrapped it around herself, hoping it was all a dream. She hopped what she was seeing was just a nightmare, or some hallucination, a product of a magical overdose.

“What are you?”, she asked, stepping out of the shower and eyeing the girl with mistrust.

“I’m you, duh!”, the girl, Nina, said. She hadn’t heard the nickname ‘Nina’ in decades, and it felt surreal to even think she was talking to some pseudo holographic past version of herself.

“And why are you here?”, she asked, again, but at a slower pace.

Nina smiled again.

“Remember that creepy curse you ate yesterday? You did it because you were motivated to be a better person! To be different. You remember, right?”, Nina asked, jumping from the sink, her chunky sneakers hitting the marble floor with a loud sound. “Well, magic tricked you, and created a representation of your psyche. I’m the carnal manifestation of your mind!”, she added, and her grin spread like butter.

No, that was impossible. That was absurd.

But then again, Gold advised her to be careful about her wishes. She thought he was just being his usual melodramatic self, but it seemed he knew something she didn’t.

“Okay…”, she said, getting closer to the door. “I’m just going to… get dressed…”, Regina continued explaining, leaving the room. She was relieved to see that ‘Nina’ wasn’t following her.

“You should wear a push up bra! It will get you some of the attention you crave!”, the teenager said, loudly, and Regina almost banged her head against the walk-in closet door.

 Of course, she had heard of the magical consequences of playing God but she thought they would be more physically draining and less… annoying.

Hopefully, Nina would be unnoticeable to everyone else and, hopefully, if she ignored her, she would stop bothering her.

“That’s not going to happen!”, Nina yelled again. “I’m like a dog with a bone, remember?”, she added.

Regina sighed.

This was going to be a very long day.

“He’s not here”, Nina said. It’s like she was eternally happy. Her voice and her endless smiles were unnerving, and Regina knew why she was like that: after all, she had spent many years pretending she was happy. At some point during her adolescence, the pretending had gotten so stuck inside herself, that she was unable to take the mask off.

She turned around, annoyed. She knew Henry wasn’t there, it was just a force of habit.

“At least he lasted more that Daniel”, Nina said. Regina was ready to punch her, but the girl moved to the side and all the woman punched was the air. She shrugged, as if it hadn’t been a low hit. “It’s nice to see you’re finally admitting you have anger issues”.

“That was way off base”, Regina replied. She turned around, climbing the stairs down and skipping the kitchen.

“No breakfast today? Skipping a meal won’t make you any thinner, only severe starvation will do”, the young girl said nonchalantly. Regina gave her a hard look. “Which you actually kinda need”, she added with a pout, looking her up and down. Regina tried her best not to look at herself, not to focus on whatever Nina was scrutinizing, but it wasn’t being easy.

She got on the car, and the girl appeared magically next to her, fumbling with the radio buttons.

“Could you please not do that?”, she said, but she knew Nina wasn’t going to listen. She was a rebellious teenager, or as rebellious as you can be with someone like her mother watching your every step.

The girl spent the entire ride to the townhall singing out loud, and the mayor felt a headache coming her way. She was loud.

As she got out, she felt the chunky sneakers colliding against the floor, following her steps, and when she tried to slam the door on the girl’s face, Nina just kicked the door, which banged against the wall.

“So fucking rude”, she commented, letting her body fall graceless on the couch. “That’s why you don’t have any friends. You’re rude as fuck”.

Regina took a long look at her psych. She was sprawled over the couch, her hair slightly out of place.

“And you curse like a sailor”, she replied.

“Boo fucking hoo. Is that all you’ve got?”, the teenager attacked her, and Regina froze. Was she… being gentle with herself? “No wonder you’re a shitty queen, you’re just a scam”.

Nope, not going softer. Not at all.

“At least I don’t want to kill myself all the time”, she snorted, all the ladylike composure having left her body. Nina just laughed, an ugly laugh, like a pig.

“Honey, c’mon. I’m not you as a teenager. I’m your fucking mind made a person. I just look like a teenager, but I am you. All of you. I know you. You’ve always been as suicidal, if not more, as this teenage version of yourself”.

It hit too close home, but luckily, Nina didn’t push it that much. She went quiet and Regina was able to work for some hours that felt extremely long. Without a kid to go back to, or a partner to bring her lunch, or any friends to meet after work, life was boring.

