Chapter Text
CHAPTER 5
Emma helps Henry plan the funeral. She has the time, she thinks bitterly wondering for the hundredth time this hour where Regina has disappeared to and how long she will be gone. Days pass in a blur of frustrated healing and at first, Emma is grateful for the distraction. A stately, traditional affair that they throw together in a couple of days. It better be a gentle catharsis for Henry because it is nothing short of excruciating for Emma. Thoughts grow less tractable until they slip almost completely away into a panic. It had all been real . Her parents. Her son. Regina had - No. She still stops that train of thought before it can run away with her. That had been an accident. A complete misunderstanding. And when every memory she has blatantly ignored comes crashing down to earth, she doesn’t want to waste any time on yet another misunderstanding.
So, perhaps, helping with the ceremony hadn’t been a wise choice.
Still, Henry stays fixed to her side and each second with him is invaluable. But he is also reenergized on a level that Emma cannot match. Buoyant and childlike, determination firm on his face. But he is on a journey of hopeful renewal and Emma will be damned if she ruins it.
All things considered, she’s pretty proud of how she puts on a brave face and waves him off. Even congratulates herself on how rationally she’s handling the situation. Which lasts all of thirty minutes until she is calling him on the enchanted mirror. Regina had taken the other half with her, so Emma chats through one that hangs in the workshop, framed in half-completed ornately decorated wood, pretending she’s not crying as they talk. Henry laughs when Emma calls again almost immediately after hanging up.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” he consoles and Emma thinks maybe she slips too easily into their old dynamic, allowing herself to be soothed by this Henry’s certainty. “Regina will come back. I’m sure of it.”
He's right.
When Regina does return, she arrives when the weavers outside Emma’s window are milling over a rumour that the abandoned Dark Palace, along with the rotting woods around it, have been burned to the ground. There is a thick layer of ash on her eyelashes and she smells of woodsmoke.
“Where the hell have you been?” Emma asks after they stare each other down across the workshop.
There's a heavy pause. Their last argument is still seeping out of the woodwork. I love you but I‘ve chosen. Chosen what? Emma has asked herself countless times, Cowardice? She thinks in her bitterest moments. Darkness? Their shared misery? The easy way out? Chosen that same damning distance Emma had chosen a year ago?
“Did you know that fires help forests grow?” Regina replies in a far-off voice, and it answers everything and absolutely nothing at the same time.
Emma huffs in frustration as Regina walks right past her to the wardrobe. “Let me guess, you learned that on National Geographic - or Discovery or whatever - and decided it was a good enough excuse to disappear for a week.”
Regina doesn’t meet her eye. “I thought you would have wanted to spend the time with Henry.”
“We could have done that with you,” Emma finally says when her breathing has evened out. She’s pretty sure she would have much rather been burning dying trees and haunted castles to the ground than picking flower arrangements for parents she can’t mourn. “Or have you been avoiding me again?”
Though avoidance is a strange topic when they are being crammed into a wardrobe together, when between them is barely an inch of spare space. They could have easily gone through separately, but when Regina had stepped forward, Emma had followed close afoot out of habit and Regina didn’t stop her. Even as Emma balances painfully on the edge of her foot so as to not step on Regina, it is a comfort of sorts that they will leave this place as they have endured it. Together.
“I’m not angry, by the way,” Emma says, calmer, when they are nose to nose, the doors shut and they are cramped and bent in the hollowed space. It stinks of oak and vinegar.
“Really?” Regina asks, disbelieving in the dark, “You seem angry.”
Perhaps Emma does. After a month of fanciful freedom, on the run from more than just the Royal Guard, she certainly feels more combative...Or desperate, it’s always been hard to tell. Emma feels her face start to set like drying plaster and it pulls at her skin and she begins to remember this stony shell of herself she had become and is becoming again. Regina swallows thickly, and Emma wonders if she can see the change even in the blind darkness.
“Maybe,” Emma concedes, “But at the situation. Not at you.”
“Does it occur to you that you ought to be?”
“Yes. It’s occurred to me,” Emma snipes, then winces. She doesn’t want to argue. “You’re making this unnecessarily hard. I was there, remember? I didn’t stop you. And you had no way of knowing they were real. You had no way of knowing what it was going to do.”
Emma’s eyes drift unconsciously down. She can’t see, but she can feel Regina's pulse contorted around her. Can hear the skittish beat of her heart as clearly as she heard the conversation through the open window Regina had with Henry when they had sat in the weavers' place. In the pitch-black carved insides of a tree, Regina’s returning sigh is seismographic. Emma feels it in all the strange angles they are twisted around each other in the tiny space. A space that only seems to grow smaller and smaller, the walls on the wardrobe closing in. Squeezing until there is no room for breath with them and all their baggage. Emma instinctually presses a hand against the wall, pushing it back. It breaks in a burst of bark and beyond she can see the eerie glow of street lamps through the trees.
Her eyes easily find the Welcome to Storybrooke sign, and there’s no mistaking these woods for their magical counterpart.
So, the last stretch of their long, long journey is spent walking on asphalt. Too hard underfoot, the buzz of the powerlines unbearably loud in the silence. Regina walks behind Emma for what Emma thinks is the first time, unconsciously rubbing her chest.
It’s ridiculous, Emma thinks gritting her teeth. She’s hacked up the sides of rugged mountains, scaled ridges and gorges alike, and balanced at the top of trees, yet Emma clings to the railing and struggles to climb the last few steps to the loft. Henry answers the door, more than a little confused at how enthusiastically his mothers fuss over him.
“Oh my god, Mom, stop,” he finally intervenes, mortified when Regina holds his chin for the fifth time, inspecting what Emma realises with horror is a razor burn. God, she feels old . An extra thirty-four years older, to be exact.
“Emma! You’re back!” Snow exclaims, exuberantly throwing herself across the room to hug her and Emma clings to her mother tighter than she ever has before.
It all goes south again, Snow moves to Regina with her arms open. Regina struggles back with a strangled noise, hands grappling against the wall, eyes wild and terrified, flitting between Snow and David, who still sleeps under the Queen’s curse. “Regina?”
Regina shakes her head, and says, “I can’t be here.” Then grabs Emma’s sword from its sheath, and scrambles backwards out of the loft.
Snow blinks, open-mouthed, and utters a shocked, “What – “
“How long were we gone?” Emma steps in quickly.
“A few weeks,” Snow replies, a little distant, her eyes still fixed on the empty hall. “What just happened?”
“Maybe we should sit. It’s a long story.”
Actually, it isn’t. Leaving out any details, Emma’s recounting is surprisingly short. She doesn’t want to talk about Princess Emma. She really doesn’t want to talk about Regina. And all she really remembers beyond that is the woods. But the semantics of a parallel world wished into existence occupies enough in the minds of others that Emma finds she easily gets away with toeing at half-truths.
“Wait, hold on,” Henry says after a while of settling silence, and Emma tenses. “If this other me gets an entire army, how come I don’t even get my own sword?”
Letting out a little relieved laugh, Emma ruffles his hair. “Take that up with Regina. The no-swords-in-the-house rule is hers, not mine.” Then finally relaxes back into an armchair. It smells faintly of artificial softener and it’s unbelievably cushy and soft compared to what she’s grown used to and Emma can’t seem to get comfortable.
