Fairytale Drabble Challenge
Drabbles for the Fairytale Drabble Challenge - 30 drabbles. Each 250 words.
Fandom - Once Upon a Time
Pairing - Emma/Regina
AN - I didn’t expect to get these done. my hand was crippled and I couldn’t type. I took it as a sign that it wasn’t meant to happen. I happen to think that the extension of the challenge happened just to mock me for telling myself that I was ok with not completing the challenge as there hadn’t really been enough episodes to spin out into 30 drabbles.
The Ugly Duckling
Rating - G
It turns out getting everything you ever wanted isn’t all that she thought it would be, doesn’t make her feel how she thought it would.
She has wealth and power beyond her dreams. Her status alone means that people bend their knee to her and if that doesn’t work she has other ways to bend people to her will. She should want for nothing and yet she does. It makes her feels greedy but there’s an emptiness inside that she can’t ever seem to fill. There are things that she can’t obtain by gold or by force. Things that continue to elude her grasp but are somehow in the reach of those beneath her. Maybe what she has done to obtain her position mean that such things are forever lost to her.
She can’t accept that and so she finds another way. It means giving up everything but that is a small price to pay. She can’t blossom here; the soil is poisoned with her lies and misdeeds. She will take them all somewhere else. She will trade their happily ever afters for a chance at her own happiness. It gives her satisfaction to think her plan will bring the others eternal misery but that is just a bonus. What she’s hoping for, what she really wants, is a place where she doesn’t have to be so cruel. Where there is a chance that a seed of goodness might be able to grow in black cancer that is her soul.
Hansel and Gretel
Rating - G
AN - Set during The Pilot
When she blew the candles out on her sad, lonely, cake for one and made a wish this was not what she had in mind. True, she’s not alone but her idea of company had been along the lines of someone tall, dark and handsome and a bottle of wine. Instead she got a pintsized urchin who claimed to be her long lost son.
The sensible thing would have been to hand him over to the authorities or at least child services and forget she ever met him. She’s a bail bondsperson, she knows better than to become involved in this sort of thing but she has also experienced the system first hand and it was clear that Henry was way too sensitive to be left to the wolves.
She let go of any hope of alcohol fuelled hot sex in order to escort him home. She followed Henry’s trail of breadcrumbs and entered his strange life. At best his world is one of tantalising mysteries but it’s more likely that it’s nothing but a web of psychosis and sorrow.
She tells herself that she stays for him, to protect him from his adoptive mother. The mayor is flesh and blood and not out of the pages of a child’s book but she is still an evil witch. Henry is fragile and needs someone far more nurturing. She’s not sure if she can be that person but she is certain that she needs to keep an eye on his mother.
Thumbelina
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Pilot
She feels an anger inside her that she’s not felt in a long time. Not in forever. Not since before. Things here are not always as perfect as they should be but there has been nothing here to threaten her. Not until now.
Henry’s sojourn cuts her deeply. She’s given him everything a child could ever want and yet it has not been enough. He isn’t like the other residents of Storybrooke. He didn’t come from here and he knows things he shouldn’t. He’s aware that clocks should move, that people should have pasts, that things should make more sense. He sees part of the truth behind the lies. Worst of all, unlike the others, he can leave and leave he did.
She should kill him for his insubordination. It’s not like it would be the first time. She can’t do that though. He’s her son. Her tiny, precious baby. He may not have come from her womb but he’s hers and she can’t hurt him.
He’s trying to replace her. He’s even managed to find a stranger to play the role of birth mother but for all Regina knows he may not have been born at all. Gold should be under her spell but he’s shifty and she can’t trust him. Henry could easily come from magic. He could have grown from a barely corn. Where he comes from isn’t important because he’s hers now and she will not let this bitch just waltz in and take her son.
The Nightingale
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
The Snow woman simply refuses to take a hint. No one can accuse Regina of being too subtle - she’s had her evicted, she’s clamped her car, she’s had her arrested, she has basically printed Emma a one way ticket out of town - but somehow her message has failed to penetrate the blondes’ thick skull.
There is no way that she should be losing this battle, she has all the weapons and all the troops, and yet she stands on the brink of defeat. She keeps scheming and she keeps ordering Emma away and it only seems to make her nemesis more determined to stay. Which begs the question of why she continues with this tactic if it doubles and redoubles Emma’s resolve?
That’s a question that really bothers her. She’s a devious woman, and she doesn’t play fair, so if she really wanted Emma gone there is no way she would still be here. Things were much easier in the days where she would have had a thorn in her side removed using deadly force. She thinks about how she has moved on from sending people away to be killed and it doesn’t actually seem like progress. That said, she’s not entirely sure that she’d have it in her to kill Emma. She tells herself it’s because she wants to draw the battle out but she’s worried that maybe the reason she hasn’t been able to convince Emma to leave is because on some level she wants her to stay.
The Little Match Girl
Rating - G
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
Once again she awakes with a crick in her neck and a dull ache in her lower back. She attempts to stretch but her confines don’t allow for the kind of movement that would result in a satisfying crack or pop. She could fix this, she could go almost anywhere else in the world and not have to spend her nights sleeping in her car, but she is still here.
She doesn’t know why she stays. Nothing has ever been able to hold her anywhere before. She is an expert at leaving. Stagnancy does not suit her; it’s not in her nature.
Emma tells herself that she’s here for Henry, that he needs her, but she’s not really sure that’s the case. What does she even have to offer him? He is a disturbed little boy who clearly needs help but claiming a stranger as a mother probably isn’t the solution to his problems. Especially if that stranger has already gave him up once. He deserves better than his adoptive mother but she doubts that an ex-con who’s a major flight risk is the answer.
She’s not sure she stays for him anyway. If she were truly worried about Henry she would just take him. Move them both out of Madam Mayor’s grasp and make them disappear. Yet here she is, still in Storybrooke. It suggests that saving Henry isn’t the only thing of her agenda. She knows she should go but she can’t. She is stuck. She is frozen.
The Red Shoes
Rating - G
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
Whenever she looks around her new kingdom she feels a sense of failure. It was meant to be different here but it isn’t. Even knowing that she has trapped them all, stolen their happiness as she was robbed of hers, doesn’t help her to feel better. She doesn’t feel anything at all.
There is nothing that she wouldn’t do to change things. She has already proven the lengths that she will go to in order to get what she wants. Vanity and a lust for power drove her to do terrible things. It’s not that she regrets her actions, well not most of them, it’s just that they didn’t produce a result. She sacrificed her beloved father for nothing but dead ends and pain.
She wraps her arms around the Sheriff and knows that she feels as little as he does. He is missing a heart. She is missing a soul. She kisses him and continues their dance but her there is no music, no joy. Being with Graham isn’t enough. Owning him makes things hollow and he doesn’t really want to dance with her anyway. It shouldn’t be possible but somehow Emma has made his head turn.
She looks at Emma clad in her leather jackets and self-righteous and she hates her because Emma has the one thing she wants. That thing isn’t Graham, nor is it Henry, it’s that Emma is whole. Emma’s life isn’t a pointless dance because Emma gets to believe that her life is real.
Raven
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
People get attached to strange things. There are people out there with foot fetishes and people who want to have sex with cars. There are monsters with appetites that go way beyond criminal. She knows this and so she knows there are a lot worse things a person could be attached to than an apple tree but somehow the mayor’s affection for that plant fills Emma with rage.
She realises that chipping away at the tree was juvenile and but it felt so good. In fact she hadn’t felt that good in a very long time. Emma’s under no delusions about herself. She knows she’s far from perfect, a criminal record and baby born in prison do not a model citizen make, but she has never seen herself as a bad person. The feeling that she got as she lay into Regina’s tree may mean that she has to reconsider her assessment of herself. There is no way she should be taking that much pleasure in an act of destruction. There is also no way that a person she’s only just met should cause her to behave so badly.
There is something about Regina that gets under her skin. Hating her would be easy, it would also be understandable. What keeps Emma awake at night and makes her want to cry nevermore is how strangely compelling she finds the mayor. There is nothing normal about that and it may just make her as dark, disturbed and soulless as Regina herself.
Little Red Riding Hood
Rating - NC17ish
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
The waitress attempts to move them to a back room but Regina doesn’t have the patience for such things. She also can’t be bothered to remove Ruby’s clothing. She pushes her down onto a table and forces her legs apart. Ruby glances at the windows with a look of concern. In response Regina pins her arms down and hisses, “What’s wrong my dear? Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”
“Of course not.”