12.30 p.m.

A knock on the door brought Regina out of her reverie, and Nina was quick on her feet to open the door.

Snow White was there, with a bag from Granny’s.

“Hi! I’m Nina! Your sweater is awfully ugly!”, she added, and Snow just opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came. Regina got up, her heels clicking hysterically against the floor.

“Don’t listen to her. Ignore her”, she said, pushing Nina to the side with some subtle violence and fully opening the door to let Snow come inside her office.

The younger brunette looked between the two women and thought for a second this was a dream, but Nina spoke, grabbing her attention.

“Come inside!”, she said from the floor, where Regina had made her land.

“Who is that?” Snow asked, following Regina and sitting opposite to the woman.

“No one. Don’t pay her any attention”, Regina answered.

Snow let a few moments of silence pass between them, and opened the bag containing burgers, two, and fries to share.

“I wanted to apologise, for thinking you wanted to kill us. David told me you were, in fact, risking your life to save us”, the bandit said, offering Regina a burger. The woman took it, and Nina just showed up behind Snow. Regina already knew the kid was going to fuck things up.

“I just wanted to say…”.

“That I appreciate it”, Regina interrupted. She knew what Nina was going to say, because Nina was her mind, and she was going to spill all of Regina’s secrets and regrets.

“And also, that…”.

“You and Charming make a cute couple”, Regina interrupted again.

Snow looked between Nina and Regina again, without a proper explanation and several questions as to why this girl that looked so much like Regina was so keen on talking to her.

“I don’t hate you”, Nina said, and it was too quick for Regina to come up with some alternative answer. “I’m sorry I blamed you for my unhappiness, that was wrong”.

Snow laughed nervously and looked around, waiting for some camera guy to show up from behind a corner and tell her it was all a prank. For years, she had waited for an apology from Regina, but this felt… disingenuous.

“I mean I still think you’re annoying as fuck and a huge crybaby”, she added, and Regina tried to get up fast to just hit the girl with something in the head and render her unconscious, but she was faster, and Regina got tangled on some wire that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.

“But it’s not your fault my mother was a psycho or that your father was a rapist, so, it’s like, I can’t really blame you, right? I mean, you kinda treated me like a doll, y’know? It was pretty depressing, but besides that you were almost tolerable when I was docile…”, she kept rambling, and that point Snow was confused and slightly shocked at everything.

Regina wanted her to stop. She grabbed her PC’s monitor and smashed it against Nina’s head, which made the girl disappear in mere seconds. Out of breath, she looked up to catch Snow getting up in a hurry and leaving just as fast. She could try to run behind her and convince her that some of the things she had said were lies, but what good would it do? The harm was already done. All the shit she had been keeping to herself for years was finally out, and Regina felt a familiar weight on her chest.

Oh, no, she had said too much and now someone was going to be sad. Why was she always like that?

“You can’t run away forever from the truth”, a voice said behind her, but she didn’t need to turn around to know it was Nina.

At midnight, Regina was exhausted. She had locked herself at home with her ghost-like psyche and had shielded her from all exterior contact. The last thing she wanted was to disrupt anyone else’s peace. She had been trying lately to be a good person, to change for the better, to redeem herself. She had tried to be forgiving of those who wronged her and hopeful that a better future would come and yet…

She had hurt Snow.

Although she wasn’t a fan of her, and although they had so much troublesome past between them, the young woman had always had faith in her, and she had often tried to give her another chance, and another one, and another one. And the fact that she had approached her to apologise for blaming her of something she hadn’t done made Regina believe there was still a chance for her to be, at least, the anti-hero, instead of the villain.

At midnight, all hope was lost as Snow had blocked her contact number and Emma was not picking up the phone. She had no one to talk to, to vent about how fucked up everything had been, and she thought this was it. This was the last straw.

Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, Nina lied next to her. She was still wearing the same clothes, but she had taken the glasses off, just like Regina had taken her contact lenses off as well. Two sides of the same scratched and valueless coin, side by side.

“I never thought my life would be this. That I would get older but never wiser. That I would know so much at the age of eighteen but so little as I grew up”.

Nina looked at her human counterpart. She really hadn’t gotten any smarter as time had passed. In fact, it seemed that, the older she got, the worst it got inside of her mind. The living proof was the tremendous loneliness she felt; once upon a time, everyone was already fed up with her scheming and manipulating, and they decided to leave her to her own devices, to wreak havoc.

