Author's note: I was not going to continue this story. I'm still not sure I will. Right now, I am very disappointed in Emma. I want a better saviour. I want a better good person from her.

This chapter is not really continuing "The devil you know". It is a stand alone in that universe.

Author's note number two: Have yourself a merry little Christmas is, quite possibly, the saddest of all sad Christmas songs. This story was inspired by it, but not just any old version of it. If you are so inclined, you might want to listen to Tory Amos' version. Because. I don't think I ever want to hear another voice singing it. Or any other piano playing it. Do you notice how snowflakes falling during the night sound exactly like that piano right at the beginning?

Author's note number three (and completely irrelevant)- There was an original version of the lyrics to this song. They were considered too depressing for Meet me in St Louis. When I wrote this piece, those lyrics kept on creeping up on me and so, there is a lot of the feeling of those words in here. I have added the original version at the end of this chapter.

Much love

Happy Christmas

Jane

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
From now on our troubles will be miles away

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more

Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And, have yourself a merry little Christmas, now

~EQ~EQ~EQ~EQ~EQ~EQ~

Regina closes the door to her office and locks it. She locks it tight, makes sure that it won't open. The spell is strong, but there are never any guarantees.

She conjures up a fir tree, small, compact. It is the last bit of magic she will do in this office. She wants desperately to not use it at all in here. This is the space she preserves free of magic, the place that is safe from the Evil Queen, but there is simply no way to bring a tree inside and not… well. Yes. There is no way the Evil Queen could be out shopping for a tree or falling one herself. So she conjures one up. She is good with that. She is good with magic and that's it. She feels the power running through her, stronger than before. Bigger, better, faster, more. More destructive than ever before.

She looks at the small pretty tree. She managed to conjure something beautiful instead of destruction and that gives her a sliver of hope. It's Christmas Eve, after all. She will take that sliver of hope for tonight only.

She opens the filing cabinet and takes out the small box of ornaments. She sits for a while, feeling the weight of the box in her hands. Oh, she remembers. She remembers every single one of the last eleven Christmases with a vividness that she can only pray will dull, rust, lose its brilliancy and shine. There is only so much strength in her and she will need it elsewhere. She remembers the first tree she ever got.

There had been no Christmas tree sellers in Storybrooke. There had been no decorations for sale, no Christmas traditions. But Henry was in her arms, his first smiles so big that they filled her house, her town, her heart. In another life, she would have simply cast a spell and there would have been trees and lights and trimmings with the snap of her finger. But Storybrooke was the life she had chosen, so she called up a meeting at the town hall and subtly planted the seed of Christmas in their heads under the guise of business and bottom lines. That first Christmas there had been a plastic, pathetic little tree she had ordered from eBay, baubles and tinsel and toys she had ordered from the first on line merchant she had found. Henry had been in her arms, tiny, snug and warm, watching the blinking lights until he had fallen asleep. And Regina had sat with him, warmth radiating from where his body touched hers, spreading warmth to the tips of her fingers and toes, to the recondite places of her heart, looking at the lights reflecting off his eyes and pale smooth skin.

When the next Christmas rolled around, the whole town was illuminated, garlands and garlands of fairy lights wrapped around the trees lining the streets and illuminated banners with Merry Christmas written on it in red lights, decorations in the houses and Christmas scents wafting from shops. People were saying Merry Christmas as if they had always done so. Henry was walking his hesitant little bouncing steps holding on to her hand for dear life, still fascinated by the blinking lights, gingerbread man soggy with drool in his hand, insisting she take a bite. She always did.

Her house became a home. Christmas trees and holy wreaths, red poinsettias and childish Christmas carols playing softly. Toys under the tree, wrapped carefully when Henry was safely asleep in his bed.

By the third Christmas she had started mentioning Santa Claus and his naughty or nice list. It seemed like the proper thing to do. That's what they said on TV. She wanted Henry to believe. She wanted Henry to have something bigger than himself to believe in. Not believing in anything was so very lonely. And now she had Henry to believe in.

They decorated a tree, one she'd commissioned Michael Zimmer to procure. It felt only fitting, though she was not sure if she was going for irony or sentiment. It was a huge tree and she had muddled through the tangled Christmas lights with a smile on her face simply because Henry was sitting on the floor surrounded by ornaments, waiting patiently for her to let him hang them on the tree, making what he was sure were reindeer sounds with each ornament that flew across the room. The ornaments had all been piled messily on the tree at Henry's height but she could not bring herself to change a thing.

They baked gingerbread men for the fourth Christmas and made a tradition out of it. She added a new ornament to the tree, a clumsy little heart cut from Henry's old pyjamas, stuffed with foam. That too became a tradition. Every year she would cut a new shape from Henry's old clothes and stuff it with cotton or lavender or potpourri and they would hang it on the tree. Each year the ornaments were pilled higher and higher on the tree as Henry grew. And when he started school, he started bringing in his own hand made ornaments, stars cut out of card board, cookie angels, papier mache baubles, tinsel tree topers, popsicle stick stars.

