You Ruined My Life

Snow and Regina were paired to stand watch in case the Lost Boys showed up much to each other's annoyance. They hadn't had a real conversation since their fight on the boat. Snow decided it was time to have that dreaded conversation.

"Regina, we need to talk about the fight," Snow said.

Regina rolled her eyes. "Which fight dear? We've had so many," she shot back.

Snow shook her head already annoyed at her stubbornness. "The fight we had on the ship."

Regina snapped her fingers. "Right. The one where you said I ruined your life."

Snow narrowed her eyes. "You did. You are always trying to ruin my life."

"You ruined my life when you told my mother about Daniel," she hissed.

"Do you know how guilty I feel about that? That decision haunts me too," Snow argued.

Regina inhaled sharply. "Not as much as it haunts me. All you had to do was keep your mouth shut."

"Cora manipulated me into telling the truth. How was I supposed to know she would kill him?"

"I warned you. My word should have been enough. Did you not see the fear in my eyes?" she yelled. She turned away briefly. "We should have run away the minute you caught us. I should have known better than to trust a child. I was only a child myself. You didn't care. Once I told you Daniel ran away, you were all too glad to have me as a mother."

"Need I remind you that you said that it was about the three of us. Daniel was just an infatuation. I believed you then," Snow argued.

"I was trying to spare your feelings," Regina said.

"Until you put me under a sleeping curse," Snow said.

"You were old enough to know the truth. I hated you. You have no idea what it was like to watch you grow up and be the loving parent I was supposed to be. You never cared how I felt and neither did Leopold. I never belonged there. I was supposed to be living my life with Daniel. Not stuck in a castle," Regina said angrily. Snow stayed silent.

Regina then chuckled. "It's ironic really. I told you about true love being magic and it creating happiness. The person I told would end up being the one person who had the power to rip it all away."

"And yet you did. I gave you chance after chance. You threw it in my face. All I wanted was the friend who saved me. You couldn't see that I loved you. I wanted to help you," Snow said. "Why couldn't you see that I still saw good in you?"

Regina looked up at the sky. "It was easier to hate you than love you. It felt like a betrayal to Daniel if I let you into my heart. I only had room to love two people: my father and Daniel. There was no room for you. I didn't want to make room for you. It hurt too much."

Snow seemed genuinely hurt. "So you never loved me."

Regina ran her fingers through her hair as she formulated the answer in her mind. "I did care and I did love you. It was when I thought I had a chance to bring him back. There was still hope. When it didn't happen, I immersed myself into darkness and it became my home."

Snow rubbed her forehead. "Why didn't you just kill me?" she asked. "You had chance after chance but you could never pull the trigger yourself. You always needed someone or something to do it for you. It would have been much easier to see me rot than cast a curse. You could have lived your life in peace after my death."

Regina closed her eyes. "Killing you would have been easier. But then I had this twisted need to still have a family even if it was you. I had no one to fight for me. I had an entire kingdom who looked at me like I was a glorified babysitter. I was hated and no one knew the real me. I still wanted someone to love me. I wanted to be Regina. However, the anger would come back and all thoughts of Daniel lying dead filled my mind."

They didn't say anything for a while. "I acknowledge that I played a part but Cora was the one who actually did the deed," Snow continued.

Regina snorted. "Yes, and you made me kill my mother. Now we're even."

"Let me finish. Cora is responsible for all of it. If it wasn't for her, I would not have lost my mother. My father wouldn't have been looking for a new wife. You would have never met me. You would have never become queen. Yet, you were so happy to align yourself with her."

"You tricked me. You cursed her heart. I had one moment. One where she looked at me with pure love before she fell to the floor. But you wanted to clear your pathetic conscience by offering yourself to me. Once again, another person I love was taken because of you," she sneered.

"You still don't get it. You set all this crap in motion. All you had to do was let go and forgive. I would have forgiven you," Snow stated.

"Would you forgive me now?" she questioned suddenly. "You haven't offered me a chance to forgive you of your misdeeds."

"Regina, will you forgive me for Cora and Daniel?" she asked.

"No," Regina said curtly.

Snow arched an eyebrow. "No? I just apologized."

"Only because I brought it up," Regina refuted.

Snow threw up her hands in frustration. "You are hopeless. Why do I bother doing this? I asked for forgiveness before you made me eat that apple. You refused then. Why did I expect anything different from a villain?"

"I'm not a villain," Regina defended.

"What are you then?" Snow shot back.

"I'm lost. I've been lost since the night Daniel died," she confessed. "You have no idea-

"I know about Daniel coming back. David mentioned it," Snow interrupted. She saw how Regina's eyes pooled with unshed tears.

Snow's gaze softened. "What happened?"

"I'm not telling you," she replied. "Regina," she called out firmly as she was growing a bit weary of Regina's stubbornness.

Regina wiped the tears away. "Whale brought him back this time. But he wasn't my Daniel. He choked me but I was able to get through to him. He recognized me," she said her eyes lighting up as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"That's great," Snow said calmly.

"It was. I had him again. However, he was in so much pain. He begged me to stop his pain. He told me to let him go. I didn't want to. I told him that I loved him and what was his response...to love again. How can I do that?"

"Then what happened?" Snow questioned.

"I had to use magic on him," she said regrettably. "Now I've lost him for real." She turned her back from Snow.

Snow sighed. "You can love again. You just have to be able and willing to believe someone can love you as much as Daniel did. You opened your heart for Henry."

"That's different," she said still not turning around.

Snow stood beside her. "Love is love. You have it in Henry and you still have it in...in me. You may not want my love but I'm here. It's not like we're going anywhere."

"True. Stuck in Neverland with my enemies. My dream vacation," she muttered.

"Yes because you are a real joy to be on a ship with, " Snow said softly.

Another round of silence enveloped. "I have been curious about something. Why didn't you take David as your husband? That would have been the ultimate revenge," Snow wondered.

"I tried to seduce him during the curse," she admitted. "A true love for a true love. Needless to say it didn't work." Snow cracked a smile at the fact. Regina rolled her eyes. "Listen, I'm not going to say that we are going to be friends anytime soon but we can be civil."

"That's all I want," Snow said. "And I'm sorry for ruining your life."

"I'm not. You deserved it," Regina said.

Snow sighed. "Baby steps," she thought.

"Seriously, I'm sorry too," Regina stated.

"Snow, this conversation goes no further than this," Regina pressed.

"Okay," she replied. They kept watch for the rest of the night.