Snow has barely moved through Emma’s recounting, her mug of tea gone cold and untouched in her hands. “And that was the final battle?” She asks disbelievingly.
“I mean, the visions have stopped,” Emma confirms, “Yeah, I think it’s over.”
With slowly narrowing eyes, Snow tilts her head. Emma fidgets like a chastised child. “Are you sure?”
“You really want me to go into detail over the inherent nature of evil being rooted in circumstance and desperate choice? Or maybe the symbolic strength of parallel narratives? Because, believe me,” Emma punctuates with a dramatic gesture, “I’ve actually given it a lot of thought.”
“I would love that!” Henry looks delighted and leans forward on the couch, flipping open a notebook and rummaging for a pen between the cushions. “Okay, whenever you’re ready.”
Snow simply frowns and says, “How much thought, exactly?”
“Enough,” Emma sighs and pinches her eyelids, the sharp bright bulbs are giving her a headache and she yearns for dim lanterns and moonlight. “Can we talk about something else? How have things been here?”
“Well, if you’d believe it, quiet.”
“More like boring,” Henry adds, closing his notebook and making it quite clear he’d much rather be hearing about his mothers’ quest through a magical realm.
“Really? Boring?” Emma says with disbelief, “With the Evil Queen?”
Shrugging, Snow’s mouth twists as if she has been equally as stumped by this turn of events., “We haven’t seen her since you left. No threats. No mysterious disappearances. Not even a little house fire. No nothing. There have been more than a few claims that hikers have spotted her aimlessly wandering in the woods but I’m not really sure how believable they are. I mean, why would she be out there?” Emma swallows, her gaze slowly drifts back to the door and the empty hallway beyond it. “Emma?”
“I don’t know.” The thickness in her voice indicates otherwise.
“Okay,” Snow concedes, still observing Emma intently through avian eyes. She takes a moment to drink her cold tea and then continues with less enthusiasm than she felt the subject usually warranted. “‘I know someone else who's been waiting for you to get back.”
Henry’s eyes turn sharp, and he makes a gesture to his grandmother, slicing his hand back and forth near his neck. Emma looks and forth between them, and she is so very, very tired. “What did Killian do?”
“Nothing,” Henry says too quickly.
“He’s just been talking a lot about the future, and you know what that means…” Snow starts slowly.
Marriage. Emma finds out quickly that Snow means marriage. Emma wants nothing more than to continue to pretend she had never built a relationship for the purpose of running away from her feelings and Killian wants to propose.
And it all very suddenly becomes unbearable. These chains of the life she lives now, that had been slithering ever closer through the undergrowth since Regina had vanished into the forest, clamp closed. She doesn’t hesitate to bolt out the apartment, to stop this next unfixable mistake before it can start. But when she stalks purposely through her own loathsome front door, after the day (weeks, months, lifetimes) she’s had, it seems an insurmountable task. Killian greets her with lacklustre and Emma musters something that feels like it may look like a smile.
“What did you say you wanted to talk about?” He asks, finally stopping his endless rambling and gives her a smile.
Guilt crushes the words right out of her throat. “Nothing.”
Is this what her life is again now? Forever lived in this house that she hates, with a man she’s not in love with, Regina on the other side of town. She goes quietly up the stairs to find pyjamas in a wardrobe she had sworn she would burn. To sleep restless in a bed that promises to be more uncomfortable than the rocky forest floor. To slip between the sheets and back into her old life and lie compliant.
It had been naïve of her to think she could throw some clothes in a fire, make declarations to the sky, and shed it all in one fell swoop. Hidden away in the farthest reaches of the Wish Realm it had seemed possible. It hadn’t mattered how cruel her careless infidelity had been, she had found it too easy not to notice. But here there are real, tangible people with real expectations.
And, Emma thinks with slowing steps, that she might just finally understand where Regina has been coming from. That she might have been right this whole time, and there is no real way forward for them in the mess they’ve made.
She stops her slow dejected ascent up the shadowy staircase.
“Actually,” Emma says, finding her voice and her strength. She turns on the step where she stands, determined to prove them both wrong. “Yes. There is something.”
--
“You’re back,” Emma says after she hears a whoosh of magic from the hall and the click of the door opening.
She scrapes the shells of paraffin wax from her fingers that have dabbled aimlessly in the melting candle for the better part of an hour.
The loft is glowing, scattered with bouquets of flickering candles. Harsh electric lights needle into Emma’s eyes after a month without them and bring nothing but piercing headaches. When her parents and Henry retire for the night, she has gotten in the habit of turning them all out, flicking off the too-loud whir of the refrigerator and taking the batteries out of every ticking clock, waiting in the dim quiet for another sleepless night.
“Didn’t realise anyone noticed I was missing,” Someone replies and it’s definitely not Regina nor the Queen but… Zelena. Emma whips around alarmed. “What?” she asks, standing bold as brass in the centre of the loft with a raised eyebrow, “Expecting someone else?”
“I – Uh,” Emma flounders, doing a poor job of concealing her disappointment. She clears her throat. “No?”
“Mm-hm. Where is everyone?” Zelena asks, summoning a crib to put a bundled Robin in so she can shrug off her coat. For someone who has never spent any lengthy period of time in the loft, she certainly has no issue making herself at home, Emma thinks watching as Zelena opens the fridge and starts pillaging. “Do all Charmings go to bed at nine in the evening?”
“Henry has a test,” Emma explains blandly. “And Snow’s still standing in as Mayor. She usually falls asleep as soon as she walks in.”
“You certainly are a boring lot, I don’t know why my sister bothers with you,” Zelena declares as if she isn’t very much trespassing, then shuts the fridge with a slam, miffed. “And there’s no booze in here.”
“Top drawer of the freezer,” Emma says and Zelena emerges with a victorious ah-ha holding an iced-over bottle of vodka. She continues ransacking the cupboards until she’s managed to make up two drinks that might loosely be considered martinis, offering Emma one in a flowery mug. She takes it, sceptical. “Why are you here? Offering me cocktails in my own house?”
“Your house?” Zelena responds, after downing her drink in one fluid motion and topping herself off. “I thought you lived with the pirate.”
“Yeah, no. Not anymore.” It's still a load off every time she says it. Even more so when people smile back at her, not having received any of the disappointment she’d expected.
Zelena smirks as if she already knew. Of course, she did. Emma would be surprised if anyone in town hadn’t gotten wind of their break-up. Hook had been furious enough to drag it out, quite publicly, and Emma, who was working through weeks’ backlog of guilt, had let him. He had left town in a dramatic outburst, leaving Emma in the wreckage of her life with nothing but overwhelming relief. Though it had taken no time at all for Snow and David to come swooping in with more support than Emma could have hoped for. Ensuring any worry that they might want anything from their daughter other than total happiness had sailed away with the Jolly Roger.
“Wise.” Zelena raises her mug in appreciation, “How you stood the smell for that long is beyond me. Now. Drink up. I’m officially bored of drinking alone but I’ve got to get back to babysitting and I prefer to be thoroughly sloshed for that.”
Emma throws a glance to where Robin is peacefully sleeping in the crib. “Your parenting style seriously concerns me.”
“Didn’t you encourage your son to skip school for like a whole year? Reckless endangerment? The odd kidnapping? Is any of this ringing a bell?”