She smiles and licks her lips, “Good.” She knows the girl is lying but that just makes the whole thing more satisfying. This isn’t about attraction, this is about power. It’s about quelling the anger that Emma Swan caused when she dared to defile Regina’s tree. It was a brazen act of treason and it should have carried a harsher punishment. She should have cut the bitch’s hands off. Not so long ago she would have. Maybe she really is changing. Maybe, just maybe, she’s growing. If that’s the case it turns out that it’s incredibly overrated.
It’s not necessary to push Ruby’s skirt up; it is already riding around her waist. Regina gives thanks that the little tease walks around wearing almost nothing. She sweeps thin lace aside and plunges her fingers into Ruby. The girl bucks her hips and blood red nails gouge at Regina’s arms. She wants to enjoy the moment but it’s not working because she can’t stop picturing waves of blond hair or from wishing it was someone else beneath her.
Puss in Boots
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Snow Falls
When Henry lent her the shirt she had no idea just how much it would come in handy. She was happy enough to have something to wear and she really hadn’t looked beyond that benefit. Well that’s not entirely true. She won’t pretend she didn’t appreciate how good the material felt against her skin. It felt good to wear the shirt but it felt so much better to have Regina notice she was wearing it.
If she’d known it was this easy to drive the major crazy she would have snuck in and stolen a garment long ago. Petty theft is less hassle and more environmentally friendly than chopping down a tree, plus she gets a preserve pleasure from wearing Regina’s clothes. Sure it could get her arrested but nowadays she could get thrown in jail for sneezing so it doesn’t seem like much of a risk. As far she can see there really isn’t a downside. Regina may have implied that Emma would never see Henry again but that happens every other day and it only feeds into Henry’s belief that his adoptive mother is an evil Queen.
When she learns that John Doe has disappeared she has to make sure she can muster up the appropriate concern because she’s still a little giddy from her encounter with Regina. As milestones go someone noticing what she was wearing is hardly earth shattering but that doesn’t change the fact that it means Regina looks at her. Really looks at her.
The Little Mermaid
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Snow Falls
The moment she spotted her she knew Emma was wearing her shirt. The woman doesn’t have the funds to purchase such an item, let alone the taste. It makes her blood boil to see Emma standing there as though she has every right to wear the blouse. Who does she think she is? She doesn’t belonging in this town and she certainly doesn’t belonging in Regina’s clothing. It’s like Emma is trying to change who she is and she’s using Regina’s town in order to make the transformation.
She did not build Storybrooke to give someone else a second chance. This is her opportunity and while it may not be working she is damned if she is willing to share it with anyone else. Once again she finds herself wishing that Emma would just crawl back into whatever hole she came out of but she knows she doesn’t really mean it. Emma infuriates her and things would be so much easier if she left town but the truth is she also makes Regina feel alive. Even the anger Emma provokes is a blessing. It’s a sign Regina’s not completely dead inside.
As she grabs Henry’s hand and pulls him away she has a fleeting regret about letting Emma keep the shirt. It’s not that Regina needs it, she probably wouldn’t have even noticed it was gone, but she feels like she missed an opportunity. She should have ripped the shirt from Emma’s body because she might never get another chance.
Snow White and Rose Red
Rating - PG13
AN - Set after Snow Falls
Learning that Emma has moved in with Mary Margaret feels like yet another in her rapidly growing list of failures. She made what she thought was a cutting jibe about having someone when Emma didn’t and it backfired spectacularly. Her words caused Emma to go running into the shelter of Mary Margaret’s arms. Regina effectively gave two lonely people support and Emma somewhere to stay. Now that Ms Swan has a roof over her head her tenure in Storybrooke seems much more permanent.
That Emma took refuge at Mary Margaret’s is an extra kick in the teeth. Even in a world where she doesn’t know who she is Snow White manages to thwart her. At least Regina still has the power to keep Snow and her prince apart.
She curses that retched book and the impact it’s having on Henry. She’s certain he knows who Snow is and somehow he’s also divined the identity of Charming. Henry’s attachment to the Swan woman is even more puzzling. He believes she’s his biological mother but he also thinks she’s his saviour. For Henry a saviour could only come for the pages of his precious book and there’s no way Emma can be in there.
Regina can’t get rid of the book or force Emma to move but there are things she can do. She will corrupt Emma right under Mary Margaret’s watchful nose. Regina has firm plans to defile Swan over and over again in the bed that Snow kindly offered her.
Cinderella
Rating - mild R
AN - Set during The Price of Gold
She is many things but she is most certainly not a servant and she won’t be treated like one. It is not Regina’s choice what job she does. Emma doesn’t subscribe to Henry’s theory about the origins of this town but she can’t deny that Regina has the inhabitants under a spell. They are terrified of the woman. They bend to her whim like she is their ruler. Emma doesn’t understand how they let that happen but she isn’t like them. She’s not frightened of some crazy bitch who seems to think that being the major of a small town gives her licence to ride roughshod over the people who elected her.
Emma is not Regina’s minion. She will not beg for a job that she’s not sure she even wants. She’s not there to grovel at Regina’s feet. She is not there to serve at all.
The whole situation is ridiculous. The town doesn’t need a deputy. The only crimes here are the ones committed by Regina. The job offer is as pointless as Regina’s objection to it and the only thing that makes it compelling at all is how angry it will make the mayor.
She knows she shouldn’t be letting this battle of wills with Regina dictate her life but the whole thing is making her insane. Most of the time she understands her place in the war against Regina but every now and then dreams about finding herself on her knees before the woman she hates.
Bluebeard
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Price of Gold
Informing Henry that she would at a meeting all day as cover for screwing the sheriff is hardly new behaviour. It is, however, the first time she has had misgivings about what she is doing. Not about misleading Henry. She has never had any qualms about that. Lying to him is a necessary evil and it is even more important now that he has somehow learnt the impossible truth about her. What is giving her second thoughts is being with the sheriff.
She is using him but that is nothing new. He is hers to use. It has never bothered her that this is not something that he had a say in. That still doesn’t bother her; in a way keeping him from what he wants is reward in itself. The problem is that she doesn’t really want this. She wants sex. Badly. She just wants it with someone else.
She wants Emma but that’s only part of the problem. She could just take Emma, make her hers, but that would destroy all that Emma is just as Regina has killed the spirit of previous lovers. She wants this to be different; she wants Emma to be an equal. For Emma to think that she is worth choosing but she doesn’t know how to make that happen. She won’t take Emma by force, at least not that kind of force, and so she takes Graham instead because he is blinded to her evil in a way Emma can never be.
The Six Swans
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Still Small Voice
She wanted to be the one to rescue Henry. It would have sent a definitive message to Henry, to Ms Swan and to the town at large. She knows that she’s not the best mother but she really does try. She doesn’t understand why no one can see that. A heroic display would have been an opportunity to show everyone the risks she is willing to take for him. She didn’t get to be the hero though. What she got was a dressing down about too many hours spent behind a desk and not enough time spent in pursuit of athletic endeavours.
Watching Emma’s lithe and agile body be lowered down the shaft gave Regina a whole lot of ideas about strenuous activity. None of which were remotely appropriate under the circumstances. She filed those thoughts away and focused on the emergency that should’ve had all of her attention.
The thought of losing Henry was terrifying. It made her act rashly and say things she shouldn’t. It also nearly made her kiss Emma in the middle of a very public argument. So when he was safely in her arms again the relief she felt was not just about his well being. His return meant she didn’t have to be concerned about her sanity and could stop worrying about Emma’s safety.
In rescuing Henry Emma has turned herself into something very dangerous. Emma Swan is no longer just someone that Regina wants she has metamorphosized into someone Regina actually cares about.
The Nutcracker
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Still Small Voice
She can’t pretend that she knows what it feels like to be a real mother. She didn’t know her own and she gave her only child away so her experience of motherhood is extremely limited. What she can say is that when Henry was trapped underground she would have traded places with him without thinking. The idea of him being lost and frightened in the dark was more than she could bear.
Being an integral part in his rescue made her feel like she has done something of merit in his life. She can’t change the past. There is no denying that she missed his teething pains and Regina got to mop his brow when he had a fever but no one can take away what Emma did today. At least that’s what she thought.
There was a moment earlier, when both she and Regina were hugging Henry, where she had the crazy notion that they were a family. It’s ridiculous when she thinks about it but she the feeling was definitely there. She knows they don’t have the makings of a good family - Henry is looking for something that no real person will ever be able to live up to and his two mothers can barely stand one another - but for a second the three of them felt right. That was until Regina pushed her away like she was nothing. She shouldn’t care that Regina shunned her but she does. It makes her worthless, it makes her feel broken.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Rating - PG
AN - Set after The Still Small Voice
Their first kiss is different to what she expected and she did expect that they would kiss. It feels like she’d been waiting for this to happen since the moment they lay eyes on one another. The timing of the kiss, however, takes her completely by surprise.