She had saved each one, had searched online the best ways to preserve her treasures and gone to great lengths to do so.

Each year, as she took down the tree, she saved her precious ornaments, wrapped in silk paper, layered between packaging foam. She put the ornaments away, treasuring each one and each year she had a Christmas to celebrate because she was never quite sure how long her happy ending would last. With her, the expectation was always of loss.

The Christmas before last, she had dared believing that her happy ending was permanent.

She builds a fire with her own hands, pilling wood and kindling, lighting a match and blowing softly on the incipient flames. She cradles the little fire, builds it up and then hums a little Christmas tune. She takes each popsicle stick star, each papier mache bauble and hangs it with almost religious fervour in her conjured up tree. She spaces them evenly and adds the old felt ornaments she bought for Henry's second Christmas, the kind that would not cut his feet or hands if they broke under his curious hands. She hangs every single ornament on that small tree, fills it to the brim.

She is missing an ornament for this year. Buying one is not an option and she will not use any more magic in this room. That is her one stipulation. There's really not much point. Henry will never know that she is trying. That she is trying still. But that really matters little. She is trying still. So tonight of all nights she will be true to that promise. She is trying.

She looks around feverishly. She needs an ornament for this year. She will hold on to whatever scraps of the life she chose she can find. So she needs an ornament.

She grabs a sheet from her stationary set, a creamy heavy paper. She twirls it in her fingers until the answer is clear. She starts gluing sheet after sheet to that first one until she has a more consistent thickness in her hands and sits by the fire. Carefully, she starts burning out the edges, slowly burning out the excess paper, carefully pulling it away from the fire and returning until she is left with something that vaguely resembles a heart, a childish drawing of a heart. It is not much of an ornament. It's not much of anything really, but it's what she has. She grabs some thread from her stitching box and threads it through the now brittle paper.

It's not much to look at. Hardly an ornament, more like a stain in her tree of treasures. But she holds on to her little tradition and hangs it on the lowest bough of the tree, a wish turned paper heart.

She sits and studies her tree. There are no lights. She keeps them in the attic and there is no way she can bring them down without revealing herself. So she just sits back and studies her tree. It's a good tree. A good feeling. As god as it gets. For a little while, she lets herself believe that she has Henry. That they are together. Just for a little while, she thinks, she can let herself be happy. She can pretend to be happy. If she pretends hard enough, maybe she will be.

The fire crackles behind her and warms her body if not her heart. The scent of the tree permeates the air, diffused by the heat from the fire. She has not yet stopped humming the little tune and it's okay. She's okay, she tells herself.

She wants to conjure up a vision of Henry on the fire. It's a simple enough spell and she will be able to check up on him, to see what he is doing, if he is okay, happy now that he has his real mom. She wants to see him smile because she misses it. But she will not use magic in this room. No magic.

Instead, she grabs the only surviving photo from a locked drawer, tucked away between the pages of a dreary book certain not to draw attention to its contents. She will not use magic here no matter how much she wants to make sure.

She presses the photo against her chest and relaxes on the chair. She closes her eyes and thinks of Henry with all her heart. She doesn't have long left of this little Christmas of hers. So she just allows herself to feel warm and lets her heart soften, her anger coalesce, her sadness subside. She allows herself to believe that there is still redemption for her, a moment in the future when she will be just Mayor Mills or better yet, Regina Mills walking down the street with her son holding onto her hand. For a moment only, she allows herself to wish something for the future.

But her time is up.

There are light, light footsteps outside and then the door is creaking against her mother's invading spell. It was over sooner than she expected. She had hoped to be able to put her ornaments away, let the tree dissolve. Unable to destroy them, she simply hides the tree under an invisibility enchantment. She was never very good at those, but she tries anyway. She cloaks the tree and all its ornaments under the spell before releasing the door to her mother's probing magic. She takes the book of spells and feigns concentration on it.

Cora walks in as if the door had been unlocked and she had not just crushed through Regina's spell to check on her daughter.

"Mother…"

"What were you doing?"

"Reading, mother." And she shows the book, evidence enough, she hopes, for her mother.

"In the dark?" Cora looks around the room ostensively, because it is almost as dark as the snowy night outside, safe for the crackling fire, but really, she does it because she can smell an ill disguised lie and, she would swear, tree sap.

Regina can see her mother's eyes roaming through the room and tries hard not to let fear overcome her. She stands and places the book on the chair she has just vacated, drapes her arm through her mother's. "I must have dozed off, mother."

"You must be tired, dear!" It's a lie to accept another lie, and Regina knows it. There is no hint of threat now. They are past the point where Cora needs to threaten her daughter. They both know that the punishment, the correction is an inevitability. So Regina just guides her loving mother out of her office and into the library where she conjures up a tray with tea. A lady never misses her tea time. Regina is again the Evil Queen, her magic more powerful than it's ever been, but just a little less brittle.