“Touché.” Emma glowers, raising her mug in irritable acknowledgement. “Maybe this is why you drink alone.”
“Piss off, I’m excellent company. Besides, you will definitely want me here,” Zelena says conspiratorially and with a knowing, undeniably chaotic smirk. “I wasn’t talking about Robin. I was talking about how I’ve spent the last few days babysitting my insane sister. Or sisters - depending on where she is in that crisis -”
“What?” Emma’s head snaps up and she sloshes the majority of her vodka onto the and her sweater. Which is embarrassing and far too telling to escape Zelena’s chaotic gaze, and Emma can feel herself turning pink. Still, she supposes she and Regina have never been nonchalant when it comes to each other and asks eagerly, “You uh - You’ve seen Regina?”
Zelena looks between the spilt drink and Emma’s reddening cheeks, declaring with glee, “Oh! You’ve got big issues.”
Emma levels her with a stare that is firmly unamused. “Yes, thank you. Very enlightening.” Then Emma takes a steadying breath, swallows and asks, “How is she?”
“No idea,” Zelena shrugs, sobering and Emma catches a hardened worry beneath all her glimmering mischief. “I haven’t actually seen either of them”
“What? What sort of unhinged definition of babysitting - My parents let you watch Neal!“
“Okay fine, so I’m more like a guard for hire, though she’s not bloody paying me,” Zelena complains.
“Spill,” Emma demands.
“They came to see me a few days ago. Well, Regina – the nice one - and it must have been her idea, because the Evil one was bickering the whole time. But she asked me to guard the vault, then both disappeared into it and haven’t come up for days. Cheeky bitch made it sound like they were just going for a chat but - ”
“Days?” Emma stands, the bar stool scraping backwards and she doesn’t care who she wakes. “They’ve been down there for days ? Zelena! They might have killed each other!”
“I don’t think so. There’s been a lot of shouting, a lot of explosions, and a few things I’m never going to be able to unhear,” Zelena shudders.
None of that does anything for Emma’s anxiety.
“Though it all went quiet yesterday. Which is the other reason I’m here. I think maybe someone should check.”
Why didn't you lead with that? Emma should ask but she’s gone cold. “Yesterday?”
Yesterday, as happened every day, her mother had stumbled in after another gruelling day. Had gone to wake David with True Love’s kiss, as she had every evening after dinner. The usual wave of kaleidoscope light had filled the apartment, and David had gasped his usual awakening gasp. But unusually, Snow was still awake. The curse was gone. “Maybe curses have a shelf life?” Henry had finally suggested when the impromptu celebrations had taken a turn that warranted Emma and Henry evacuate the loft ASAP . The night had been eerily still, quiet like every night since they’d returned to Storybrooke. Emma had remained unconvinced, (Eternal Sleep: Clue is in the name) but in light of what was meant to be a happy occasion, had kept her mouth shut.
Now she’s wishing she’d said something. Or done something.
“We need to go,” Emma decides urgently, grabbing Zelena, who in turn grabs the vodka. Robin will be safe at the loft and Emma takes them straight to the mausoleum. Between the two of them, they’re able to lower Regina’s protection spell. The air beyond it crackles and Emma and Zelena share a daunted look of concern. “Okay,” Emma says, breathing deeply and tasting the burn of magic on her tongue, “C’mon.”
“Are you barking mad? I’m not going down there!” Zelena exclaims, backing away. “Not after what I’ve heard! I’d prefer to live to see my daughter’s first birthday. I’ll tell you what. You shout if you’re in trouble and I’ll maybe think about going to get someone who is stupid enough to follow you in.”
“You’re the worst ally ever, you know that right?” Zelena shrugs, settling into a camping chair that must have been where she has sat guard. There is a considerable pile of ash under the small campfire, a tent with a messy cot and crib, and piles of takeaway containers. Emma is struck by the obvious and, quite frankly out of character, loyalty of it. “You’ve really been here this whole time?”
“Of course,” Zelena bites. Sharply, Emma understands. Zelena is another person whose relationship with Regina since the split has been everything but cut and dry. Clearly, it’s something she’s trying to fix.
Emma lowers her guard. “How did you manage to order takeout to a graveyard?”
Zelena looks up, lines on her face harder than Emma’s ever seen them. “I have a reputation in this town. No one was surprised.”
“Of course not,” Emma scoffs, but it's strangely fond.“I’ll - uh - I’ll shout if I need anything.”
“Well, I’ll be here.” Zelena vows then, seeming to notice herself going soft, adds a halfhearted sneer, “ Probably.” Taking what she can get, Emma nods and goes in.
Immediately, her vision starts to tilt and blur. Feverishness takes over in the prickling magic that thickens tight air. The vault at the bottom of the stairs is a disaster zone, and Emma steps carefully down in the dark. Shattered glass crunches beneath her boots as she slips over the pages of torn up books, upended furniture and ripped dresses. Bottles of potions that have been thrown at the scorched walls, drip down the stone, mixing a strong miasma that builds with the heavy haze of magic and is almost unbreathable. All the mirrors are split clean in the middle.
“ Oh – “ Emma gags on the stench, pulling her sweater over her wrinkled nose. “ Regina?”
There’s no response, though these days that is to be expected. Irritated, she kicks at the rubble-strewn the steps.
“Would it kill you for once in your damn life? Answer me - “ Emma turns into the main atrium and – Her heart almost stops. No. Regina is on the floor. Glassy eyes stare unseeing at the ceiling. Ankles crossed, her skin is grey and statue still, her palms hanging loose around the handle of a carving gouge that is jammed in the base of a long cut down her chest. It splits open above her sternum, the bone and cartilage ripped out in a bloodied mess, an empty cavern where her heart should.
“Please be an illusion, please be an illusion,” Emma chants under her breath as she approaches Regina slowly. “Please, please, please - “
“It’s not.”
Emma whips around at the voice.
It’s Regina again. Lording on the stone bench like a cat lounging on a throne, the ruby pommel of a sword balances under her finger while the point of its blade spins on the floor. Regina’s face is sliced in half with shadows and Emma has to squint to see her properly. Venerable and vulnerable in equal force, she exudes a distraught conflicted power that makes Emma feel as nauseous as the corpse at her feet because she can’t work out -
“Who - ” Emma swallows, thickly. “Which one of you is that?” Emma asks voice pulled tight as she points to the body with shaking hands.
Regina stands, slow and predacious, and Emma blinks up in surprise. Regina towers in her heels, and Emma has grown so used to her in flat shoes, accustomed to that little inch of height she has over her, that she’s almost forgotten the imposing figure she cuts in a crisp pantsuit and stilettos. After weeks of nothing but Regina’s natural face, scrubbed clean with spring water, the painted mask of makeup seems especially sharp.
Still, Emma catches the small pinch in her brow and the twitch of a frown. A honeyed softness in grim eyes and Emma wonders if she even knows which one she is.
“It doesn’t matter,” Regina says after a while, looking down over her own corpse with an unreadable expression, “We were the same in the end.”
It’s true, they are indistinguishable from each other apart from the fact that one is breathing and the other is cold and still. There is a mass of dark hair slashed to limp curls in one corner, the Queen’s dress and Regina’s feudal clothes in tatters. A matching scar marks each of their cheeks and Emma cannot tell which one she herself had caused when she had swiped at the Evil Queen and which one had been the work of Wish Realm Henry. Both make her sick.
