Epilogue - Moments

Our lives are made up of a series of moments.

Those moments add together to make the years, months, days, or sometimes mere hours of our entire lives. Some people have enough moments to last a whole century and some only have the moments in a single breath. These moments are who we are; they build us from a bunch of cells clumped together into a living, breathing human being; into a soul.

Sometimes those moments are nearly insignificant, happening quickly like moments do, and changing almost nothing.

"Morning," Regina smiled and Emma looked up from her coffee to see Regina standing by her stool against the counter.

"Hi," Emma reciprocated the smile; Regina nodded and grabbed a coffee from Ruby, muttering a thank you; smiling once more at Emma before making her way back out of the diner.

Sometimes the moments are imperative to the paths we find ourselves on, the moments where one of two, three or a hundred things can happen, moments that change absolutely everything.

"Why won't you kiss me?" Emma interrupted her. Regina closed her eyes and bit her lip before picking up her pen to resume her work.

"What do you mean?" She didn't look up as Emma circled the desk to stand in front of her, "I kiss you all the time."

Sometimes they're in our dreams, our minds telling us things that we won't allow ourselves to know whilst we're awake.

"Regina!" Emma moaned, gripping Regina's hair tighter and urging her face further into her crotch. Regina's eyes went wide even as she continued to suck hard on Emma's clit; Emma's clit. She ripped her mouth away and sat straight up in bed, wide eyed and panting into a pitch black room, alone.

Sometimes they're in our memories, playing over and over in your mind as you wonder 'what if?' What if that moment had ended differently, would it have changed anything?

"Take me with you," Regina pleaded to a man she'd only just met. Begging him to take her away from Cora, who would only ever hurt her and from Henry, who was too cowardly to save her. The man didn't take her away; he turned from her and disappeared into a cloud of purple smoke, leaving her to her mother's punishment, to a life that would only ever take from her.

Sometimes you get to have them over and over again, with a thousand different variations, but always fundamentally the same.

"Miss Swan," Regina smiled slightly when she opened the door to find Emma standing on her doorstep. She schooled her expression to one more suited for looking at the woman she threw out of her home not two days ago. Emma said nothing as she lunged at Regina, attacking her neck with her lips and pushing the mayor back inside.

Sometimes you'll only ever have them once; these are the moments that you are apt to forget, and the moments you are most likely to remember.

"Gigi," Regina snapped her head towards Emma, whose head was buried in the fridge, "Don't you have any peanut butter?"

"What did you just call me?" Regina scowled, moving towards a cupboard to get Emma her spread. Emma poked her head around to fridge door and looked at her sheepishly.

"Just, trying something new," Emma smiled as Regina proffered her to jar of peanut butter and closed the fridge. "Won't happen again," Regina stopped scowling as she watched Emma prepare a midnight sandwich.

Sometimes moments last mere seconds, they're there and then they're gone, and you're in the next moment of your life without even realising it.

Regina sighed contentedly as she let Emma's arm move around her shoulder, pulling them closer together on the sofa. She rested her head against Emma's shoulder, both intently watching Notting Hill.

Other times, they still last the same amount of time; shorter, even, but they feel like a lifetime, and that can be both wonderful and terrible at the same time,

"You're Henry's birth mother?"

Most people have enough moments to be able to say they lived a long, mostly happy life. Emma, Henry. Sometimes that's not fair, Mr Gold, Cora. And some people have their moments stolen from them, leaving people who loved them to continue having moments without them.

The phone in her hand fell with a horrible clacking sound onto the floor, the sound muffled by her horrified gasp as she realised she wasn't going to catch her footing, she scrambled to grab onto something, anything, even as she was treading on air, Gold grabbed for her, but she tumbled before he could get a hold, she crashed down the stairwell, her body making sickening sounds as she hit the steps hard, she felt her leg twist unnaturally and she was sure the stitches in her hand tore as she put both of them out to break her fall.

Sometimes, moments that have been stolen can be given back, by magic, a most powerful magic. By True Love and its kiss.

Sometimes, people who deserve to be happy, get to be ecstatic.

Regina Mills

1977 – 2012

She deserved to be happy