She went to Regina’s to confront her. To give Regina a piece of her mind and to tell her that trying to make her feel crap for helping to save Henry was completely out of line. Exactly none this happened.
Regina opened the door and before Emma knew what was happening she’d been dragged inside and pressed up against the wall. Despite the force of that action the kiss itself was soft and tender. Almost shy. It was the antithesis of everything Regina is.
When their lips part Regina strokes her hair and places a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I was trying to save Henry.”
“And if things went wrong I’d have lost both of you.”
“I thought you wanted me dead.”
“If anything’s going to kill you it should be me.”
“Spoken like an evil queen.”
“Do you really believe that’s what I am?”
“Of course not. I’m not a child.”
“I’m glad,” Regina says with sincerity and Emma’s heart flutters.
This shouldn’t be happening. Emma’s been hurt and she locked her heart away in a place she thought no one could reach it and somehow it has escaped because of Regina of all people.
The Frog Prince
Rating - mild R
AN - Set after The Still Small Voice
Regina didn’t imagine that Emma would be a delicate flower, she doesn’t seem the type to need roses and candy, but it comes as a surprise just how quickly Emma lets things move to the bedroom. Or, more accurately, to the floor of the hallway.
Emma tears at Regina’s clothes as though she’d like to tear into her skin. Whatever attraction they feel it doesn’t erase the bad blood between them. Regina wonders just how much of Emma’s very evident lust is driven by hatred and revolution.
She rolls on top of Emma as they remove the last traces of their clothing but Emma shakes her head. She pushes Regina back and the momentum causes Regina’s head to crack against the wall.
“Fuck I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. We have far more important things to worry about.” She reaches up and pinches one of Emma’s nipples. Emma soon forgets her remorse and the bump to the head isn’t the only mark Emma leaves on Regina’s body.
Later, when they are spent and Emma is sleeping, she smooths Emma’s hair back and caresses her forehead. She takes the blonde in her arms whispering, “My princess.” Emma may be common born and lack airs and graces but she has more nobility than most of the royalty Regina has met. She vows to cherish this moment because she doesn’t know what the future holds. After all in the morning Emma won’t really be a princess but Regina will still be a fallen queen.
Sleeping Beauty
Rating - PG
AN - Set after the The Still Small Voice
She awakes in an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar bed. To add to her sense of disorientation and derealisation she is coiled around Regina like a snake. She tries to tell herself that she’s dreaming but it doesn’t feel like a dream. For a start they don’t ever make it to a bed in any of her dreams.
Emma slides her arm out from under Regina and winces as the return of blood sends fire dancing up her arm. She wiggles her fingers and looks around the room. She hoped to find a trace of her clothing but she’s struck by a flashback that reminds her that none of her clothing made it upstairs. Her first thought is that she wants to re-enact that moment as soon as possible. Her second thought is that she really needs to remove the evidence before Henry stumbles across it. He already has enough problems, he doesn’t need to find that and be scarred for life.
She grabs the top sheet and tries to pull it across the bed. Regina stirs briefly and rolls onto her side. Emma holds her breath and tries not to move. She’s not ready to deal with Regina or what they have done just yet. Regina’s breathing evens out and Emma lets out a sigh of relief. She looks down and is struck by how peaceful Regina looks. She’s seems softer. Sadder. It makes Emma think that there is much more to Regina than what she shows the world.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Sheppard
Living in Storybrooke is causing her to make some very strange decisions. Her dalliance with Regina should be at the top of that list but she can’t be sure she wouldn’t have made that mistake wherever she was living. She has a history of picking people who are very bad for her. When it comes to out of character decisions, moving in with Mary Margaret beats her fling with Regina hands down and that’s not just because Henry is insistent that Emma is Mary Margaret’s daughter.
Mary Margaret has been good to her and she is one of the few allies Emma has in this town. She likes her and she’s grateful that Mary Margaret has opened up her home but she would not be Emma’s usual choice for a housemate. Under normal circumstances Emma wouldn’t chose to have a housemate at all and she certainly wouldn’t select someone as nice as Mary Margaret.
There’s nothing wrong with being nice but it’s not all that easy to live with. Their values are not really compatible. Emma has done a lot more than hold hands with guys and she’s sure that in Mary Margaret’s mind that makes her a slut. Well at least that’s what she thinks she was being accused of - it was either that or a lesbian. She’s not sure which one her ‘mother’ would find worse. Emma likes to deal with that judgement by reminding herself that, if Henry’s right, Mary Margaret once cohabited with seven men.
Rumpelstiltskin
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Sheppard
Working so hard to ensure that Snow White and Prince Charming don’t find a way back to one another is incredibly spiteful but it feels very important. It’s not just because she made a vow to ensure they would never be happy or that she feels she can only be happy if they are miserable. She is legitimately terrified that sky will fall if they get together. She would always have fought tooth and nail to ensure this didn’t happen but now that Emma has arrived it seems infinitely more important.
Desperate times call for desperate measures and so she uses Mr Gold in her ploy to give David his memory back. She’s not really sure that she used him so much as he allowed himself to be used. She worries that it is as dangerous to owe Gold a favour now as it would have been in the past. Regina knows that going to him was reckless but it was her only option.
She’s certain that he is plotting against her and that he wants to bring about her downfall. In her more paranoid moments she believes that Emma being here has something to with him. That he picked Henry because Emma was his mother. It sounds crazy but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Emma’s arrival has certainly had an impact on the town.
She wants to hate Gold but she can’t. He may bring about her destruction but, intentional or not, he has also brought her Emma.
The Firebird
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
She breaks her rules and lets the sheriff stay over but it’s not about him. The fact that he was in her bed in the first place wasn’t about him either, it was about her inability to broach with Emma that they had spent the night together. Rejection is not something she has had to deal with since she came to Storybrooke and she really doesn’t want to start now.
The return of the wolf changes everything. The animal seems to be waking the huntsman from his eternal slumber and she can’t have that. She allows Graham to stay in an attempt to convince him that they have something more than they do. To convince him that they have anything at all.
She should have killed the wolf long ago. She can not allow the beast to upset the artificial ecosystem that the town is constructed on. Graham can not ever be anything more than the mindless automaton that he has always been. He is useless to her if he develops independent thought. The sheriff of this town needs to be her puppet.
The wolf doesn’t just threaten her hold on the sheriff’s office. It threatens something far more important. Emma pays way too much attention to the huntsman. If Emma watches a wolf change something in Graham she will know that something is very wrong here. That can not happen because it will set Regina’s princess free from her palace of ignorance and then Emma will never be hers.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Emma sneaks around Storybrooke flashing her hair of gold and worming her way into the lives of the people in the town. She’s a thief. She takes things that aren’t hers and it seems to Regina that Emma is particularly interested in her belongings. Her son. Her lover. Her heart.
Most people look at Regina and think of her as heartless and cruel. Regina knows for a fact that they are wrong, at least about the heartless part. She most definitely has a heart because knowing that Emma and Graham are spending time together is breaking it.
When she finds them at the crypt she feels an overwhelming sense of disappointment and betrayal. In fairness they are searching for the truth but it’s not a truth she wants found. She doesn’t want to be that person. She wants what is walled up down there to be her past, not her future.
Watching Graham’s obvious doubt and every more obvious affection for Emma leaves Regina feeling numb and confused. None of this should be happening. None of this should even be possible.
She’s grateful when Emma attacks her. That is at least something understandable. Something real. It’s also a sign that she is capable of provoking strong emotions in Emma.
She wonders if Emma is as aroused by the fight as she is.
Graham has become a liability and so she kills him. Not because she doesn’t want Emma to have him but because she doesn’t want him to have Emma.
Pinocchio
Rating - PG
AN - Set after The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Henry is convinced that his therapist is a cricket who is really a conscience. This is not the innocent make-believe of a child who insists on leaving a chair free for an imaginary friend. He believes it in the same way Emma believes that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. For Henry his fairytale book is a bible, the words of its pages are the gospel truth.
She wishes life was that easy. That good and evil could be so clearly defined but she doesn’t have the eyes of a child. She knows that the world isn’t black and white and that good and evil exist in everyone. Remaining on the side of angels isn’t a choice, it’s a constant battle.
She is losing the battle right now. She saw Graham as a life rope. As someone who could pull her away from Regina’s web but he wasn’t strong enough. She kissed him and he collapsed like a puppet who’d lost his strings. A better person would have stayed at the hospital but Emma left there as quickly as she could. She fled and she used her bruised hand to knock on Regina’s door.