Now that Regina is closer Emma can see other similarities. Bruises and burns on their arms, the dark tannin stain of wine on the corner of their mouths that matches the half-finished pair of glasses on the mantle, broken mirror dust in dark hair, and trails of signature red lipstick that run in twin paths of kisses and bites from beneath the jaw into the top of a stiff white collar or a stiff white sheet.
Catching her breath, Emma squats down to touch skin cold as wet clay. “What the hell happened here?”
Emma doesn’t really need an answer. It’s all laid out before her in that havoc. The wine glasses, the destruction, two swords that lay crossed as if still in battle, a leather harness that Emma recognizes. All evidence of self-loathing and self-love stretched to their extremes.
“How’s Henry?” Regina asks in the pause while Emma pieces together..
“Wondering where the hell you are,” Emma responds, distracted, mind moving a mile a minute through the messy aftermath.
“Right,” Regina says tightly. “And…Henry?”
“He’s fine. We talk through the mirror every day. He’s also wondering where the hell you are - Look, are we gonna talk about that ?” Emma finally asks, standing to point to where her eyes have landed and gotten stuck.
Lips twisting, Regina suddenly becomes focused on her shuffling feet. “I’m not sure there’s much to talk about.
Emma formally disagrees. Because on the only still standing table in the vault, next to a bloodied carving knife, is a single heart. Rapidly beating in its cradle, a pile of sawdust. – No. Not sawdust, Emma discovers as she gets closer. Ash. Gravely dirty ash that gets stuck under the fingernails when squeezing the life from someone. The heart throbs in crimson waves of light, muted and wrapped in veins of black. They swirl and war with each other in their glassy cage. Up close, Emma can see the scratches and gashes left by an unskilled hand, the bed of the ashy detritus of the soul in which it sits, where Regina has carved two hearts until they fit together as one.
“You’re back,” Emma whispers in disbelief, sharp eyes travelling over every inch of Regina who meets her with a look of equal intensity. “You’re you. Like all of you.”
Regina sighs, holds her forehead in her fingers and shakes. “I suppose.”
“How? I thought Jeckle said it wasn’t possible without some sort of formula - “
“It wasn’t. Until I - or Regina - darkened her heart. And then the Queen, after some lengthy persuasion, chose forgiveness and lightened hers.” Which explains her parents’ mysteriously lifted curse. “Then they were near enough the same to - “ Regina gestures vaguely at the beating metronome on the table. It doesn’t escape Emma’s notice that Regina won’t even look at her own heart. “Emma, I’m so sorry.”
The apology clatters in Emma’s already buzzing head.
“Sorry?” She repeats, still disoriented, “What do you have to be sorry about?”
“I really thought that it would work. I’d hoped - I did this,” Regina gestures between herself and herself. Then her voice goes strangely quiet, “I did this for you.”
Her world, which is still spinning on the chaotic axis pulled between Regina on the floor and Regina spilling what remains of her heart, grinds to a halt. Emma breathes.
“What?”
“Oh Emma, come on !” Regina exclaims as if it was obvious. As if she hadn’t been purposefully arcane for the past year. “As if I haven’t spent the past year, since the moment I knew I might have a chance, since that night, doing everything I can think of to be worthy of you. To find some way to be in a place where I could see some sort of happy ending for us,” Regina chuckles low but her face pinches like she's in pain. And Emma can do nothing but watch, gaping, as tears build in bottomless eyes. “I should know better than to wish for things like that.”
She doesn’t respond. She can’t. Emma is still reeling from the knowledge that Regina would pull herself to pieces to build a world where she can be with Emma. That that’s even something she sees as necessary when Emma doesn’t care. When all Emma wants is -
“And being in that place ,” Regina continues, “I was so angry all the time. So desperate to be wrathful all over again. And on some level, I think I knew my heart was already dark.” Regina hesitates and throws a shuddering look at her heart. “But it felt like giving up on us to admit it and I hid from the truth in you. Knowing full well what I was doing.” Regina bites her lip and is overflowing with the same sort of guilt that Emma has only recently shed herself. “I’m sorry, it should never have happened like that.”
“Maybe not,” Still holding dearly onto their month of fleeting happiness. Emma shakes her head and admits, “You weren’t the only one who was on the run, though.”
“It’s not an excuse. I don’t know pleasure without pain. This was my chance , to finally be free of it. To go back to before, but it's impossible.” And Emma really should object, but she’s finally understanding why Regina had left. Both times. “The more I try to be good enough for you, the more I realise it’s just not possible
“That’s crap,” Emma interjects on instinct.
“Is it? I was my supposed best self and still killed your parents. You still nearly died . And now - Oh god -” And Emma, who is still finely tuned to the full spectrum of Regina, can see it all come crashing down around her. “I took her back. And - What will the town think? And Henry? Shit. What will your parents think? I cursed them - ”
“My parents adore you,” Emma says quickly, finding her feet in facts she knows to be true. “They’re not the same as my parents from the other realm. They want you to be happy. And we - you were never going to be split in half like that.”
“No,” Regina agrees in a shameful murmur. “It's ironic, isn’t it? The part of me that would fight for my happy ending isn’t the same part that deserves it.”
Everything is still as the dust settles on the past year and it finally, on some level, makes sense. Emma casts a shaky look to cold body again, the complete heart and back at Regina.
“This has been a lot of fucking effort for a bad metaphor, Regina,” Emma decides eventually.
Regina almost laughs, a thick choke that has her turning away and falling back into her chair. It looks less like a throne now, when she hunches over, elbows on her knees and her face hidden in her hands. “Well, I guess I’ve learned that no matter what, I’ll never not be terrified,” Regina accepts with defeat.
“Okay.” Emma doesn’t need to ask for elaboration anymore. Still, unprompted, Regina gives it anyway.
“Of losing my mind. Of losing Henry, my family. Of losing you. How can I not be? I always lose.” Then her fingers part and Regina emerges, defenceless. Not because she doesn’t have them like in the wish realm, Emma realises, but because she’s lowered them herself. Emma is close enough that Regina can reach out and pull up the hem of Emma’s t-shirt to run her fingers over the bump of a scar in her side. “When I do lose you, Emma Swan, it will be to nothing but happiness.”
An impossibility, Emma decides, though she knows that now, in the settled wreckage of her vault, Regina won’t believe her.
“I’d do it again, you know.” Emma decides instead on something Regina will believe. “The sword. The darkness. Any of it for any part of you, for all of you. Whether you keep running or not. And I know you’d do the same for me, I mean if all this has really been for - “
Emma’s hands sweep wide at the vault. Regina tortures her lip between her teeth and nods.
“So,” Emma says in a breath, “So I think we should stop worrying about all the painful things that come with loving each other if, they’re going to happen anyway.”
Regina is motionless, as floored as she’d been by Emma’s confession in the Hot Springs. Though here it’s different, heavier and more real, and Emma holds her breath waiting as Regina mentally dances through the landmines that full spectrum of herself.
Then, when Emma is feeling more than a little exposed and trying to lean into it, Regina raises a dark eyebrow and says, “What? No sardonic post-hope-speech self-deprecating joke?”
