The Fairest of Them All;

An Emma Swan and Regina Mills fanfic;

By emilyjasmine;

Disclaimer – I own nothing but the plot;

Hello my lovely readers! I am back with another story after a much longer pause than I had initially intended – life can get busy! However, as horrible as the current situation is, it means that I have more free time to write for you all. Once again, I've teamed up with WriteupmyAlly for this story! As always, let me know what you think and what might happen, I love reading what you think.

I am going to add a trigger warning for alcohol abuse for the early part of the story, but it won't be throughout. I hope the story keeps you entertained while you are self-isolating, quarantined or a distraction from work and the current chaos. So, without any further ado, on with the story!

When Emma Swan had first moved to Storybrooke, she led herself to believe that it would be a rather quaint town from how Henry had described it when she first took him back to his adoptive mother. That belief extended to the notion that everyone knew each other and actually cared about what each other had to say. When she finally crossed the town line, after the four-hour drive, she felt the serenity of the town. Of course, she knew now it was just the Curse, but it had been such a refreshing experience back then that she'd truly appreciated and missed when the Curse had been broken.

Now, she wished that that tranquillity could return. She wanted to be able to walk causally down the street and wave at a new friend that she'd made or smile at a stranger because they looked friendly, unlike some of the more unsavoury characters she had dealt with in the past. Yet that was no longer the case in the small town.

Just in the past four weeks alone, she had had to fight a snow monster that had suddenly appeared out of thin air; she had had memories returned to her that she'd had no idea were missing of a life she almost had and an adoptive mother she wished she'd been able to have; and she watched the woman she didn't know she loved until it was too late pass away. Then on top of all of that, if that hadn't been enough, she had almost died because of the frozen barrier at the edge of the town. Not to mention that she had almost had to die before Regina would speak to her again after the Marian incident.

The only few goods things that had come out of all of that, that she could think of, was the newfound friendship she had made with the woman who had accidentally almost killed her. Elsa had apologised profusely and had decided to stay in Storybrooke for a while, despite Anna coming to find her. She found that she felt more at ease in the town than she ever had in Arendelle as there were others with power there who didn't make her feel like an outcast and who could teach her to control it. However, when Anna had questioned who would rule Arendelle if their Queen wouldn't return, the answer had been easy. So now the wonderfully icy kingdom was being ruled by Queen Anna and Prince Kristoff and it was thriving.

Another bonus to the chaos that the Ice Queen had brought was that Emma learnt that somewhere in her past, she had had happiness. She'd had someone who considered her to be a daughter and had loved her. Despite it being given and taken away from her so abruptly, she couldn't help but think of Ingrid with fondness, something her mother wasn't too fond about, not that Emma really listened to Snow all that often.

The final positive aspect of Elsa's arrival had been the fact that Robin was no longer in Storybrooke. Emma hadn't quite realised how uneasy he made her feel whenever he was around Henry and Regina. It was as if he was crowbarring his way into their little family. Emma didn't see Henry as often as she liked in general, mainly because she had to share him with Regina again now that they were back, but with Robin in the picture, Regina had wanted to make a point of her new family and that included Henry being there with them as well. Now Robin was gone, Regina had retreated within herself and didn't want any company, which included Henry. Emma had let out a minor cheer at this because she wanted to spend more time with her son, but she was still worried that the former Evil Queen would return to that persona if she was left to mope for too long.

She had tried multiple times to see Regina herself to try to cheer her up yet each time, she was thrown out, usually metaphorically, but the final time, Regina had actually poofed her out of the house and back into her car outside, started the engine and made the vehicle drive away. That had been a couple of days ago, so Emma had not returned. She understood that she needed time to grieve the relationship, but Emma was starting to worry about her. She'd not seen her out of the house since Robin had gone and Henry was ridiculously worried.