She had tried to blame her downfall to those who abandoned her and manipulated her, but was it really their fault? Was she really that weak? Or had she always been this psychotic bitch, and had hidden behind her past experiences to justify her villainification?

“Do you remember when you were a kid?”, Nina said, rolling around to face Regina, who still looked too young to be pained and too old to have lost faith.

“Is this a trip down memory lane?”, Regina asked, knowing well how those intrusive reminders of her childhood ended. It was midnight, after all; it was her mind’s default mental breakdown moment of the day.

“No one wanted to play with you when you were a kid. They were too afraid of your mother, and your accent was too thick, and you skin was too dark for their liking, and you’re not even dark skinned. But they didn’t care. They just didn’t like you. And so, you were always working on something to make yourself lovable. You’re a crowd pleaser, unable to attract anyone with honest thoughts and actions”.

Regina winced at the statement, but she couldn’t deny the truth: she had spent so many years, most of her life, the many years she could remember… yearning to be loved.

It seemed she hadn’t evolved that much, because she still tried to lure people in and make them love her.

Turning to the side, Regina closed her eyes and let Nina cuddle her. Same old story; as always, she was going to sleep alone, only comforted and yet also tormented by her own mind, crying herself to sleep as that was the only lullaby she could tell herself.

Tuesday. The next day. Twenty-four hours later. Regina woke up and the ghost of her psyche was away. Contrary to popular belief, she didn’t feel any better. In fact, she felt somehow empty inside. She felt hollow, like a scarecrow made of hay. She was volatile at best and fragile at worst and a tiny part of herself wondered against all rational odds if a strong wind would be able to take her flying away.

She called in sick that morning, said she was feeling awful and that it may be contagious, and ended up drinking cold coffee with a tired teenager that looked more and more disheveled. Her eyes were puffy, and her makeup was ruined and Regina could recognize the teenager she was in her, with her pants discarded somewhere else and her thighs covered in bruises that had been tangible a long time ago.

She could also recognize the Evil Queen, fearsome and widely feared and broken inside of her diamond and steel made armor. She was all those women inside of Regina.

And out of all the women living inside of Regina, there were some she couldn’t recognize.

The doorbell rang and Regina thought that would be easy to ignore. Nina was sipping coffee and smoking a cigarette and Regina was trying hard not to think of all the mistakes she had made in the past, because Nina would sure as well rant about them if she ever started to think about it.

Emma knocked on the door, and then yelled at Regina.

“I know you are in there, Regina. Open up, c’mon!”, the blonde woman said, but Regina resisted the urge to open up. Emma had come searching for her, that must mean something.

“Everybody will betray you. You will never learn”, Nina said with a disappointed look on her face. Emma slipped a note under Regina’s door and left, and a sinking feeling installed itself on Regina’s chest.

She got up to pick up the note, but Nina stood in the way.

“Don’t let them fool you. You haven’t given them anything worthy to get their attention”.

Fighting against her despair, Regina picked up the note and read it.

There’s a welcome back party tonight. The kid wants to see you there. Please, come.

Tuesday night, and Regina was ready to leave the house with Nina trailing behind her.

At that point, it wasn’t necessary for the girl to talk about Regina’s flaws: one simple condescending look was enough to make Regina shiver and shudder and feel like a monster in disguise. No matter the garment, it seemed that night that it didn’t fit her. It was either too tight, and therefore, it highlighted her fat areas; or it could be too loose fitting, and she would just look bigger but not larger. It was either heels too high that weren’t a good fit because she was too clumsy and she was going to fall in front of everyone and make a fool of herself, or shoes too flat that don’t suit someone as tiny as herself.

But the hope of seeing Henry was enough to placate her own self-hate and the incipient, crippling depression that was making her physically ill.

As she drove to Granny’s, she heard Nina humming softly. It wasn’t loud anymore, it was subtle and quiet, and she instantly got déjà vu.

“How come we were so loud, and we ended up being so silent?”, she asked the girl next to her, who stared at the passing streets through the window.

“It’s better this way. We go unnoticed and we can dissociate. Don’t forget, that saved us all those nights back in our marriage”, Nina said absentmindedly. It felt rehearsed. It probably was.

“That’s not what I asked”, Regina pressed. “Is it because we got tired of being ignored?”.