Later that night, when her mother is in bed, she uncloaks her tree in the office, lovingly wraps each one of her treasured ornaments and layers them in the box. It's an afterthought, but she adds her burnt paper heart to the box and closes it, deposits it safely at the bottom of the filing cabinet drawer where she has kept it throughout the years. She dissolves the tree and walks way to her room. Christmas is over.

The window is open, the long organza curtains billowing in the cold winter wind and immediately she knows. Someone was in her room. Instead of alarm, she feels only hope. She looks around and on her pillow sits a star made of carefully assembled fragments of Styrofoam, light and white in her hand. There is a note under it but she hears feet in her garden and she rushes to catch a glimpse.

She had hoped - stupidly, she realises- for Henry. She had hoped to see Henry running. Instead, Emma in her ridiculous pompom hat is slinking away under a tree where she stops, instead of continuing to run as she should, given the fact she has just broken into the Evil Queen's room.

She takes the note and reads it then. It's Henry's handwriting, a messy scrawl that is not improving: I love you, Mom. Merry Christmas.

Both Emma and Henry tuck themselves under the low branches of the trees at the edge of the garden as if preparing to wait. She takes a step back into the darkness of the room and watches them for a little while. Emma drapes her arm over Henry's shoulders and rubs his arm as if consoling him.

Regina just stands there and watches them, sitting in the bitter cold, staring at her window, mirror images of each other, the way they rub their hands to keep warm, they way they jaws set, stubborn, stubborn, stubborn both of them.

They stand, suddenly, and stare at her. Of course. She has moved forward, becoming visible to them and hasn't even noticed the movement of her own body. She hopes to any god that will listen they do not call her name. Mother is asleep and it's a really bad idea for her to even suspect they're here. Henry is okay. That's all she needed to know. Now she needs them to go away. Cora has an infallible instinct to detect anything, anything at all that brings Regina any pleasure or warmth to her heart. She needs them to go.

She raises her hand and it's more of a warning, really, because she does not need any gestures to do magic, but she raises her hand and the snow that was falling gently on the already white ground suddenly becomes a storm, right where they are both standing, still looking at her as if she was an apparition. It disguises Emma's footprints, but they bundle, stubbornly, visibly, Henry into his coat and Emma into her jacket, against the snow and the wind.

Regina increases the speed of the wind and the snow is now biting into them like teeth and still they do not move. Soon all will be lost when Cora senses the magic outside the house. Foolish, foolish both of them. She raises a wall of snow that threatens to engulf them. They hold hands and stand their ground. The wall of snow passes them without leaving any other mark but a white dusting of ice on their eyelashes and their cheeks so rosy from the cold she can see the colour from her window. But they are still standing there, looking at her as if making a point of proving they are stronger than she is.

She is terrified now. She feels more than hears, movement on the other side of the corridor. She looks to her door and knows that if she locks the second door from her mother tonight there will be no lie big enough to cover anything.

It's that small movement of her head, the fear in her posture that has Emma reacting. Hastily, Emma draws a heart on the snow and looks pointedly at her.

Henry waves at her, blows her a kiss. And just as her mother is again walking in on her, they're gone, leaving behind that silly little heart drawn on the snow.

"Regina?"

"Yes, mother?" She turns to her mother, the Styrofoam star carefully hidden in the folds of the cardigan she is wearing, the note crushed inside her tightly closed fist.

"What are you doing at the window?"

"I think I heard something."

"Did you?"

"Huh…" The sound is non committal at best. "Foxes maybe." When Cora moves to the window, Regina tacks on, she hopes, smoothly. "Gone now, I think…"

Cora is not deterred. Regina has been hiding something from her the whole day. She'd rather not have to press the answer out of her, so she goes to the window to check and sees nothing but empty whiteness. She scans the night for a few more seconds. Regina's heart beats wildly. She knows the snow heart is still there on the ground and she is terrified.

But her mother walks out and she has to bite down the sigh of relief. No Evil Queen will come to her rescue now. The show is for her mother only: she closes the window without even touching it and come the next second she's in the silk pyjamas her mother disapproves so strongly of. The balance of power between the Evil Queen and her mother- as is their love for each other- is a difficult symmetry.

But when her mother is safely in her room, Regina opens the window again and looks out. Emma is finishing a heart where the first one had been covered by the heavy snow. She looks up and stops. Henry joins her there. Emma mouths Merry Christmas and takes Henry's hand in hers, ready to walk away but she doesn't. They just stand there.

Waiting.

The Styrofoam star is in her hand again, summoned from the folds of her clothes. She feels its rough edges, the smooth sections. She feels the brief weight and considers the new life given to an old, used up thing.

Merry Christmas Regina mouths.

Twin smiles bloom in the snow. The heart has again disappeared under the heavy snow fall. Emma's smile sets into a determined expression. Again she draws the heart, deep lines over the fading ones.

Regina nods. She understands.

Merry Christmas, now.

ORIGINAL VERSION
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
It may be your last
Next year we may all be living in the past
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Pop that champagne cork
Next year we may all be living in New York
No good times like the olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us no more
But at least we all will be together
If the Lord allows
From now on, we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now