“No. I’m taking this one very seriously.” Emma maintains a stony face, crossing her arms and widening her stance, but she can feel a jumping twitch smile at the corner of her mouth.
Across the dim of the vault, there is a matching jerky grin on painted lips. “You’ve changed a lot, you know?”
“Maybe for the better.”
“Alright. Then let’s be serious,” Regina exhales and stands, her fingers dragging along the edge of the ashy table, teasing at the blade of the carving knife. There is no anger left in her voice, just tired resignation. “There are wonderful things coming your way. Those wonderful things you’ve been waiting for, and I truly believe you will have them. But, when has this,” Regina holds her dark heart in Emma’s face, “ever lead to anything wonderful? How could it?”
Emma’s heart starts to race in her chest. She knows from the look in Regina’s eyes (a look that is usually accompanied by a I need you). And after a year of not standing up for Regina, of missteps, she is surprisingly aware that what she does now will matter .
With careful hands, Emma takes the heart from her. Regina shudders, her neck twisting and she lets out a stream of steadying breath at the touch. Emma wipes the last of the ash from the heart and holds it longer than necessary, beating hot in her palm.
With sudden conviction, Emma takes a step forward and puts her spare hand on Regina’s shoulder. Her hands have stopped shaking, she notices vaguely, as she lines up the thumping organ with the centre of Regina’s chest. Meeting Regina’s dark eyes, still awash with doubt, Emma puts every bit of certainty into her stare and with careful, careful pressure, pushes the heart back in its place.
Swiftly, before Regina can so much as gasp, Emma moves from her heart to her chin and pulls her in for a firm kiss. And with each volley of her lips she feels them get a little closer to something that might just work.
The corpse in the corner peacefully disintegrates to nothing. Regina takes a sharp breath and a sweet sigh against Emma’s mouth, her hands coming up to hold at Emma’s jacket collar.
Before they can carry themselves away again, Emma pulls back. Allows herself a moment of panting closeness then she steps away. Regina’s arms extend to hold her as long as they can reach then fall to her press disbelieving hands above the pulse in her chest.
Turning back before she leaves, Emma says, “I’ll wait. Just call me when you’re ready.”
--
Thankfully, Emma doesn’t have to wait long at all.
The weather has barely changed, summer still clinging to its final parade of bright days when Regina starts showing up again. She quickly reinstates herself as Mayor and Snow practically collapses with relief at the news.
“I don’t know why Regina made me acting Mayor in the first place,” Snow almost sings now the responsibility is off her shoulders. She flops back onto the bed that Henry had been using and will now be Emma’s. “My guess is this has been some sort of long term punishment. She knows I’m not cut out for this type of leadership.”
Henry looks up from packing his bag and Emma has had to try her best to not be too envious that he gets to go to Regina’s for the weekend. “Uh, Grandma - not to be rude, but weren’t you meant to be a Queen?”
Snow laughs. “Maybe it’s a good thing that never happened. I can’t even run a town, I would have been a terrible queen.”
“No,” Emma interjects a little too assertively. And, sure, Snow had meant it as a joke but it doesn’t sit well with Emma at all. Not when she still holds memories of a different Snow. One who was perhaps a little archaic and a little naïve without truly having ever challenged her perceptions like Mary Margaret had, but a Queen nonetheless. Beloved and peaceful. “No,” Emma insists, “you would have been wonderful.”
“Oh, Emma - “ Snow says with tears in her eyes and pulls the blonde down for an overexcited hug. Once upon a time, Emma would have found it suffocating. Would have been endlessly uncomfortable and struggled against affection. But Princess Emma is still in there somewhere and exalts. She’s found that giving in to some of her counterpart’s less frustrating tendencies makes the experience of having so many memories jammed in her head less jarring.
So Emma moves back in. Well. Moving in might not be the right turn of phrase, and she has to correct Snow frequently to remind her that this is not a long term arrangement. She is going to find somewhere, she is. But for now, every quiet dinner, every TV binge, and every evening walk is precious time. Visions of death fade into the unnaturally bright days of early autumn, and everything is almost, dare she say it, perfect.
Almost.
Someone is obviously missing. And Emma’s not alone in thinking so. Of course, the Charmings won’t stand for Regina’s sudden absence for long. There is a family dinner some week later at Granny’s. Purely Snow’s idea (and endless insistence) and Emma suspects Regina is only attending because Henry had refused to let it drop. She looks unbelievably uncomfortable when their son all but drags her into the diner. Emma is nervous, jittery for reasons beyond Neal beside her who keeps valiantly trying to squirm out of his booster seat. And it looks like Regina tries to leave as soon as she sees them all crammed into a booth and looking at her expectantly.
Snow is first on her feet, ushering them in with a jubilant, “There you are!” that has Regina flinching. But Snow is prepared, Emma equipping her with enough of the details of what happened in the wish realm without being intrusive. She pulls Regina into a hug before she can bolt. “Missed you,” Emma thinks she hears Snow say. Her mom must have said something because Regina is reduced to stubborn tears in the middle of Granny’s.
“Snow White, you horror ,” Regina scathes, unconvincing through watery sniffles and holds on a little tighter. Emma can practically see the weight lifting off her shoulders. “What the hell have you done to me?”
Snow pulls back, swiping Regina’s tears with a handkerchief. “Nothing you don’t deserve. Now, you’re wasting away. Come and eat something.”
Snow shuffles them around, pulling Regina in beside her so she can dote some more and Emma meets her eye from directly across the table. Emma can’t help but stare openly through the entire affair, her eyes always slipping to Regina and missing out on the bulk of the conversation, only answering in dazed, short sentences. Regina stares right back and Emma misses when they had every hour exclusively together, no one else for miles. But they’re here instead, and David has to say her name at least six times before Emma stops gazing like an idiot and gets out the booth so he can get through.
It reaches absurdity by the time dessert rolls around and beneath the table a spark of glowing magic nudges at Emma’s fingertips. It’s timid and asking, and Emma sees the offering for what it is. Regina is nodding along to whatever Henry is saying, casting Emma wink out the side of her eye.
Cupping the magic, that is vibrant and so very complete, she infuses it with her own and sends it floating discretely back. Regina doesn’t move above the table, beyond a twitch in her shoulder, but she does get an abruptly warm look on her face and Emma knows she caught it. They continue a calm and indulgent back and forth, the most they can get away with without drawing attention to themselves. But it’s building beneath the tiny table, growing rich and heavy with emotion and every time Emma catches the simple glowing orb, she shivers. Regina’s eyes have become almost black, liquid and uninhibited and Emma is finding it difficult to breathe.
So before she does something stupid, Emma tilts the magic on its side she sends it spinning across the floor like a top, weaving through people's legs and Regina’s eyes silent follow it as it makes its way through the busy dinner crowd and back to her where it tries to climb the line at the back of her stockings.
Regina narrows her eyes, her facade of listening to David discuss the new patrol cars falling completely. Emma’s dessert immediately catches fire, and Emma swipes quickly at the purple flames, catching them in her palm and hiding them under the table. Regina’s grin doubles in size and beneath the table, Emma feels Regina’s foot slip out of her heel and start to make its way up Emma’s leg. The dessert catches fire again, and Emma gets chocolate sauce on her wrist as she gathers up more fire, the frantic wave catching Snow’s eye.
