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They've been in the Enchanted Forest for three days when they stumble upon Regina's old castle. Knowing it would be large enough to house those who were still in their group, they make their way in. Regina pauses in the doorway, flashes of memories flooding her brain. Emma's there this time, and Regina chalks it up to a hallucination - a side effect of missing her family - and shakes it off.
Later that night in bed, Regina realizes that missing her family would account for Emma's presence, but doesn't explain the lack of Henry's. She recalls the memory that was most vivid and realizes she didn't see Emma, but rather that she was Emma. With a choked sob, she stumbles out of bed, rushing to David and Snow's door. She pounds heavily and when they answered, concern etched on their faces, all she can manage is, "We have to go back."
*
It's not supposed to be like this.
The only thing echoing through Regina's mind is it's not supposed to be like this.
She sees flashes of it: Emma with a dagger at Snow's throat. Her hand lifted in the air, squeezing tighter as David's air supply was slowly cut off. Cradling Graham's heart in the palm of her hand, giving it an experimental squeeze. Every time with a smirk on her face that makes Regina sick to her stomach. They're her own actions, she knows, but in her mind's eye, it's Emma that's the one cruelly taking hearts, crushing people without an ounce of regret. (That will come later. Much later.)
When she had given Emma her memories, it was supposed to be limited. Emma should have known Henry's first step, taken across a plush, green lawn, and his first words, a gurgled mama as her crawled toward her on the couch. Her memories should have placed her in Regina's shoes for the highlights of Henry's life, but instead they spanned Regina's lifetime, from Cora's abuse to the loss of Daniel and all the way up to casting the curse and landing everyone in Storybrooke. Being the caster of both curses, Regina retains all the memories of her own as well as the ones she's implanted, but if she's right - and she's sure she is - Emma only has Regina's memories; believes she was the Evil Queen, not The Savior.
*
The memories of Storybrooke make her almost equally as ill as the Evil Queen ones. When she's not researching a way back, she scrolls through what are now Emma's memories and Emma is the one feeling empty. She's the one adopting a son to help fill the hole in her heart, she's the one alienating said son to the point of him finding his birth mother. When the birth mother walks up the path with a sheepish smile, it's now Regina. It's almost as if they simply changed places; as if it were an alternate universe.
She relives their antagonistic beginning. Killing Graham. Accidentally poisoning Henry. Except it's Emma doing the work this time and Regina breaks down every night in bed, casting a soundproofing spell so Snow and David won't hear her cry. There are good memories too, like the first time Emma kissed her or Emma coming over in the middle of the night after Neverland and holding her until she drifted off to sleep.
(Except now she's the one pushing Emma against the desk in the study and kissing her recklessly. She's the one answering a text at 2:30 in the morning and fumbling half dazed through town to Emma's house, stripping off her clothes in the dark and wrapping her body around the silently crying woman in the bed. It's a little weird to experience it all from the other perspective.)
*
With no Rumple around, it takes them weeks to figure out how to open a portal, but after reading spellbook upon spellbook and with a little bit of Tinkerbell's help, they're finally ready. She looks across the room to a nervous Snow and David and then down to the swirling purple vortex waiting for her. It's a long shot, she knows, but she has to try.
She jumps.