Emma doesn’t believe any of Henry’s craziness but as her shirt slides to the floor and Regina ravages the bare skin of her neck she wishes he was right. That Jimmy Cricket was real. It’s clear to her that she needs an external conscience because her own is very, very flawed.
The Snow Queen
Rating - PG
AN - Set after The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Regina thought Emma would be a grief stricken ruin after the death of her sheriff. It seems she underestimated the other woman, or maybe she overestimated Emma’s attachment to Graham, because Emma shows up on her doorstep with fire in her eyes. Emma slaps Regina’s across the cheek and then grabs Regina’s face between her hands and kisses her. The kiss is brutal and the wound on Regina’s lip starts bleeding again.
When Emma finally ends the kiss Regina wipes the blood off her face with the back of her hand and asks, “So are you here to fight or fuck?”
“Who says we can’t do both,” Emma replies and launches herself at Regina.
Emma attempts to pin her down like a butterfly but Regina grabs Emma’s collar and drags her down the hallway. Her hip crashes into the sideboard, halting their movement. She pushes Emma’s jacket off and when the shirt follows she greedily attacks the flesh of Emma’s neck and chest.
As she attempts to remove Emma’s bra Emma flings Regina’s arm away. Her elbow smashes into a mirror and a network of cracks radiate from the impact site. She looks at herself in the glass and sees tiny broken images. It makes her look as ugly as she feels.
Emma takes Regina’s arm and assesses the damage, “It might scar.”
“I’ll live.”
“Who do you think gets the seven years of bad lack for the mirror?”
“Maybe both of us?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I hate mirrors.”
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
Rating - R
AN - Set after The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
The steam from the shower and the warmth of the water do more to ease her pain than the Advil did. She bites the inside of her cheek as the shower gel irritates her raw skin and decides that Emma could be described as a fighter rather than a lover. Regina’s body is covered in battle scars. There are bruises and abrasions all over her. She’s pleased to note that it seems that more of them are from the sex than from the fight.
Regina hears movement in the room. Emma enters the shower and wraps her arms around Regina’s waist, “You smell like apples. I should have known.”
Regina shivers. This could be related to the fact that Emma’s body is cold but she suspects it has more to do with her own body’s response to Emma’s proximity. She feels it’s better that Emma doesn’t know this and so she says, “You’re freezing. We should warm you up.”
She pulls Emma under the warm spray and watches in appreciation as the water flows down over Emma’s curves. She places more gel in her hands and then rubs them all over Emma’s body. As her hands move over Emma’s chest she can feel Emma’s heart racing.
If she were sensible she would just rip Emma’s heart out and remover the danger that Emma represents to her, to her town, to her world. She can’t do that though because she needs Emma’s heart beating. She needs it to beat for her.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Desperate Souls
Emma doesn’t see Regina as an out and out villain, not in the same way that Henry does, but she knows there’s evil in the woman. She feels it in every pore of her body and yet somehow she can’t stay away from her. Emma is drawn to Regina in a way she can neither understand nor explain.
She knows that most, if not all, of the bad things that have happened to her since her arrival in this strange little town are down to Regina. It’s ridiculous but she even feels that Regina had a hand in Graham’s death.
If she were the hero that Henry wants her to be, the hero the town is claiming she is, she would slay the beast that is Regina and set them all free. Emma could have left Regina to die in that fire and no one would have wept. No one except Emma.
She’s struck by how terrified Regina was at that moment. How certain she seemed that Emma would leave her there to die. It hurt Emma to think that Regina might believe she was capable of that.
On reflection, Regina’s words appear to be about so much more than just the fire. They were about deeper frees. The vulnerability in Regina’s voice spoke volumes. It seems to Emma that Regina was talking about their relationship, about her fear that Emma will leave her. If Regina knew just how under her spell Emma is, she’d never have to worry again.
Beauty and the Beast
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Desperate Souls
For someone who has spent a lifetime attempting to ensure that she’s the fairest of them all she has given very little thought as to the nature of beauty. The only things beauty ever stirred in her were feelings of jealousy and rage. Her instinct is to destroy any beauty that threatens her own. A task that’s easy enough to achieve, so long as the help can be trusted to follow her orders.
She has always known that Emma’s attractive, her physical attributes are undeniable, but when Emma came back for her Regina realised just how beautiful Emma really is. Regina was being supported by Emma, cradled against the side of her body, she couldn’t even look at Emma and yet she was aware that Emma was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Regina has never subscribed to the theory of inner beauty. What’s the point in beauty that people can’t see? People are shallow. They don’t look beyond the surface. If the wrapping is shiny then it doesn’t matter that the package is rotten to the core.
She’s not going to pretend that what happened today will change the way she looks at the world but it does change the way she looks at Emma Swan. To her Emma is beautiful inside and out. Emma’s beauty makes her feel hideous in comparison but what makes Regina truly monstrous is that even though she knows she’s not good enough for her, she’s going to try to keep Emma anyway.
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Desperate Souls
For the longest time coming here had seemed like a mistake. She literally moved heaven and earth in an attempt to find something better and all she ended up with was regrets. She’s in a worse position than those she cursed because she still has her memories. She’s aware that things are meant to be different.
She tries so hard to keep the town under control. It’s a full time commitment and her job has been made harder since the arrival of Emma. The appointment of a new sheriff should not have been a problem. It should have been a simple matter of making a decree. There most certainly should not have been an election. The people of this town can not start to think they have a choice when it comes to elected officials.
Regina pins the badge on Emma and in doing so admits defeat in front of the entire town. She looks Emma in the eye and they both know that they’ve been played. That Mr Gold orchestrated this whole production. She is sure this was about more than publicly humiliating her, for some reason he wants the town to see Emma as a hero. She places the badge in front of Emma she thinks uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
She’s sure he thinks he’s hurt her but the irony is that she’d let him have this town of the damned if she could just find a way to make things work with Emma.
Rapunzel
Rating - PG
AN - Set after Desperate Souls
Emma rolls her eyes as Regina throws her sheriff’s badge to the ground. “That’s the only thing wanted to take off me?”
“Oh I plan to take everything off you. I just wanted to remind you that I’m the law in this house.”
“You can order me out of my clothes any time you want.”
“I wanted to pin that stupid star on your chest today.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“If I’d gotten my hands on your chest I wouldn’t have been able to stop there.”
“It’s good to know that I have some power over you,” Emma bites into Regina’s shoulder.
“You have no idea,” Regina ends the conversation with a kiss.
Emma displays her best multitasking stills by unbuttoning Regina’s blouse while continuing the kiss. Regina stops abruptly causing Emma to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“You’re hair still smells of smoke.”
Emma holds some strands of her hair up to her nose and the acrid stench is undeniable, “I have washed it. Many times. In case you’re thinking that’s the reason. You’re lucky your hair is so short.”
“Or maybe it’s just that I don’t buy my shampoo at gas stations,” Regina says with a smirk. “I used to have such long hair.”
“Really, I can’t imagination it. I like it short.”
“Me too. I’m glad you’ve only seen me like this.”
Emma gets the sense Regina is referring to a lot more than hair and so she tells her, “I like all of you just the way you are.”
The Golden Goose
Rating - PG
AN - Set following 7.15AM
Regina opens the door with a frown, “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“I didn’t know I needed a written invitation.”
“You do if Henry’s still up.”
“Well lucky for you this isn’t a social call.”
“It isn’t?” Regina sounds disappointed.
“I’m here in my capacity as sheriff to report back about the stranger in town.”
“In that case you can come in.”
Regina leads her to the kitchen and offers her an apple cider but Emma declines, “I told you this wasn’t a social call.”
“I see,” Regina says as she takes a drink for herself.
“He’s a writer.”
“I see,” Regina looks shaken and she sits down.
“What’s wrong? Are you worried he’ll expose all your dirty little secrets?”
“I shouldn’t be the only one worried about that. You happen to be one of my dirty secrets.”
“I’m not worried about him finding out about us.”
“Why? Do you have juicier skeletons in your closet?”
“No. I’m just confident that you’ll be seen as the villain. I’ll be yet another of your innocent victims.”
Regina lets out a long laugh. “You’re good for me you know?”
Emma reaches across the table to place her hand on Regina’s, “I try to be.”
“Even though I’m the villain?”
“Especially because you’re the villain.”
Regina laughs again, “And what does that say about you Emma Swan?”
“It says I see more than most.” She grabs Regina’s glass and takes a sip. “Now, what can we do about getting Henry to go to bed?”