“Emma? You okay?” Snow asks as Emma tries to control the fireball that’s definitely growing between the red leather booths. So help them if any of the other diners look their way. Regina is grinning like a maniac, her tongue pressing against the inside of her cheek.
“Yeah fine,” Emma manages, leaning on her spare hand and playing it cool. “Sorry, you were saying?”
And Regina is definitely laughing at her, her ankle making its way higher and higher as she literally feeds the fire. Emma compresses the flames and sends them back as a thick golden thread that wriggles along the underside of the table to the rim of Regina’s plate. It curls up and forms the words, That’s cheating.
In a puff of purple, a napkin appears in her lap, laden with messy violet ink that melts into a response: You’ve forgotten who you’re dealing with.
Emma puts the napkin on the table, flicks the edge and sends it rolling up over itself until it arrives in front of Regina as a tiny stick of TNT emblazoned with Have not.
Emma adds a smiley face on the end for good measure.
It pops on the table in a burst of golden sparks, clattering the plates and cutlery and sending Regina’s water glass all over her lap. She gasps, frozen in cold shock. There’s no being subtle anymore. “That’s it , Miss Swan,” Regina retaliates with a playful smirk, a crafty glint in her eyes that has Emma shivering with delight.
The still burning magic disappears with a twist, reappearing as zap that pinches Emma’s ass. She jumps in her seat, knocking the table again. “ Ouch! Regina!”
And they’re definitely attracting attention. In turn, Emma shoots a spark of electricity across the table. Regina’s empty glass is suddenly slammed over it, the magic whirring around like a trapped insect. Snow holds the glass firmly on the table, levelling them with a glare and a stern, “One meal! That’s all I ask!”
Emma bites her lip against a smile and if she had the wherewithal to be embarrassed, the whole dinner from start to finish would be mortifying. But there is an undercurrent of newness rushing through her, full of potential and it's exhilarating all over again. This time Emma thinks and truly believes they might just break through their shared opus of mistakes.
She floats through the rest of the evening on that freeing feeling, doubling down later that same evening when Emma is lounging in bed. Her hands are tucked behind her head, staring dreamily at the ceiling as she goes over every hopeful look they’d shared, cycling through each glimmer of magic until she feels like she might just explode when her phone buzzes from beside her. It lights up the room in a cool blue with a notification from Regina.
I believe I promised you a drink, the text message reads.
Emma rolls over, grinning and remembering their first-night drinking awful beer in Pinocchio's workshop. For the first time since getting back, she can’t bring herself to regret any of it. She has plans this weekend but she has an idea and types out, Meet me at Troll Bridge Brewery. 1 pm on Saturday. Then, with a conniving gleam, adds, Wear walking shoes.
The response is instant. Day drinking? Really, Emma?
Regina shows up anyway. The brewery is packed on the weekend. Understandable, as it's blazing hot for an early October weekend. Emma is sitting at one of the outside tables soaking in the unusual sun when Regina arrives.
“Hey,” Emma says with a decidedly stupid smile, bounding up to her and pushing her sunglasses onto her head.
“You’ll lose our table,” Regina observes, holding a pair of sturdy paddock boots that she uses to point at the busy patio where another couple are already settling into the bench Emma had just left.
“That’s fine, we’re not staying.” Emma holds up a takeaway bag that clunks with the telltale weight of cans. “Come on, you can put your shoes on in the car. Henry’s waiting.”
“You brought Henry on our - nevermind.“ Regina stops herself and blushes, following Emma to the bug. Henry is waiting in the backseat with a packed bag.
“I can’t believe you actually got her to come,” He says when they’ve driven deep into the woods.
”Agree to come to what?” Regina asks, dubiously. “Will someone please tell me where we’re going?”
“Hang on, we’re almost there.” Emma explains, steering the bug up a steep rocky road, “I’ve been running a lot since we got back. I stumbled across this place and thought it would be perfect.”
Regina narrows her eyes, suspiciously looking between Henry and Emma. “Perfect for what?”
Emma just grins and says, “I believe it was you who said ‘ You’ll find out where we're going when we get there .’” Regina growls. “Which out of context sounds really mysterious until I remember you were talking about a brothel. ”
Regina rolls her eyes and from the back Henry pulls out his single earbud to say, “Woah, back up. You went where?”
“Never you mind,” Regina says at the same time as Emma hurries out, “Don’t worry about it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Regina says in mock outrage as she gets out of the car, taking in their surroundings. Emma has driven them to a clearing on the edge of Storybrooke. Amongst towering pines and arches of golden autumnal leaves there is a small circle of tents around a makeshift fire pit. A campsite. Neal, in a ridiculous sunhat and sturdy shoes, toddles out of one of the tents, Snow running after him. “No,” Regina utters horrified. Then she spots Zelena who has magically swapped her camping chair for a green pool lounger complete with tasselled umbrella, drinking something fruity that definitely is not just juice watching as baby Robin rolls in the leaves and gums at a small piece of marshmallow. “ No . Absolutely not.”
“Yes,” Emma insists.
“ No . Get back in the car, they haven’t seen us yet.”
“Nuh-uh,” Emma says, locking the door, “You promised.”
“I promised a drink.”
“And you’ll get one,” Emma says happily, popping the trunk and starting to unload.
“Come on, Mom, it’ll be fun,” Henry encourages, excitedly extracting himself from the car. He’s getting so tall that he has to unfold to get out the back seat and when he stands he is eye level with Regina, pleading quietly, and Emma knows she’s won.
“I thought we could both use some time around our family.” Emma sidles up to her, her ponytail pulled through the back of a Red Sox hat and arms straining as she hoists a heavy cooler that sloshes with the sound of melting ice. “Weather report said this is meant to be the last of the good weather for the year. It would be a waste to - ”
“I can make it rain again, you know,” Regina threatens, crossing her arms after she shuts the door to the car.
“You won’t.”
Regina pouts in defeat, though Emma can tell she’s finally fighting off a smile. “Really? Camping? What, you didn’t get enough?”
“Well I had such a good time,” Emma smirks, and Regina rolls her eyes but that smile Emma knows she’s holding back starts to break through. “For the most part. And now I know you can camp, you’re not getting out of these things so easily anymore.”
This is a fact that actually turns out to not work in Emma’s favour because Regina can’t get out of anything . She barely finishes catching up with Zelena before Neal monopolises her, much to Snow’s relief and she’s out of reach for most of the afternoon, holding up the toddler as they wade in the stream and laying in the grass to accept his token gifts of stones, pinecones and wildflowers he’s crumpled in his tiny palms. But it’s fine, Emma’s more than content to wait and let the afternoon’s glowing tranquillity and acceptance wash over Regina.
“Regina, catch,” Emma says and raises her hands, expecting their magical game. Instead, Emma throws a softball glove, which Regina catches gracelessly. Neal laughs gleefully at her fumbling and at how Emma secures her baseball hat over Regina’s head to mild objection. “Tap in for me. I’m gonna help Dad with dinner.”
Between pushing the coals around, fighting her father for the tongs and chatting happily with her mother, Neal at her hip, Emma catches Regina observing her openly across the campsite. Often enough that she’s not doing a great job at playing softball, Henry having hit her in the stomach more than once. Even over dinner (hot dogs and cornbread and very much not soup ), Regina seems to forget to eat in favour of watching Emma from across the fire.