It had been three weeks since Robin had left and only a matter of days since Anna and Kristoff had returned to Arendelle through the Sorcerer's mansion and Elsa had chosen to stay behind. Emma was ready for a break, to have a few days where her job only involved rescuing a cat from a tree or chasing Pongo around the park because Archie had dropped his lead again. However, as the phone in the Sheriff's station started to ring, Emma knew it would never be that simple. With a deep breath, she reached forward and picked up the phone, trying to keep her voice as light as possible.

"Storybrooke police station, Sheriff Swan speaking," she greeted.

"Good afternoon Swan, want a bite to eat with your handsome hero?"

Emma had to roll her eyes as Killian's voice. He had taken to calling whenever he could so that he could learn how to use modern technology. Then again, it was easier to refuse over the phone than to see his puppy-dog eyes which was his go-to when she declined him in person.

"I just ate," she lied. In front of her, her sandwich lay uneaten on her desk. Snow had put shredded lettuce in her ham sandwich and Emma didn't have the effort to pick it all out. Many times, she had told her mother that she detested the green leaf, yet there it was again, plain and clear, in her sandwich. Usually she would just magic it away, but today, she didn't even have the energy to do that. Instead, she'd just pushed it aside and continued with scrunching up paper and throwing them towards the bin. Annoyingly, most hit the rim and bounced out the bin instead of being nudged in.

Hook sighed and she completely understood why. Since Elsa came to town, Emma had spent less and less time with the pirate. It wasn't because she wanted to spend more time with the Ice Queen, despite getting on so well, she just didn't want to be flaunting her so called happy relationship in front of Regina when she was so broken and miserable. Emma had seen her outside the house once and she had seen them together before poofing herself away. No one had seen her outside since so Emma didn't want to upset her again. Killian wasn't too impressed with it, stating that the Queen should get used to feeling miserable as once upon a time, she'd done the same to everyone else. The comment had just annoyed Emma further.

"Then how about this evening?" He asked, a slight desperation in his voice. "We can go to Granny's, just you and me and spend some quality time together."

"I'm already going with Elsa," Emma replied, which was true. "You know this, it's Wednesday." The two had made a pact to go every week. The Ice Queen was staying in an old apartment just down the road from the Mayoral Mansion so she was slightly outside the town centre and she hadn't decided what she wanted to do in terms of employment as yet, so she didn't see many people often.

"I haven't seen you in days, Swan," Killian moaned and that was the last straw for Emma. His self-pity was nothing less than infuriating sometimes.

"Relationships work on effort, Hook," Emma snapped. "You could come to me just as easily. Now, you're holding the line in case of an emergency. I have to go."

She slammed the phone down before he could respond and shot back in her seat with a groan, her arms folding, trapping her hands to refrain from accidentally casting a spell with her mood. Regina had taught her that the best way to keep her magic under control was to always be conscious of her mood. The moment she felt anger swarming, she needed to do everything to shake it out of her system. The physical barrier of her arms trapped always helped.

"What's wrong with you?" Asked a voice from the doorway to the office. With her annoyance at her boyfriend, Emma hadn't heard anyone enter the station.

Leaning against her wall, she saw her father holding up two bags from Granny's and she found herself grinning at the prospect, her anger fled from her body immediately as hunger replaced it. Her hands fell from their prison as she reached out to grab the food.

"Snow put too much green in my lunch so I presumed yours would be the same," Charming said as he sat beside his daughter, passing one of the bags over. "I got our usual."

The stench of cheese filled her nostrils and she breathed it in greedily. It was well past two in the afternoon, so her lunch was overdue.

"Thanks, Dad," she said as she took a bite of the grilled cheese, feeling the grease fill her mouth. It never put her off, the sandwich was her favourite and she ran enough to keep the pounds off. "You're the best."

Charming beamed as he always did whenever Emma called him 'dad' or just complimented him in general. He also noted that Emma found it much easier to call him that when she always struggled to call Snow 'mom'.

"How's the morning been?" Charming asked as he dug into his own grilled cheese.

Emma sighed, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. A habit that her mother frowned upon, but Charming didn't seem bothered by. "It was fine, nothing to report. In all honesty, I've just been trying to get better at target practice."