Fandom - Once Upon a Time
Pairing - Emma/Regina
AN - I didn’t expect to get these done. my hand was crippled and I couldn’t type. I took it as a sign that it wasn’t meant to happen. I happen to think that the extension of the challenge happened just to mock me for telling myself that I was ok with not completing the challenge as there hadn’t really been enough episodes to spin out into 30 drabbles.
The Ugly Duckling
Rating - G
It turns out getting everything you ever wanted isn’t all that she thought it would be, doesn’t make her feel how she thought it would.
She has wealth and power beyond her dreams. Her status alone means that people bend their knee to her and if that doesn’t work she has other ways to bend people to her will. She should want for nothing and yet she does. It makes her feels greedy but there’s an emptiness inside that she can’t ever seem to fill. There are things that she can’t obtain by gold or by force. Things that continue to elude her grasp but are somehow in the reach of those beneath her. Maybe what she has done to obtain her position mean that such things are forever lost to her.
She can’t accept that and so she finds another way. It means giving up everything but that is a small price to pay. She can’t blossom here; the soil is poisoned with her lies and misdeeds. She will take them all somewhere else. She will trade their happily ever afters for a chance at her own happiness. It gives her satisfaction to think her plan will bring the others eternal misery but that is just a bonus. What she’s hoping for, what she really wants, is a place where she doesn’t have to be so cruel. Where there is a chance that a seed of goodness might be able to grow in black cancer that is her soul.
Hansel and Gretel
Rating - G
AN - Set during The Pilot
When she blew the candles out on her sad, lonely, cake for one and made a wish this was not what she had in mind. True, she’s not alone but her idea of company had been along the lines of someone tall, dark and handsome and a bottle of wine. Instead she got a pintsized urchin who claimed to be her long lost son.
The sensible thing would have been to hand him over to the authorities or at least child services and forget she ever met him. She’s a bail bondsperson, she knows better than to become involved in this sort of thing but she has also experienced the system first hand and it was clear that Henry was way too sensitive to be left to the wolves.
She let go of any hope of alcohol fuelled hot sex in order to escort him home. She followed Henry’s trail of breadcrumbs and entered his strange life. At best his world is one of tantalising mysteries but it’s more likely that it’s nothing but a web of psychosis and sorrow.
She tells herself that she stays for him, to protect him from his adoptive mother. The mayor is flesh and blood and not out of the pages of a child’s book but she is still an evil witch. Henry is fragile and needs someone far more nurturing. She’s not sure if she can be that person but she is certain that she needs to keep an eye on his mother.
Thumbelina
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Pilot
She feels an anger inside her that she’s not felt in a long time. Not in forever. Not since before. Things here are not always as perfect as they should be but there has been nothing here to threaten her. Not until now.
Henry’s sojourn cuts her deeply. She’s given him everything a child could ever want and yet it has not been enough. He isn’t like the other residents of Storybrooke. He didn’t come from here and he knows things he shouldn’t. He’s aware that clocks should move, that people should have pasts, that things should make more sense. He sees part of the truth behind the lies. Worst of all, unlike the others, he can leave and leave he did.
She should kill him for his insubordination. It’s not like it would be the first time. She can’t do that though. He’s her son. Her tiny, precious baby. He may not have come from her womb but he’s hers and she can’t hurt him.
He’s trying to replace her. He’s even managed to find a stranger to play the role of birth mother but for all Regina knows he may not have been born at all. Gold should be under her spell but he’s shifty and she can’t trust him. Henry could easily come from magic. He could have grown from a barely corn. Where he comes from isn’t important because he’s hers now and she will not let this bitch just waltz in and take her son.
The Nightingale
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
The Snow woman simply refuses to take a hint. No one can accuse Regina of being too subtle - she’s had her evicted, she’s clamped her car, she’s had her arrested, she has basically printed Emma a one way ticket out of town - but somehow her message has failed to penetrate the blondes’ thick skull.
There is no way that she should be losing this battle, she has all the weapons and all the troops, and yet she stands on the brink of defeat. She keeps scheming and she keeps ordering Emma away and it only seems to make her nemesis more determined to stay. Which begs the question of why she continues with this tactic if it doubles and redoubles Emma’s resolve?
That’s a question that really bothers her. She’s a devious woman, and she doesn’t play fair, so if she really wanted Emma gone there is no way she would still be here. Things were much easier in the days where she would have had a thorn in her side removed using deadly force. She thinks about how she has moved on from sending people away to be killed and it doesn’t actually seem like progress. That said, she’s not entirely sure that she’d have it in her to kill Emma. She tells herself it’s because she wants to draw the battle out but she’s worried that maybe the reason she hasn’t been able to convince Emma to leave is because on some level she wants her to stay.
The Little Match Girl
Rating - G
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
Once again she awakes with a crick in her neck and a dull ache in her lower back. She attempts to stretch but her confines don’t allow for the kind of movement that would result in a satisfying crack or pop. She could fix this, she could go almost anywhere else in the world and not have to spend her nights sleeping in her car, but she is still here.
She doesn’t know why she stays. Nothing has ever been able to hold her anywhere before. She is an expert at leaving. Stagnancy does not suit her; it’s not in her nature.
Emma tells herself that she’s here for Henry, that he needs her, but she’s not really sure that’s the case. What does she even have to offer him? He is a disturbed little boy who clearly needs help but claiming a stranger as a mother probably isn’t the solution to his problems. Especially if that stranger has already gave him up once. He deserves better than his adoptive mother but she doubts that an ex-con who’s a major flight risk is the answer.
She’s not sure she stays for him anyway. If she were truly worried about Henry she would just take him. Move them both out of Madam Mayor’s grasp and make them disappear. Yet here she is, still in Storybrooke. It suggests that saving Henry isn’t the only thing of her agenda. She knows she should go but she can’t. She is stuck. She is frozen.
The Red Shoes
Rating - G
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
Whenever she looks around her new kingdom she feels a sense of failure. It was meant to be different here but it isn’t. Even knowing that she has trapped them all, stolen their happiness as she was robbed of hers, doesn’t help her to feel better. She doesn’t feel anything at all.
There is nothing that she wouldn’t do to change things. She has already proven the lengths that she will go to in order to get what she wants. Vanity and a lust for power drove her to do terrible things. It’s not that she regrets her actions, well not most of them, it’s just that they didn’t produce a result. She sacrificed her beloved father for nothing but dead ends and pain.
She wraps her arms around the Sheriff and knows that she feels as little as he does. He is missing a heart. She is missing a soul. She kisses him and continues their dance but her there is no music, no joy. Being with Graham isn’t enough. Owning him makes things hollow and he doesn’t really want to dance with her anyway. It shouldn’t be possible but somehow Emma has made his head turn.
She looks at Emma clad in her leather jackets and self-righteous and she hates her because Emma has the one thing she wants. That thing isn’t Graham, nor is it Henry, it’s that Emma is whole. Emma’s life isn’t a pointless dance because Emma gets to believe that her life is real.
Raven
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
People get attached to strange things. There are people out there with foot fetishes and people who want to have sex with cars. There are monsters with appetites that go way beyond criminal. She knows this and so she knows there are a lot worse things a person could be attached to than an apple tree but somehow the mayor’s affection for that plant fills Emma with rage.
She realises that chipping away at the tree was juvenile and but it felt so good. In fact she hadn’t felt that good in a very long time. Emma’s under no delusions about herself. She knows she’s far from perfect, a criminal record and baby born in prison do not a model citizen make, but she has never seen herself as a bad person. The feeling that she got as she lay into Regina’s tree may mean that she has to reconsider her assessment of herself. There is no way she should be taking that much pleasure in an act of destruction. There is also no way that a person she’s only just met should cause her to behave so badly.
There is something about Regina that gets under her skin. Hating her would be easy, it would also be understandable. What keeps Emma awake at night and makes her want to cry nevermore is how strangely compelling she finds the mayor. There is nothing normal about that and it may just make her as dark, disturbed and soulless as Regina herself.
Little Red Riding Hood
Rating - NC17ish
AN - Set during The Thing You Love Most
The waitress attempts to move them to a back room but Regina doesn’t have the patience for such things. She also can’t be bothered to remove Ruby’s clothing. She pushes her down onto a table and forces her legs apart. Ruby glances at the windows with a look of concern. In response Regina pins her arms down and hisses, “What’s wrong my dear? Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”
“Of course not.”
She smiles and licks her lips, “Good.” She knows the girl is lying but that just makes the whole thing more satisfying. This isn’t about attraction, this is about power. It’s about quelling the anger that Emma Swan caused when she dared to defile Regina’s tree. It was a brazen act of treason and it should have carried a harsher punishment. She should have cut the bitch’s hands off. Not so long ago she would have. Maybe she really is changing. Maybe, just maybe, she’s growing. If that’s the case it turns out that it’s incredibly overrated.