“What?” Emma finally asks through a mouthful, cradling her disintegrating paper plate in one hand and second ( third?) hot dog in the other as she takes Zelena’s seat.
“I thought I knew what you being happy looked like,” Regina admits softly, staring down at her barely touched food. “I might have been wrong.”
“Yeah? I think I’ve only just about figured it out.” Emma breathes, chest tight and she really wishes she wasn’t having this conversation with a smudge of mustard on the corner of her mouth. “They’re all going on a hike to see the sunset on the ridge. I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit nature-walked out.”
Regina scoffs dramatically. “A bit?”
Robin and Neal are quickly strapped up in carrying backpacks, and Regina and Emma are left alone in the last sun-drenched hour of the day. The smell of sweet contentment is late-blooming wildflowers, leaves just beginning to turn, and it sits misty and rich in the clearing. A little block of a bluetooth speaker plays music that Emma hopes Regina will tolerate, and Emma hums along as she tends to the fire and packs down dinner. “I’ll help,” Regina offers, and they move effortlessly around each other clearing up, a month’s worth of practice not having faded in the slightest until it's all but done.
“You kept the singing,” Regina teases after a while. Emma turns from stacking firewood to see her sitting in one of the folding camping chairs, head propped up on her hand and watching Emma with a tenderness Emma hasn’t seen so unfettered since the Wish Realm.
“I liked the singing. Amongst other things,” Emma says. “Besides, I think I’m starting to figure out the trick to this alter ego business.”
Regina raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Well, with New York, I tried forgetting and that…sucked. Then with Princess Emma, I did a pretty good job of ignoring, even when the truth was right in front of me.” Emma continues with the firewood, using a hatchet to split a log in two. “So,” She continues, picking up the two halves, “I figured it might not be about how much of it you can let go, but more about what you chose to take with.” She stacks them with the rest.
“I thought you found her irritating?”
Emma starts snapping kindling down to size, using her pocket knife. “Yeah. I mean, I did. In the ways she was like me, the ways that I really didn’t like. But I did like how much Princess Emma wasn’t afraid to love her family. I’ve never been like that, which is no great shock considering but I think a large part of me always wants to be. And , being raised by my mother, she genuinely believed in things like happy endings.” She points at Regina with the blunt end of a stick. “ That’s been a game changer.” Emma admits with an unwavering smile. Regina is enraptured. “And, of course, the singing.”
Regina’s easy smile builds slowly, her eyes suddenly wide and wholly borderless. “When did you get so wise?”
Shrugging, Emma tosses the stick into the fire. “Like you said...I’m surprisingly complex.”
“That you are,” Regina says slowly, voice cracking.
“Yeah, well you’re not exactly a walk in the park, yourself.” Regina laughs and Emma takes that as enough of a good sign to settle in the camping chair at her side. “Now – I believe you promised me you’d drink whatever sad drink I want, so here.” Emma holds out a brightly decorated can from Troll Bridge Brewery and Regina crinkles her nose. "Seriously? I got the good stuff. This is like six bucks a can. Ugh, fine . I think my mom brought wine.”
Regina perks up a little, before asking dubiously, “What wine? Cork or screw top?”
Emma rummages in the watery remains of the cooler and winces. “Uh…Boxed?” Regina pouts dramatically and Emma can’t help but laugh, “Really? How can you still be picky after I saw you drink that gross hooch we found in a hole in the ground?”
“You mean you found.” Sticking out her tongue, Regina makes a noise of disgust. “Uch, don’t remind me . And I seem to remember you drank it first and insisted it was good . ” She grimaces but there is an undeniably affectionate smile beneath it. Emma is undeniably sure that Regina still looks back on their time in the Wish Realm with something much more important than regret.
Shooting her a wide grin, Emma says with mischief, “Some would call that a prank, your majesty.”
“Well some would call it taking your life into your own hands,” Regina responds with a flick of two fingers, drawing forth a tiny fireball that crackles menacingly.
Emma laughs heartily, and it's like a final righting. Emma extinguishes the little flame with ease, covering her fingers with her own. Regina then waves an open palm at the six-pack Emma looks pleasantly surprised as she hands over a can.
“You have marginally better taste than your mother,” Regina explains. “Bad wine is a crime. Bad beer is to be expected.”
Emma clears whatever has lodged in her throat, “You hate beer, you hate tea – “
“I don’t actually hate tea. Just in the mornings when it’s being offered up in coffee’s rightful place.” Regina flicks at the top of the can with her fingernail and Emma feels a little silly but she still can’t look away.
“Oh? What tea do you like?
Regina, who is experimentally sniffing the open can, blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“What tea do you like?” Emma repeats though Regina is still looking a little stumped by the question. “Come on, we know all the crap things about each other, now. Have shown pretty much every way we’re irrevocably fucked up. Literally held each other's hearts in our hands. Can’t we know the simple things too?”
Regina pauses for a moment, giving it serious thought and Emma happily could watch her, sitting still in the dripping gold of evening, for the rest of her life. “I’d have to say Orange Pekoe.”
Emma laughs. “It couldn’t be something simple? Like black or green?”
Quickly getting righteous, Regina informs her. “ Technically , Orange Pekoe is a grade of black tea, but it felt an injustice to reduce it to - “
“I love you.”
It slips out easily and Regina’s face is blown wide open, melting in golden light for a moment. “Emma - “
“I brought something else,” Emma says quickly, taking the rest of the beers out of the paper bag at her feet and bringing forth a cardboard box.
“Your birthdays not for another couple of weeks,” Regina says, craning her neck to see the two cupcakes that sit side by side in a Granny’s takeaway box. They have absurdly glittery flags sticking out of the frosting that read Happy Birthday!
“Yeah, ignore those,” Emma says, handing Regina the chocolate one so she can get up and hold the wicks of two twirly candles in the campfire.
“What exactly is this?” Regina asks, holding out the proffered cupcake and watching with wide eyes as Emma sticks the candle in the frosting.
Emma, averts her eyes, feeling a little ridiculous. But part of her had once believed in things like this. So she says with confidence, “A do-over wish. And I couldn’t guarantee any shooting stars.” Having planned ahead, Emma quickly blows hers out and is already sucking the frosting out the swirl of the birthday candle when she sees Regina hasn’t so much as moved. Instead, she’s watching Emma intently, cradling the cake as the flame creeps down its waxy tower. “You don’t have to. I mean it’s silly - “
Before Emma can finish, Regina blows the candle out with a little puff, silky blue smoke from the wick disappearing into the silkier dusk.
“What did you wish for?” Emma asks, when the amber tipped brushes of sunlight are almost faded, cupcakes no more than crumbs and paper that has been scraped clean with her teeth.
Regina smiles wistfully, drinking her beer and sucking frosting from her thumb. “Same thing I wished for last time. Just with a longer, more permanent time frame.”
Emma wracks her brain. “I don’t think you ever said what you wished for last time.”
“Didn’t I?”
She’ll ask later, Emma thinks because Regina has a look in her eyes. Emma watches as Regina tilts her chair on its side legs to bridge the tiny gap, braces herself on Emma’s shoulder and kisses her. Slowly and carefully. Largely because Regina is balancing on a rickety camping chair Emma is pretty sure is as old as she is. And when Emma finally works her tongue into Regina’s mouth she tastes like chocolate cake and beer and, beneath it, completely the same.
