Regina Mills

In Storybrooke, she is Mayor Regina Mills. With Mr. Gold's help, she adopts Henry Mills as a baby, unbeknownst to her at first that he is really the grandson of Snow White and Prince Charming. However, her relationship with Henry is strained: he prefers the company of his birth mother Emma Swan, he constantly rebels, and he constantly lies to her to spend time with Emma. Because of this and after discovering who Emma really was, Regina is antagonistic toward her and is determined to keep Emma away from Henry, even going as far as to forbid Emma from seeing him without her permission and threatening to file a restraining order against Emma. Regina is also determined to convince Henry that his theory about the curse and the true identities of the Storybrooke residents is false, and she starts him on regular sessions with therapist Archie Hopper. When Archie's methods are too slow, Regina tries to force Archie to tell Henry that his idea is crazy; however, Archie refuses and threatens to declare her an unfit mother if she continues to meddle in his sessions with Henry. She has a sexual relationship with Graham, really the Huntsman, but he eventually breaks up with her. Out of jealousy, she crushes his heart and kills him, revealing that she remembers her identity as the Evil Queen.

Regina manipulates Emma's trust of Sidney Glass to keep an eye on Emma's activities. She also tries to prevent the relationship between David Nolan and Mary Margaret Blanchard, really Prince Charming and Snow White, by reuniting David and his wife Kathryn, as well as using David's and Mary Margaret's affair to discredit Mary Margaret after the Nolans' marriage falls apart, and stealing Kathryn's letter stating that she never loved David and that she is allowing him to be with Mary Margaret. The power struggle between Regina and Rumplestiltskin continues in Storybrooke. Regina is constantly at odds with Mr. Gold. He helps Emma run against the Regina-backed Sidney, and he has become more feared by the residents than Regina has become. He eventually reveals to her that he knows he is Rumplestiltskin. However, she is holding Belle, his true love, captive underneath the Storybrooke hospital. Despite their rivalry, Regina makes another deal with him to ensure Mary Margaret's defeat. She leaves a key in Mary Margaret's cell as he assured her that Mary Margaret would use it to escape. She becomes angry with him when she learns that Mary Margaret did as he predicted but returned to her cell after.

Regina is further upset when she discovers that Gold never killed Kathryn but returns her alive. She convinces Sidney to claim to have been the one to frame Mary Margaret but Emma tells Regina she knows the truth and declares her intentions to get Henry back. During a confrontation at the school yard, Mary Margaret tells Regina she feels sorry for the other woman going out of her way to hurt others. Henry then tells Regina he knows she was the one trying to get Mary Margaret and it will not change anything as Snow and Charming will be together in the end. When Mr. Gold suggests that she may need to give up Henry to keep the curse in full strength, she replies that she simply needs to get rid of Emma. Gold declines to help her any further, so she asks Jefferson for help. She gives up the last bit of her magic so that Jefferson can use his hat to retrieve her cursed apple from the Enchanted Forest. She makes this apple into a turnover and when Emma visits her and offers to leave Storybrooke as long as Regina allows her to see Henry, she agrees to the arrangement and gives Emma the turnover as a gift for the road. When Gold deduces her plan, he reminds her that all magic comes with a price.

When Henry eats the turnover and is hospitalized, Regina helps Emma retrieve a bottle of true love to break his curse. However, Mr. Gold tricks Emma into giving the bottle to him. Emma kisses Henry, waking him up and breaking the curse on Storybrooke. As the other characters threaten that Regina should leave as soon as possible, Regina tells Henry that she always loved him and returns home in tears. However, she smiles when she sees a magical cloud of smoke engulfing the town.

In the second season, a mob arrives at Regina's house intending to kill her, but Mary Margaret and David stop them and lock Regina in a cell in the sheriff's office for her own safety. There she is confronted by Mr. Gold regarding her kidnapping and imprisoning Belle in the asylum, and marks her with an amulet that summons a Wraith. The Wraith attempts to suck out Regina's soul, but Mary Margaret, David, and Emma manage to get it through a portal into the Enchanted Forest, though Emma and Mary Margaret fall through as well.

Henry is heartbroken by their loss, and tells Regina he never wishes to see her again until she returns them to Storybrooke. Regina was still unable to reclaim her magic, until she went to Mr. Gold and got back a magic book which previously belonged to Cora. She got back her abilities to use magic and reclaimed Henry. After she realizes she behaved like her mother Cora to force Henry to stay with her, she offers to let Henry continue living with David. In a rare gesture of kindness, she assures Henry she loves him very much, and that is why she is letting him leave her for as long as he pleases.

In a later time, Dr. Whale successfully reanimates Daniel's preserved corpse. The experiment backfires and Daniel becomes a mindless monster, even attacking Regina. He briefly remembers her and urges her to move on and love again. Much to her dismay, she turns Daniel to dust and seeks consolation in Dr. Hopper.