It’s not necessary to push Ruby’s skirt up; it is already riding around her waist. Regina gives thanks that the little tease walks around wearing almost nothing. She sweeps thin lace aside and plunges her fingers into Ruby. The girl bucks her hips and blood red nails gouge at Regina’s arms. She wants to enjoy the moment but it’s not working because she can’t stop picturing waves of blond hair or from wishing it was someone else beneath her.
Puss in Boots
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Snow Falls
When Henry lent her the shirt she had no idea just how much it would come in handy. She was happy enough to have something to wear and she really hadn’t looked beyond that benefit. Well that’s not entirely true. She won’t pretend she didn’t appreciate how good the material felt against her skin. It felt good to wear the shirt but it felt so much better to have Regina notice she was wearing it.
If she’d known it was this easy to drive the major crazy she would have snuck in and stolen a garment long ago. Petty theft is less hassle and more environmentally friendly than chopping down a tree, plus she gets a preserve pleasure from wearing Regina’s clothes. Sure it could get her arrested but nowadays she could get thrown in jail for sneezing so it doesn’t seem like much of a risk. As far she can see there really isn’t a downside. Regina may have implied that Emma would never see Henry again but that happens every other day and it only feeds into Henry’s belief that his adoptive mother is an evil Queen.
When she learns that John Doe has disappeared she has to make sure she can muster up the appropriate concern because she’s still a little giddy from her encounter with Regina. As milestones go someone noticing what she was wearing is hardly earth shattering but that doesn’t change the fact that it means Regina looks at her. Really looks at her.
The Little Mermaid
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Snow Falls
The moment she spotted her she knew Emma was wearing her shirt. The woman doesn’t have the funds to purchase such an item, let alone the taste. It makes her blood boil to see Emma standing there as though she has every right to wear the blouse. Who does she think she is? She doesn’t belonging in this town and she certainly doesn’t belonging in Regina’s clothing. It’s like Emma is trying to change who she is and she’s using Regina’s town in order to make the transformation.
She did not build Storybrooke to give someone else a second chance. This is her opportunity and while it may not be working she is damned if she is willing to share it with anyone else. Once again she finds herself wishing that Emma would just crawl back into whatever hole she came out of but she knows she doesn’t really mean it. Emma infuriates her and things would be so much easier if she left town but the truth is she also makes Regina feel alive. Even the anger Emma provokes is a blessing. It’s a sign Regina’s not completely dead inside.
As she grabs Henry’s hand and pulls him away she has a fleeting regret about letting Emma keep the shirt. It’s not that Regina needs it, she probably wouldn’t have even noticed it was gone, but she feels like she missed an opportunity. She should have ripped the shirt from Emma’s body because she might never get another chance.
Snow White and Rose Red
Rating - PG13
AN - Set after Snow Falls
Learning that Emma has moved in with Mary Margaret feels like yet another in her rapidly growing list of failures. She made what she thought was a cutting jibe about having someone when Emma didn’t and it backfired spectacularly. Her words caused Emma to go running into the shelter of Mary Margaret’s arms. Regina effectively gave two lonely people support and Emma somewhere to stay. Now that Ms Swan has a roof over her head her tenure in Storybrooke seems much more permanent.
That Emma took refuge at Mary Margaret’s is an extra kick in the teeth. Even in a world where she doesn’t know who she is Snow White manages to thwart her. At least Regina still has the power to keep Snow and her prince apart.
She curses that retched book and the impact it’s having on Henry. She’s certain he knows who Snow is and somehow he’s also divined the identity of Charming. Henry’s attachment to the Swan woman is even more puzzling. He believes she’s his biological mother but he also thinks she’s his saviour. For Henry a saviour could only come for the pages of his precious book and there’s no way Emma can be in there.
Regina can’t get rid of the book or force Emma to move but there are things she can do. She will corrupt Emma right under Mary Margaret’s watchful nose. Regina has firm plans to defile Swan over and over again in the bed that Snow kindly offered her.
Cinderella
Rating - mild R
AN - Set during The Price of Gold
She is many things but she is most certainly not a servant and she won’t be treated like one. It is not Regina’s choice what job she does. Emma doesn’t subscribe to Henry’s theory about the origins of this town but she can’t deny that Regina has the inhabitants under a spell. They are terrified of the woman. They bend to her whim like she is their ruler. Emma doesn’t understand how they let that happen but she isn’t like them. She’s not frightened of some crazy bitch who seems to think that being the major of a small town gives her licence to ride roughshod over the people who elected her.
Emma is not Regina’s minion. She will not beg for a job that she’s not sure she even wants. She’s not there to grovel at Regina’s feet. She is not there to serve at all.
The whole situation is ridiculous. The town doesn’t need a deputy. The only crimes here are the ones committed by Regina. The job offer is as pointless as Regina’s objection to it and the only thing that makes it compelling at all is how angry it will make the mayor.
She knows she shouldn’t be letting this battle of wills with Regina dictate her life but the whole thing is making her insane. Most of the time she understands her place in the war against Regina but every now and then dreams about finding herself on her knees before the woman she hates.
Bluebeard
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Price of Gold
Informing Henry that she would at a meeting all day as cover for screwing the sheriff is hardly new behaviour. It is, however, the first time she has had misgivings about what she is doing. Not about misleading Henry. She has never had any qualms about that. Lying to him is a necessary evil and it is even more important now that he has somehow learnt the impossible truth about her. What is giving her second thoughts is being with the sheriff.
She is using him but that is nothing new. He is hers to use. It has never bothered her that this is not something that he had a say in. That still doesn’t bother her; in a way keeping him from what he wants is reward in itself. The problem is that she doesn’t really want this. She wants sex. Badly. She just wants it with someone else.
She wants Emma but that’s only part of the problem. She could just take Emma, make her hers, but that would destroy all that Emma is just as Regina has killed the spirit of previous lovers. She wants this to be different; she wants Emma to be an equal. For Emma to think that she is worth choosing but she doesn’t know how to make that happen. She won’t take Emma by force, at least not that kind of force, and so she takes Graham instead because he is blinded to her evil in a way Emma can never be.
The Six Swans
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Still Small Voice
She wanted to be the one to rescue Henry. It would have sent a definitive message to Henry, to Ms Swan and to the town at large. She knows that she’s not the best mother but she really does try. She doesn’t understand why no one can see that. A heroic display would have been an opportunity to show everyone the risks she is willing to take for him. She didn’t get to be the hero though. What she got was a dressing down about too many hours spent behind a desk and not enough time spent in pursuit of athletic endeavours.
Watching Emma’s lithe and agile body be lowered down the shaft gave Regina a whole lot of ideas about strenuous activity. None of which were remotely appropriate under the circumstances. She filed those thoughts away and focused on the emergency that should’ve had all of her attention.
The thought of losing Henry was terrifying. It made her act rashly and say things she shouldn’t. It also nearly made her kiss Emma in the middle of a very public argument. So when he was safely in her arms again the relief she felt was not just about his well being. His return meant she didn’t have to be concerned about her sanity and could stop worrying about Emma’s safety.
In rescuing Henry Emma has turned herself into something very dangerous. Emma Swan is no longer just someone that Regina wants she has metamorphosized into someone Regina actually cares about.
The Nutcracker
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Still Small Voice
She can’t pretend that she knows what it feels like to be a real mother. She didn’t know her own and she gave her only child away so her experience of motherhood is extremely limited. What she can say is that when Henry was trapped underground she would have traded places with him without thinking. The idea of him being lost and frightened in the dark was more than she could bear.
Being an integral part in his rescue made her feel like she has done something of merit in his life. She can’t change the past. There is no denying that she missed his teething pains and Regina got to mop his brow when he had a fever but no one can take away what Emma did today. At least that’s what she thought.
There was a moment earlier, when both she and Regina were hugging Henry, where she had the crazy notion that they were a family. It’s ridiculous when she thinks about it but she the feeling was definitely there. She knows they don’t have the makings of a good family - Henry is looking for something that no real person will ever be able to live up to and his two mothers can barely stand one another - but for a second the three of them felt right. That was until Regina pushed her away like she was nothing. She shouldn’t care that Regina shunned her but she does. It makes her worthless, it makes her feel broken.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Rating - PG
AN - Set after The Still Small Voice
Their first kiss is different to what she expected and she did expect that they would kiss. It feels like she’d been waiting for this to happen since the moment they lay eyes on one another. The timing of the kiss, however, takes her completely by surprise.