“Get a room!” Regina almost slips and Emma grabs her elbows before the precarious chair collapses beneath her. It’s Henry, emerging from the path and grinning at them. “Actually, no,” he adds, watching as Emma carefully rights Regina’s camping chair with sparkling eyes, her hands lingering. Henry makes a face. “Please don’t do that.”
“Can I have one?” Henry asks, and Emma hesitates.
“Henry -” She starts, but Regina interrupts with “It’s fine. You may have one.” Regina says, raising a firm finger. “But here. Where we can see you. And if you feel strange, you stop.” Then Regina reluctantly hands over a can, which is only fair after she’d let Wish Henry drink with her.
“And how is me?” This is Henry’s favourite question to ask these days, nobody is more excited than an alternate Henry than Henry himself and Emma is overly grateful for it.
"Actually, I meant to ask you both. Zelena thinks she can open portals to the Wish Realm now it exists, and he wants to visit.” Regina lets out a soft noise and Emma knows she needn’t actually ask. “Once he’s finished his Regina Redemption Tour or whatever we’re calling it.”
“Awesome,” Henry says enthusiastically, launching into all the modern things they can show a tourist from another realm. Somehow, he turns it into a slightly tipsy plea for an upgraded computer. “Come on, if I have to share.”
“Keep dreaming,” Emma says, “Regina will just make him watch endless hours of educational TV, anyway.”
“Oh, the National Geographic thing. That’s an act, you know? Her real favourite channel is Food Network,” Henry says to Regina’s spluttering outrage, “Once, she screamed in the middle of the night and I thought she was dying but it was just a Chopped rerun.”
“Henry!” Regina scolds, betrayed, then turns to Emma and says, “He’s clearly drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“I think he does,” Emma grins, “But don’t worry, familial humiliation goes both ways. I’ll avenge your honour.” Emma taps at her phone and the tiny speaker, that has been floating gentle music, starts the opening line of Stacy’s Mom.
“NO!” Henry and Regina shout in unison, both lunging for her. Zelena, Snow and David return to two mothers and son in a heap of breathless laughter on the forest floor.
Easy evening sweeps in with a chill. It’s still Maine, and the rest of the evening is spent wrapped in picnic blankets, and still picking sticky melted marshmallows from their fingertips, everyone goes to bed. Emma knows whose soft steps navigate through the brush once everyone has gone to bed. Knows that colourful swearing that accompanies a small stumble. Knows the dark silhouette thrown by moonlight on the thin walls of the tent as the zip opens.
“There is no way this is a two-person tent,” Emma complains as she tries to squish into the side so Regina can lay next to her.
“I can’t believe you’ve got me sleeping on the ground again,” Regina laments as she wriggles into the sleeping bag, polyester rustling loudly until they settle side by side as they have countless times before. Emma wants to object that she's hardly sleeping on the ground when she’s practically laid on top of Emma. Regina sighs and watches the dark sky through the mesh cut out at the top of Emma’s tiny tent. Then she says, “I love you too, by the way. And I really have no intention of leaving again.”
The night arranges itself around them and Emma nods and finds she needs nothing more than that. Everything is limned in greys and there’s a silvery imprint of a not-quite-scar that peeks out of Regina’s half-zipped sweatshirt running down the centre of her chest. Emma traces the top of it with the dragging edge of her finger. “Can I ask you a question about this?”
“It’s never good when your questions come with a prerequisite of consent…” Regina replies warily, “But go ahead. I’ll actually answer, this time.”
Emma pauses and swallows her question. “Can you do other organs? Like, say if someone shared the same liver and needed a transplant. Could you do that?”
Regina twists and smiles into her shoulder, shaking her head and muttering something like, "Ridiculous."
“That wasn’t actually what I was going to ask,” Emma confesses after another age of watching wispy clouds pass over the stars.
“I figured,” Regina replies, wariness long gone.
“Can you remember everything? Like, from both sides?”
Regina lifts her head, furrowing her brow and considering Emma in the shadowy dark before saying, “Yes. Why?”
Emma smiles, relieved. “Just checking you’ll know what to do.” Cutting off Regina’s noise of outrage, Emma leans up and kisses her. “You know…’ Emma observes, pulling back for air, touching her with nothing hidden in her fingertips. No ulterior motive and nothing to run from. No hankering for something else because there’s no need. Regina hums, tilting her head back and hands bunching the tent floor with a crunch of gravel, gasping as Emma’s creeping hands pull her hips firmly down. And Emma needs her, as usual, but not in a desperate scramble. “I don’t think we’ve ever done this when one of us isn’t on the verge of a breakdown.”
“How encouraging,” Regina purrs, then lets out a particularly loud groan when Emma pushes up her knee between Regina’s legs and laves at the velvety skin of her neck.
Big Mistake because they’re used to being alone and not having handfuls of rocks chucked at their tent, accompanied by an irate Zelena shouting “ Oi! Keep it down!”
“What was it you were just saying about a breakdown?” Regina says through gritted teeth, rolling off her. Emma laughs, shawls Regina in the sleeping bag and drags her out of the tent and Emma really needs to plan a weekend away that comes without a board of commentators. Because all three occupied tents have heads peeking out of them, looking for the commotion.
“We’re going for our nature walk now,” Emma explains, and this is mortifying if only Emma could bring herself to be mortified. Somehow Regina manages a perfectly straight face, rising blush invisible in star-shadowed monochrome.
“Now?” Snow asks, fumbling for her phone in the grass to squint at her screen. "It's midnight."
Regina's arms snake around her waist. Rocking on her feet, Emma pops an impatient, “Yep. Right now.”
“But there are bears,” David adds drowsily and clearly has not fully caught up yet.
Emma summons a little shrug and decides, “Got magic. Escaped an entire Royal Gaurd for a month. I’m not worried.”
“And cougars,” Zelena adds, and Emma decides she might be her new favourite family member.
“Those I - uh - might have more time for.” Regina swiftly elbows her in the gut.
Zelena sounds delighted, “Brilliant.”
Henry groans, flopping back into his tent and groans, “This is horrific .” An accusatory finger appears from the tent and points at Regina. “And you. You’re paying for my therapy.”
“I already pay for your therapy, young man,” Regina retaliates, her hands on her hips though the effect is sourly ruined when she is draped in a sleeping bag.
“No, I mean you’re paying me . Seventy-five bucks an hour. No negotiations.”
And with the punctuated zip of Henry’s door, they disappear into the woods and don’t return until morning. Morning that creeps with dusty light through woods that roost no ghosts. There is a fresh carving, crude and done in the dark with Emma’s pocket knife, drawn into the bark of the tree they’d slept beneath. Regina had wanted to leave something in the forest other than a bad memory, and Emma had hastily etched their initials, encased them in a lopsided heart, and returned her attention to more desirable activities. Still, she smiles up at it now, daylight creeps over it and Regina presses her cold nose into her neck. It’s as permanent as the rest, a promise to stay. Emma pulls leaves from her hair and, with sun in her eyes, breathes deeply the scent of cedar and sunrise and new beginnings.
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