Looking towards the trashcan, Charming saw the several balled up pieces of paper littered around the floor. Turning back, he raised his eyebrow. "Successful then?"

The blonde chuckled before sighing and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, something she only did when she felt agitated. "Hardly. I just can't concentrate."

Charming frowned and finished off his sandwich. He dusted any loose crumbs off his hands and wiped the remaining grease on a tissue in front of him. "How so?"

"Regina," Emma muttered quietly.

"You still feel guilty about it all, don't you?" Charming said. It wasn't really a question as he could see the truth written clearly on his daughter's face. Her green eyes were wide and filled with sadness and she looked dejected. It was proved further when she nodded slowly.

"Yes, because it is all my fault," she said. "Every part of it. If I'd have stopped Zelena sooner, we'd never have fallen in the time portal because she wouldn't have been successful with it. If we'd never gone in the past, then I wouldn't have brought Marian or Elsa back and finally, if I weren't such a believer in good, I wouldn't have felt bad about leaving Marian behind. Hook says I'm too soft."

Charming sighed as he reached for Emma's hand. He took it as a small victory when she didn't pull away. "None of it is your fault in the slightest."

Emma rolled her eyes. "You have to say that; you're my father." She smirked to show she was joking before she sighed too. "I can see if from that point of view too but still, in essence, I am the reason that Regina is upset."

"Emma Swan, no you are not," Charming said firmly. "The only person at fault here in Robin. He chose to leave when, in essence," he raised his eyebrow to show he was purposefully using the same phrase as his daughter, "he didn't need to. I'm sure a spell could have been used on Marian so that she would be able to navigate the real world without him going. He chose to leave and he chose to go back to her."

"Then what do we do about Regina?" Emma asked with a wistful sigh.

"That I don't know," Charming replied. "I suppose we're just going to have to wait and see if she perks up by herself." He was just about to clear away their leftovers from lunch when the station phone began to ring once more. "Ten dollars that Pongo has escaped again."

With a chuckle, Emma picked up the phone and answered it, but her smile was soon wiped away. "Sorry, who's at the town line?"

On the line, Grumpy repeated the names of the new visitors, trust it to be one of the dwarves to announce their arrival, and Emma slammed the phone down after promising to be there shortly.

"What is it?" Charming asked. "Who's there?"

"Cruella De Vil and Ursula," Emma answered. "Just when I thought we'd been through all the Disney characters, two new villains pop up. Let's go and see what they want."

She turned to pick up her coat, failing to see that her father had paled a fraction at the names. By the time she's turned around, ready to poof both her and her father to the town line, she saw that her father had disappeared.

"David?" She called out but there was no response. "Chicken," she muttered before flicking her wrist and transporting herself to the town line.

When her white smoke cleared, she saw Grumpy and Happy standing beside their truck, keeping an eye on the visitors on the other side of the town line. Emma noticed the car before she noticed the people; the Panther De Ville would always stand out when there were less than ten ever made.

Looking up, she saw Ursula and Cruella leaning against the vehicle, chatting aimlessly. They clearly couldn't see that someone had turned up but yet, they knew where the town line was meaning that the town was still somewhat hidden and passers-by couldn't just waltz in willy-nilly.

Cruella was the exact image she had expected, wearing a black and white fur jacket. Emma tried not to shiver at the idea that it could genuinely be made of dalmatian fur, but on closer inspection, the fur was too long. Her hair was white on one side and black on the other with icy blue eyes that stared rather than looked at anything. It wasn't possible to see what she was wearing underneath the jacket as it drowned her.

When Emma had first heard that Ursula was with her, she had immediately imagined the character from The Little Mermaid, but god had they got her wrong. She wasn't purple, fat and didn't have white hair. Instead, she was African American with golden, curly hair that pooled around her shoulders and she was nowhere near large. In fact, Emma would say that she had a kind face if she didn't look so bored that she could kill someone.

Finally, she turned to the Dwarves on duty. "How long have they been here?"

Grumpy shrugged. "About fifteen minutes or so we think. Sneezy left about twenty minutes ago and we got here five minutes ago. They arrived within that time."