She went to Regina’s to confront her. To give Regina a piece of her mind and to tell her that trying to make her feel crap for helping to save Henry was completely out of line. Exactly none this happened.
Regina opened the door and before Emma knew what was happening she’d been dragged inside and pressed up against the wall. Despite the force of that action the kiss itself was soft and tender. Almost shy. It was the antithesis of everything Regina is.
When their lips part Regina strokes her hair and places a kiss to her forehead. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I was trying to save Henry.”
“And if things went wrong I’d have lost both of you.”
“I thought you wanted me dead.”
“If anything’s going to kill you it should be me.”
“Spoken like an evil queen.”
“Do you really believe that’s what I am?”
“Of course not. I’m not a child.”
“I’m glad,” Regina says with sincerity and Emma’s heart flutters.
This shouldn’t be happening. Emma’s been hurt and she locked her heart away in a place she thought no one could reach it and somehow it has escaped because of Regina of all people.
The Frog Prince
Rating - mild R
AN - Set after The Still Small Voice
Regina didn’t imagine that Emma would be a delicate flower, she doesn’t seem the type to need roses and candy, but it comes as a surprise just how quickly Emma lets things move to the bedroom. Or, more accurately, to the floor of the hallway.
Emma tears at Regina’s clothes as though she’d like to tear into her skin. Whatever attraction they feel it doesn’t erase the bad blood between them. Regina wonders just how much of Emma’s very evident lust is driven by hatred and revolution.
She rolls on top of Emma as they remove the last traces of their clothing but Emma shakes her head. She pushes Regina back and the momentum causes Regina’s head to crack against the wall.
“Fuck I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. We have far more important things to worry about.” She reaches up and pinches one of Emma’s nipples. Emma soon forgets her remorse and the bump to the head isn’t the only mark Emma leaves on Regina’s body.
Later, when they are spent and Emma is sleeping, she smooths Emma’s hair back and caresses her forehead. She takes the blonde in her arms whispering, “My princess.” Emma may be common born and lack airs and graces but she has more nobility than most of the royalty Regina has met. She vows to cherish this moment because she doesn’t know what the future holds. After all in the morning Emma won’t really be a princess but Regina will still be a fallen queen.
Sleeping Beauty
Rating - PG
AN - Set after the The Still Small Voice
She awakes in an unfamiliar room and an unfamiliar bed. To add to her sense of disorientation and derealisation she is coiled around Regina like a snake. She tries to tell herself that she’s dreaming but it doesn’t feel like a dream. For a start they don’t ever make it to a bed in any of her dreams.
Emma slides her arm out from under Regina and winces as the return of blood sends fire dancing up her arm. She wiggles her fingers and looks around the room. She hoped to find a trace of her clothing but she’s struck by a flashback that reminds her that none of her clothing made it upstairs. Her first thought is that she wants to re-enact that moment as soon as possible. Her second thought is that she really needs to remove the evidence before Henry stumbles across it. He already has enough problems, he doesn’t need to find that and be scarred for life.
She grabs the top sheet and tries to pull it across the bed. Regina stirs briefly and rolls onto her side. Emma holds her breath and tries not to move. She’s not ready to deal with Regina or what they have done just yet. Regina’s breathing evens out and Emma lets out a sigh of relief. She looks down and is struck by how peaceful Regina looks. She’s seems softer. Sadder. It makes Emma think that there is much more to Regina than what she shows the world.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Sheppard
Living in Storybrooke is causing her to make some very strange decisions. Her dalliance with Regina should be at the top of that list but she can’t be sure she wouldn’t have made that mistake wherever she was living. She has a history of picking people who are very bad for her. When it comes to out of character decisions, moving in with Mary Margaret beats her fling with Regina hands down and that’s not just because Henry is insistent that Emma is Mary Margaret’s daughter.
Mary Margaret has been good to her and she is one of the few allies Emma has in this town. She likes her and she’s grateful that Mary Margaret has opened up her home but she would not be Emma’s usual choice for a housemate. Under normal circumstances Emma wouldn’t chose to have a housemate at all and she certainly wouldn’t select someone as nice as Mary Margaret.
There’s nothing wrong with being nice but it’s not all that easy to live with. Their values are not really compatible. Emma has done a lot more than hold hands with guys and she’s sure that in Mary Margaret’s mind that makes her a slut. Well at least that’s what she thinks she was being accused of - it was either that or a lesbian. She’s not sure which one her ‘mother’ would find worse. Emma likes to deal with that judgement by reminding herself that, if Henry’s right, Mary Margaret once cohabited with seven men.
Rumpelstiltskin
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Sheppard
Working so hard to ensure that Snow White and Prince Charming don’t find a way back to one another is incredibly spiteful but it feels very important. It’s not just because she made a vow to ensure they would never be happy or that she feels she can only be happy if they are miserable. She is legitimately terrified that sky will fall if they get together. She would always have fought tooth and nail to ensure this didn’t happen but now that Emma has arrived it seems infinitely more important.
Desperate times call for desperate measures and so she uses Mr Gold in her ploy to give David his memory back. She’s not really sure that she used him so much as he allowed himself to be used. She worries that it is as dangerous to owe Gold a favour now as it would have been in the past. Regina knows that going to him was reckless but it was her only option.
She’s certain that he is plotting against her and that he wants to bring about her downfall. In her more paranoid moments she believes that Emma being here has something to with him. That he picked Henry because Emma was his mother. It sounds crazy but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Emma’s arrival has certainly had an impact on the town.
She wants to hate Gold but she can’t. He may bring about her destruction but, intentional or not, he has also brought her Emma.
The Firebird
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
She breaks her rules and lets the sheriff stay over but it’s not about him. The fact that he was in her bed in the first place wasn’t about him either, it was about her inability to broach with Emma that they had spent the night together. Rejection is not something she has had to deal with since she came to Storybrooke and she really doesn’t want to start now.
The return of the wolf changes everything. The animal seems to be waking the huntsman from his eternal slumber and she can’t have that. She allows Graham to stay in an attempt to convince him that they have something more than they do. To convince him that they have anything at all.
She should have killed the wolf long ago. She can not allow the beast to upset the artificial ecosystem that the town is constructed on. Graham can not ever be anything more than the mindless automaton that he has always been. He is useless to her if he develops independent thought. The sheriff of this town needs to be her puppet.
The wolf doesn’t just threaten her hold on the sheriff’s office. It threatens something far more important. Emma pays way too much attention to the huntsman. If Emma watches a wolf change something in Graham she will know that something is very wrong here. That can not happen because it will set Regina’s princess free from her palace of ignorance and then Emma will never be hers.
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Rating - PG
AN - Set during The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Emma sneaks around Storybrooke flashing her hair of gold and worming her way into the lives of the people in the town. She’s a thief. She takes things that aren’t hers and it seems to Regina that Emma is particularly interested in her belongings. Her son. Her lover. Her heart.
Most people look at Regina and think of her as heartless and cruel. Regina knows for a fact that they are wrong, at least about the heartless part. She most definitely has a heart because knowing that Emma and Graham are spending time together is breaking it.
When she finds them at the crypt she feels an overwhelming sense of disappointment and betrayal. In fairness they are searching for the truth but it’s not a truth she wants found. She doesn’t want to be that person. She wants what is walled up down there to be her past, not her future.
Watching Graham’s obvious doubt and every more obvious affection for Emma leaves Regina feeling numb and confused. None of this should be happening. None of this should even be possible.
She’s grateful when Emma attacks her. That is at least something understandable. Something real. It’s also a sign that she is capable of provoking strong emotions in Emma.
She wonders if Emma is as aroused by the fight as she is.
Graham has become a liability and so she kills him. Not because she doesn’t want Emma to have him but because she doesn’t want him to have Emma.
Pinocchio
Rating - PG
AN - Set after The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Henry is convinced that his therapist is a cricket who is really a conscience. This is not the innocent make-believe of a child who insists on leaving a chair free for an imaginary friend. He believes it in the same way Emma believes that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. For Henry his fairytale book is a bible, the words of its pages are the gospel truth.
She wishes life was that easy. That good and evil could be so clearly defined but she doesn’t have the eyes of a child. She knows that the world isn’t black and white and that good and evil exist in everyone. Remaining on the side of angels isn’t a choice, it’s a constant battle.
She is losing the battle right now. She saw Graham as a life rope. As someone who could pull her away from Regina’s web but he wasn’t strong enough. She kissed him and he collapsed like a puppet who’d lost his strings. A better person would have stayed at the hospital but Emma left there as quickly as she could. She fled and she used her bruised hand to knock on Regina’s door.