“It’s more because we got tired of being punished. Can’t say I’m surprised, though. We sorta deserved to get abused. We’re the monster on the hill, after all”.

Regina parked the car and knew it wasn’t a good idea, but she had no other choice. Sometimes, seeing you child comes at a price.

And she and her cursed mind would find out exactly how much they could tolerate that night.

Chapter Text

As she entered the diner, Regina felt an instant relief paired with a physical weight: his son was hugging her so tightly she thought he would break her body in two parts.

Emma was behind, smiling, and Henry wasted no time hugging Emma as well.

“You weren’t lying when you said you would convince mom to come”.

The word ‘mom’ touched something deep inside of Regina, something only her son could touch. He truly was the only prince that could make Regina sacrifice her everything.

She hadn’t forgotten about Nina, but she decided to leave her to her own devices the moment she saw her talking to Snow. Could it be dangerous? Yes, but she wouldn’t waste a second next to her son for anything or anyone.

“I’m sorry I blurted all of that out. You probably think I did it to piss you off, but I truly didn’t. I just have this thing, I get nervous and make a mess of myself and that’s exactly what I’m doing right now”, she confessed, grimacing at her own pathetic wording.

“It’s okay”, Snow said, caressing the girl’s arm with her fingers. Regina used to do that long before curses and poisoned apples, to soothe the princess’ nerves, and Regina felt that touch on her arm despite being on the opposite side of the room. “What you said… it was true. It is true”, Snow said, “and I think a part of me has always known it, somehow. And if I could go back in time, I swear… Regina, I would try my best…”

Nina rushed to hug the young woman that meant so much to her, both negative and positive. Part of her anger towards Snow had stemmed from the fact that, after years following her around like a lost puppy, the girl seemed to not know what kind of monster her father was. Regina resolved sooner than later that she knew, that she just took the abuser’s side.

“I was a shitty stepmother”, Nina whispered.

“You were my only hope, actually”, Snow replied, wiping a tear from her eyes. “You were a hero to me, and you taught me so much… The Evil Queen ruined my life, but I’m trying to make the most out of the misery, and I must admit I don’t know if I would have been such a good girl if I had been through what you went through”.

It felt good to have someone acknowledge her pain, her trauma. Regina didn’t know how much she had needed that until she felt her heart forging back. It was healing in some unknown way for the brunette.

“Regina, are you okay?”, Emma asked. Regina’s eyes were glossy, and her lower lip trembled, and she felt she was going to collapse. She looked at Nina and smiled in a sad way.

“Yeah”, she answered, swallowing the tears back. I can stop the tears if I want to. “I was just hoping we could finally catch a breath”.

Emma laughed in a contagious way.

“Oh, boy, I could settle right now with just meat from a farm animal”, she added, and Regina’s tears spilled with her laughter.

When the night ended, the Charmings stayed to help out, including Regina and Nina. As she washed the dishes to save Granny and Ruby some trouble, Nina overheard David and Snow talking.

“She should have never come, especially with her doppelgänger”. His disdain was visible, and Nina felt a flame of violence arise.

“She’s trying, okay? And Gold said it’s actually a magical mishap, so Nina is just Regina psyche in the form of a grungy 90’s teenager. Despite our past, she’s trying to change, and I want to believe this time, with love and support, she will get there”, Snow said, a hand on the man’s cheek. “We all know it won’t be easy, and she will have to tolerate so much from so many people… but I’m going to be by her side”, she announced. “And so are Emma and Henry”.

Nina’s violence calmed down. Could it be possible? Could she truly be loved with all her vices and virtues, with all her baggage?

As Emma mopped the floor and Regina cleaned the tables, a sense of comfort took place.

“You know… you are kind of a superhero”, the blonde said. Regina turned around to face her. “I met your mom, I told you that… and jeez, Regina, she’s a real piece of work. Like, she’s fucked up to an extreme. I’d say it’s a miracle you became such a good mom with such a shitty example, but I don’t believe in miracles”.

Leaning on one of the tables, Regina smirked.

“And what do you believe on?”, she asked. She could see herself befriending Emma who, unlike many people she had met, seemed to be genuinely interested in her.

“Astrology”, the blonde said. “Biology”. She turned around to face the brunette. “Zoology. Ice cubes”.

“Ice cubes?”, Regina raised an eyebrow.