"Can they hear you?" She asked as she looked back to the visitors. They were either brilliant at ignoring those around them or they really didn't know what was going on.

Happy shook his head. "We called out to them but nothing."

"Hmm." Emma turned around and tried to think. She tried to remember what had happened when Robin crossed the line. You could leave, but you couldn't return, meaning if she crossed the line, she wouldn't be able to come back. She needed to cross but also stay behind the line. If they attacked her and pulled her over, she'd be screwed. Thinking on the spot, she came up with an idea. "Hold onto me. I'm going to lean through and talk to them, but I need to get back and I don't know what they'll do."

Reaching her hand back, Grumpy took hold to keep her linked to their world before taking a step across the line. There was no point delaying the inevitable, someone had to speak to the newbies eventually.

Bracing herself for any pain, but it didn't come. With a new wave of confidence, Emma cleared her throat to get their attention. "Can I help you?"

The visitors turned to her immediately and much to Emma's surprise, both gasped.

"Maleficent?" Cruella asked as she took in Emma's appearance.

Emma's brow furrowed in confusion. "Maleficent?" She repeated. As far as she was aware, she bared no resemblance to the dragon, except the blonde hair. "No. I'm Emma. What do you want?"

Ursula glared at her companion before turning to the blonde, feigning a smile. "We want passage into the town."

"Yes, let us in," Cruella said, a smirk now gracing her lips instead of confusion, pretending that she'd not yet spoken.

Emma scoffed with a roll of her eyes. "Yeah right, because I'm going to let two well-known villains enter the town when it's finally peaceful again. What's your business?"

"That's for us to know," Ursula said before raising up an arm in mock surrender. "We come in peace though, we just want to be connected to our world again. We've been out in the open for too long."

That was not what Emma was expecting them to say. Well, she had no idea what their reason was going to be. It was highly unlikely they were going to say, 'we want to raise havoc and murder every last inhabitant of the town,' even if that would be most useful.

"It's not for me to decide," Emma said quickly, thinking on her feet. "I'll be back in the hour, make yourselves comfortable."

Without any further ado, Emma shook her wrist, indicating that Grumpy should pull her back. With a tug, she felt herself being brought back into the town.

"Well that went better than I thought it would," she commented before tapping her body, checking for any damage for crossing the line but she found none. "I need to go. You two keep watch on them and let me know if they leave." Turning around, she saw Ursula laying into Cruella, but she could no longer hear what they were saying. Shrugging, she turned back to the Dwarves. "I have someone I need to see."

She didn't wait for their response before she flicked her wrist, transporting herself to the one place she knew she definitely wasn't wanted. With a sigh and a boost of fake confidence, she walked over to the front door of 108 Mifflin Street and knocked on the door.

"I know you don't want to talk to me," she called through the door when it wasn't opened, "but we have a problem. A big problem in the shape of Ursula and Cruella De Vil!"

Surprisingly, the door flew open and Regina was standing at the other side. Her makeup and hair were once again flawless and she was back wearing her power suit and a black pencil skirt.

"Right on time," Regina murmured before allowing Emma into the house, the door shutting behind her.

Regina led the blonde straight to her study and poured out two glasses of cider, offering Emma the second glass.

"What?" Emma's brow furrowed in confusion at Regina sudden attitude flip. The last time she had seen her, she didn't have a lick of makeup on, her hair was scraped up and she was in sweatpants. Yes, apparently a broken-hearted Evil Queen owned a pair of sweats. Henry had said he'd only ever seen them once when she was sick.

"What?" Regina repeated looking confused why the blonde was looking at her so weirdly.

"How am I right on time and why are you suddenly okay?" Emma asked slowly, treading carefully around the brunette.

Regina shrugged. "It's a new month so it's a new me. Robin left and I'm still here and the town needs me. I felt the sensors buzz, indicating that someone had crossed the town line, so I used my magic mirror and saw it was you. It was only a matter of time before you turned up here."