Emma doesn’t believe any of Henry’s craziness but as her shirt slides to the floor and Regina ravages the bare skin of her neck she wishes he was right. That Jimmy Cricket was real. It’s clear to her that she needs an external conscience because her own is very, very flawed.
The Snow Queen
Rating - PG
AN - Set after The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Regina thought Emma would be a grief stricken ruin after the death of her sheriff. It seems she underestimated the other woman, or maybe she overestimated Emma’s attachment to Graham, because Emma shows up on her doorstep with fire in her eyes. Emma slaps Regina’s across the cheek and then grabs Regina’s face between her hands and kisses her. The kiss is brutal and the wound on Regina’s lip starts bleeding again.
When Emma finally ends the kiss Regina wipes the blood off her face with the back of her hand and asks, “So are you here to fight or fuck?”
“Who says we can’t do both,” Emma replies and launches herself at Regina.
Emma attempts to pin her down like a butterfly but Regina grabs Emma’s collar and drags her down the hallway. Her hip crashes into the sideboard, halting their movement. She pushes Emma’s jacket off and when the shirt follows she greedily attacks the flesh of Emma’s neck and chest.
As she attempts to remove Emma’s bra Emma flings Regina’s arm away. Her elbow smashes into a mirror and a network of cracks radiate from the impact site. She looks at herself in the glass and sees tiny broken images. It makes her look as ugly as she feels.
Emma takes Regina’s arm and assesses the damage, “It might scar.”
“I’ll live.”
“Who do you think gets the seven years of bad lack for the mirror?”
“Maybe both of us?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I hate mirrors.”
The Steadfast Tin Soldier
Rating - R
AN - Set after The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
The steam from the shower and the warmth of the water do more to ease her pain than the Advil did. She bites the inside of her cheek as the shower gel irritates her raw skin and decides that Emma could be described as a fighter rather than a lover. Regina’s body is covered in battle scars. There are bruises and abrasions all over her. She’s pleased to note that it seems that more of them are from the sex than from the fight.
Regina hears movement in the room. Emma enters the shower and wraps her arms around Regina’s waist, “You smell like apples. I should have known.”
Regina shivers. This could be related to the fact that Emma’s body is cold but she suspects it has more to do with her own body’s response to Emma’s proximity. She feels it’s better that Emma doesn’t know this and so she says, “You’re freezing. We should warm you up.”
She pulls Emma under the warm spray and watches in appreciation as the water flows down over Emma’s curves. She places more gel in her hands and then rubs them all over Emma’s body. As her hands move over Emma’s chest she can feel Emma’s heart racing.
If she were sensible she would just rip Emma’s heart out and remover the danger that Emma represents to her, to her town, to her world. She can’t do that though because she needs Emma’s heart beating. She needs it to beat for her.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Desperate Souls
Emma doesn’t see Regina as an out and out villain, not in the same way that Henry does, but she knows there’s evil in the woman. She feels it in every pore of her body and yet somehow she can’t stay away from her. Emma is drawn to Regina in a way she can neither understand nor explain.
She knows that most, if not all, of the bad things that have happened to her since her arrival in this strange little town are down to Regina. It’s ridiculous but she even feels that Regina had a hand in Graham’s death.
If she were the hero that Henry wants her to be, the hero the town is claiming she is, she would slay the beast that is Regina and set them all free. Emma could have left Regina to die in that fire and no one would have wept. No one except Emma.
She’s struck by how terrified Regina was at that moment. How certain she seemed that Emma would leave her there to die. It hurt Emma to think that Regina might believe she was capable of that.
On reflection, Regina’s words appear to be about so much more than just the fire. They were about deeper frees. The vulnerability in Regina’s voice spoke volumes. It seems to Emma that Regina was talking about their relationship, about her fear that Emma will leave her. If Regina knew just how under her spell Emma is, she’d never have to worry again.
Beauty and the Beast
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Desperate Souls
For someone who has spent a lifetime attempting to ensure that she’s the fairest of them all she has given very little thought as to the nature of beauty. The only things beauty ever stirred in her were feelings of jealousy and rage. Her instinct is to destroy any beauty that threatens her own. A task that’s easy enough to achieve, so long as the help can be trusted to follow her orders.
She has always known that Emma’s attractive, her physical attributes are undeniable, but when Emma came back for her Regina realised just how beautiful Emma really is. Regina was being supported by Emma, cradled against the side of her body, she couldn’t even look at Emma and yet she was aware that Emma was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Regina has never subscribed to the theory of inner beauty. What’s the point in beauty that people can’t see? People are shallow. They don’t look beyond the surface. If the wrapping is shiny then it doesn’t matter that the package is rotten to the core.
She’s not going to pretend that what happened today will change the way she looks at the world but it does change the way she looks at Emma Swan. To her Emma is beautiful inside and out. Emma’s beauty makes her feel hideous in comparison but what makes Regina truly monstrous is that even though she knows she’s not good enough for her, she’s going to try to keep Emma anyway.
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Rating - PG
AN - Set during Desperate Souls
For the longest time coming here had seemed like a mistake. She literally moved heaven and earth in an attempt to find something better and all she ended up with was regrets. She’s in a worse position than those she cursed because she still has her memories. She’s aware that things are meant to be different.
She tries so hard to keep the town under control. It’s a full time commitment and her job has been made harder since the arrival of Emma. The appointment of a new sheriff should not have been a problem. It should have been a simple matter of making a decree. There most certainly should not have been an election. The people of this town can not start to think they have a choice when it comes to elected officials.
Regina pins the badge on Emma and in doing so admits defeat in front of the entire town. She looks Emma in the eye and they both know that they’ve been played. That Mr Gold orchestrated this whole production. She is sure this was about more than publicly humiliating her, for some reason he wants the town to see Emma as a hero. She places the badge in front of Emma she thinks uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
She’s sure he thinks he’s hurt her but the irony is that she’d let him have this town of the damned if she could just find a way to make things work with Emma.
Rapunzel
Rating - PG
AN - Set after Desperate Souls
Emma rolls her eyes as Regina throws her sheriff’s badge to the ground. “That’s the only thing wanted to take off me?”
“Oh I plan to take everything off you. I just wanted to remind you that I’m the law in this house.”
“You can order me out of my clothes any time you want.”
“I wanted to pin that stupid star on your chest today.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“If I’d gotten my hands on your chest I wouldn’t have been able to stop there.”
“It’s good to know that I have some power over you,” Emma bites into Regina’s shoulder.
“You have no idea,” Regina ends the conversation with a kiss.
Emma displays her best multitasking stills by unbuttoning Regina’s blouse while continuing the kiss. Regina stops abruptly causing Emma to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“You’re hair still smells of smoke.”
Emma holds some strands of her hair up to her nose and the acrid stench is undeniable, “I have washed it. Many times. In case you’re thinking that’s the reason. You’re lucky your hair is so short.”
“Or maybe it’s just that I don’t buy my shampoo at gas stations,” Regina says with a smirk. “I used to have such long hair.”
“Really, I can’t imagination it. I like it short.”
“Me too. I’m glad you’ve only seen me like this.”
Emma gets the sense Regina is referring to a lot more than hair and so she tells her, “I like all of you just the way you are.”
The Golden Goose
Rating - PG
AN - Set following 7.15AM
Regina opens the door with a frown, “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“I didn’t know I needed a written invitation.”
“You do if Henry’s still up.”
“Well lucky for you this isn’t a social call.”
“It isn’t?” Regina sounds disappointed.
“I’m here in my capacity as sheriff to report back about the stranger in town.”
“In that case you can come in.”
Regina leads her to the kitchen and offers her an apple cider but Emma declines, “I told you this wasn’t a social call.”
“I see,” Regina says as she takes a drink for herself.
“He’s a writer.”
“I see,” Regina looks shaken and she sits down.
“What’s wrong? Are you worried he’ll expose all your dirty little secrets?”
“I shouldn’t be the only one worried about that. You happen to be one of my dirty secrets.”
“I’m not worried about him finding out about us.”
“Why? Do you have juicier skeletons in your closet?”
“No. I’m just confident that you’ll be seen as the villain. I’ll be yet another of your innocent victims.”
Regina lets out a long laugh. “You’re good for me you know?”
Emma reaches across the table to place her hand on Regina’s, “I try to be.”
“Even though I’m the villain?”
“Especially because you’re the villain.”
Regina laughs again, “And what does that say about you Emma Swan?”
“It says I see more than most.” She grabs Regina’s glass and takes a sip. “Now, what can we do about getting Henry to go to bed?”