“I’m just kidding. Though, I believe in hard work. I mean, look at me. I’m a fucking mess, and I’m still standing. If I can, so can you”, the blonde declared.

“You have too much faith in me”, Regina said, clipped voice and a sense of sadness looming over herself.

The sheriff scoffed, as if Regina had said something delusional. “C’mon, Your Majesty… you are way stronger than anyone in this room”, she clarified, with a pale finger spinning around.

“Don’t know about that”, Regina replied. “I think daddy dearest could win me in a fight”.

Both women just laughed. Somehow, it felt like home.

Monday. 6 a.m. One week later.

“Have you heard of our supposed covert narcissism? The one we disguise as altruism?”, Nina said. Regina had been awake all night, talking to her psyche. For so many years, she had tried to block her mind, a paralyzing fear of it taking over in the worst way possible. But… hadn’t it taken over before? Talking to herself had never been so pitiful, and yet, it felt so liberating… The more time she spent with herself, the less damage Nina caused to others. Her words were weapons aimed to kill when she was mad, and she was widely known for being a mad woman. It had been like that for so long, it felt like an eternity. Her cages hadn’t only been mental, but those were the ones that contributed to her wasted potential —was it, though? Potential? She had been wasted, but it wasn’t just her potential—.

As sad as it may be, the Evil Queen had saved her. Those dark years were freeing, at least partially. She had been dressing for revenge. Not men, or women, but revenge. Her revenge. She hadn’t been sad; angry, sure, but not sad. Stubbornly obsessed with getting even at first, and maniacally fixed on doing as much damage as she could.

And it had been refreshing to be obtuse. To be blinded by her own emotions, to not get scolded every two seconds for any minimal mistake.

But those years were gone now. She had the opportunity to do better, to be better, not for others, not even for her son, but for herself.

“Apparently we’re the devil in disguise”, Regina replied, putting on her contact lenses. “If only the devil was half as sexy as us…”.

Monday. 6 a.m. One month later.

Nina had left quietly in the middle of the night, and the silence was overwhelming. Regina tossed and turned and wondered if people would still love her if the funniest, most relatable part of herself was gone.

Nina had been a vocal hurricane, and she had left two days ago. She was the part of Regina that she couldn’t hide, and her redemption was less of a burden when you can’t hide your true nature. Her constant swearing, her awful twerking, her lousy and self-deprecating way to treat herself.

It was all united inside of herself. Now the choice to show her true colors was hers again. She didn’t trust herself with such a choice.

She had learned that, despite what she had been told, people could love her if she was herself. Her real self. The one with the unprompted ‘pig’ laugh that made everyone laugh as well; the one that dramatized every song she sung; the compulsive candy hoarder that had to come up with her film theories in the middle of the film. That was her as well, as much as the stoic mayor always dressed to the nines, and people liked it.

And now she was gone.

She wished she could be less Regina and more Nina. She felt like she was impersonating someone else.

Was she impersonating herself? Had she played the part for so long that she had became a character, something physical and ethereal, instead of a real person?

She was going to call in sick.

She wanted to stay in bed.

As the sun came down and night took its rightful place, Regina turned around to check on her boy, her little prince.

Henry had been upset about something that had happened in school, but it looked to her like her son was more hers than Emma. Adventurous, sensitive, careless in a careful way…

“I didn’t choose this town”, she said, parking her car in front of Emma’s loft. Henry was going to stay the night there. “Well, I didn’t choose that town. Down there. I wanted so bad to go back home to my real kingdom. I didn’t choose it, but I had to stick with it, and it sucks”, she tells him, with that sad but self-satisfying smile. Almost as if she were patting herself on the back.

Henry had wanted to know so much, but even Nina had respected his childish innocence. She knew there was only so much she could shield him from.

“Yeah, it sucks. You could have cursed us all to live in Hawaii or something”, Henry said, sulking and looking down at his hands, twisting nervously on his lap.

“Or New York, can you imagine?”, she replied. The brunette opened her eyes comically. “Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you!”, she added, with a fake voice. “We’ve got princesses and dragons and lots of dark, life-threatening magic!”, she finished.

And Henry laughed.

And Regina laughed with him.