Emma took a small sip of her cider, it was perfection as always, but she was still looking warily at the woman before her. She knew a façade when she saw one and Regina was bullshitting her feelings. Nevertheless, she knew that was the attitude she needed to have at that moment.

"So, Ursula and Cruella," Regina continued when Emma didn't speak. "What do they want?"

"You don't know?" Emma asked.

"No." Regina shook her head. "I only know that you crossed the town line, well partially. Should I say, I saw the half of your body that was left behind and I'd recognise that ghastly jacket anywhere." Emma looked down at her red jacked and frowned, she loved this more than any item of clothing she'd ever had. Again, she had to remind herself what was going on and continued.

"They want to come into town," Emma replied eventually. "They didn't say why but said they came in peace. I said it wasn't my decision and that I'd be back within the hour."

"Did your lie detector ping when they said they came in peace?" Regina asked, her brow arched and a small amused smirk graced her lips.

Thinking about it, Emma shook her head. "No. At least Ursula doesn't as she was the one who said it. Do we let them in?"

Regina sighed as she swirled her glass. Her eyes flashed with something before her expression changed. Emma knew the woman opposite her like the back of her hand. She was thinking about Robin but berating herself mentally for it.

"You're the Mayor, it's your shout," Emma said when Regina didn't reply.

"I don't see why not," Regina said eventually. "We just make sure that if they put one toe out of line, they're gone."

With a nod, Emma stood up. "There's no time like the present, let's go tell them."

"Both of us?" Regina asked. "I'm sure you're up to the job."

"You greeted me when I first arrived, I don't see why you shouldn't," Emma replied with a shrug, trying to act nonchalant about it all. In truth, she had no idea how she would go about letting them in.

"If I must," Regina sighed as she stood up, placing her now empty glass on the table. Emma wasn't sure when the brunette had finished her drink as hers remained barely touched on the table.

When Regina went to flick her wrists to transport the two back to the town like, Emma caught her hand to stop her.

"Do I look like Maleficent?" She asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Cruella saw me and said Maleficent as if I reminded her of her."

Something else flashed in the brunette's chocolate eyes but it passed before Emma could recognise the look. Regina shook her head.

"Maleficent is far more attractive," she settled on before flicking her wrist and poofing them to the town line as if she'd never been interrupted.

The Dwarves were still there, but this time, Cruella and Ursula were back in the car.

"We didn't think this through," Emma murmured, pretending she'd just come up with the thought. "How do we let them come through?"

With a flick of her wrist, a small scroll appeared in Regina's hands, one Emma had never seen. Without providing Emma with any explanation, Regina took one step over the town line, keeping the other foot firmly inside the border and kept the scroll behind her back. The blonde quickly followed suit.

"Hello ladies," Regina greeted as if they were old friends, well, they probably were Emma realised.

The two smirked and stepped out of the car but it was Cruella who spoke first, "Regina, aren't you a sight for sore eyes."

"I see time has been kinder to some than others," Regina replied, glancing between the women, not admitting who she was meaning but Emma knew she was referring to herself rather than the others.

That seemed to ruffle Cruella's feathers. "Let us in, Regina, we've been here ages."

"Why?" Regina asked. "What's your business?"

"We wanted to see old friends," Ursula replied easily. Again, Emma's lie detector didn't ping.

"On one condition, you do anything we deem wrong, you're out. Agreed?"

Ursula and Cruella exchanged a glance before turning back to the others. "Agreed."

With a smirk, Regina brought the scroll from behind her back and tossed it to Ursula who opened it and showed Cruella the map. Emma and Regina crossed the barrier and the others returned to Cruella's car and drove over the town line.

Once firmly inside, Cruella rolled down her window.

"Welcome to Storybrooke," Regina said. "Leroy will show you to the bed and breakfast in town."

Understanding the order, the Dwarves jumped back inside their van and led the way, the Panther De Ville following them.

"Now what do we do?" Emma asked as she turned to the brunette who was looking into the distance at the growing smaller vehicles.

"We wait and see what their plan is," Regina replied turning to Emma with a grimace.