“You’re not the only one who wants to leave this town and, eventually, although I will spend countless nights thinking of how you’re doing… you’ll leave”, Regina confessed, and Henry looked at her. Those big hazel eyes were slowing changing along with his face and his body. In less that six years, he would be in college. He would be a young adult. He would be dating, and hanging out with friends, and very busy with homework and he wouldn’t be a little prince anymore. She just hoped, and worked for it, that his last years of childhood were nice to him.

“I would stay for you, mom”, he confessed. He had his hand on his backpack, but he didn’t look ready to leave the car.

Regina didn’t want him to leave either.

As she drank from her spiked coffee, with dinner untouched, Regina thought this didn’t make any sense.

“I couldn’t. That’s not what they taught me”, she said. The air was cold and she was starving but she had to get it out of her chest. It had been Snow who had shown up to talk about it. She had to give her some answers, some real ones. Not the ‘I am the baddest bitch in town’ type, but the real ones. The raw truths she ran away from for so long. “They taught me I had been born for it. That marriage had cost me my blood, my sweat and my tears. I spent many nights crying and stitching myself back to normalcy to give it up. I had to be the queen. And I’m sorry you were collateral damage, but I had put up with so much…”.

A sip from her drink, and Regina couldn’t face Snow. She kept staring at the horizon, sitting on her couch, near the window. As if she was still in a cage. But she wasn’t in a cage, was she?

“Living in a hidden cottage is not as bad as you think it is”, the woman said, and Regina had to laugh a humourless laugh.

“I hosted parties against my will. Blood dripping down my thighs and this dreadful feeling of nausea and I had to be there, like the perfect prize to be displayed. It wasn’t my castle, it wasn’t my homeland, and I still had to defend it. I had to reclaim it”, Regina admitted. Because sure, she could have fled to her homeland, she could have pretended to be a maid instead of the vanished princess, the one that was saved from the revolution. She could have left and never looked back but then the effort wouldn’t have meant anything.

Her voice falters. She won’t cry, but what if she does? Would it be so bad? She fears that, once opened the faucet of her eyes, she won’t be able to close it.

“I starved my body and took in all the unfunny jokes about me and tried my best to better myself up and now I would have to hide? No, sir. Not a chance”, she said, without a hint of amusement.

But it had a fundamental truth. Her body, as the new queen, wasn’t enough. So she would try her best to look thinner, less curvy, more innocent, less exotic. Less foreigner. To combat the popular songs, demeaning and cruel; she tried to get away from the ‘child queen’ moniker, she successfully hid the ‘raped queen’ reality, and she would have the crown for it.

The crown she never desired, but the only thing she could have. When you have a distant family, backstabbing friends, a destroyed nation, an empty womb, and a dead lover…

Then all you have left is a stolen crown that was her in the first place, because those jewels had belonged to her people in the first place, and her body had been treated as yet another conquest by the great white men that arrived unannounced at a new land and took all they could.

So, she took the money and the crown and the castle and the jokes and the pain and everything she could to hide the fact that she had nowhere to go and that she had no idea who to be.

What’s a queen without her king? A woman without her man?

What was she without the people she had lost along the way?

“Do you regret it, at least?”, Snow asked, and when Regina looked at her she didn’t see any reproach, or any hatred, or even sadness. It was an innocent question. She knew Snow regretted many things, so maybe she was just looking for some sympathy.

“Not exactly”, Regina confessed, midnight striking to keep her truth some company. “It pains me to know that’s how shit went down, but if I could go back in time I wouldn’t change it. I lost many people: I lost my best friend and my lover at the same time. I lost my innocence, my happiness, and no matter how much I wanted it back, because it was mine first, it had to happen that way for me to hit rock bottom. It led me to Henry. All the dark magic, the torture I went through, the dead babies and blood-soaked sheets. All of it led me to Henry. Of course, it stings to remember all the shit I went through, but it gave me my son. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. I feel sorry, but I don’t feel regret”.

A moment of silence passed by.

When Snow had told Regina she wanted to hear her side of the story, all of it, it freaked her out. And while Nina was there to support her and wipe her tears, she had felt less constricted, less ashamed of what she had gone through.

Now that she was on her own, it was completely different.

Worse.

Necessary.

“Maybe you should tell your story to the world”, Snow said, an air of philosophy in her face. “Maybe you should get it all off your chest. It would help everyone else understand why you did what you did and why you became who you became. It would help you understand yourself, too…”, she added.

Regina looked to the side. What good would that bring? Who would believe her, anyway?