Author's Note: I have part of the next chapter for Make No Mistake written out, but the angsty feels wouldn't leave me alone and I'm not quite ready to delve so deeply into them in that story yet. Thus, this story was born. :P Please review!
It's exhausting. Loving her. Loving Regina Mills. It's exhausting no matter what. It's always been exhausting.
Emma can't even remember when it happened, but she remembers how. She remembers the arguments and the fury and passion so sharp it made her knees buckle and her heart rage. She remembers her chest aching and wondering if the frantic, condemning beats of the traitorous organ had bruised her from within, and she remembers trembling and wondering, wondering so hard if Regina had felt that.
But she didn't. She couldn't have, Emma now thinks.
Regina couldn't have felt it, because now she's holding hands with Roland and Robin and smiling with kind, caramel sweetness in eyes that have only ever turned to Emma with darkness black as ash, and walking down Main Street like she fucking owns it.
Emma belatedly realizes that Regina sort of does. It's her town, and her streets, and her people, really, and Regina owns it. She owns it all. And Regina certainly owns Emma, too, even if she doesn't know it.
Henry does, though. He's compassionate and smart and sweet as that caramel in his mother's eyes, and so he knows what Regina doesn't. And he watches Emma with sad eyes, every time he's with her.
"I wish you could be happy, too," he voices quietly, pouting his lower lip outward and drawing shapes in the lines of his peas at dinner.
But he says it with hurt and pain in a voice that seems to Emma like it's growing deeper with every passing day, like he knows just as well as Emma does that happiness is something she simply isn't allowed.
Emma's never been allowed happiness.
But Emma smiles, and she pretends, and she ruffles Henry's hair beside her until that sad, sad look in his eyes gleams a little cheerier, even against his will.
"I'm happy with you, kid," Emma promises.
And it's true.
But it's not. It's not, it's not, it can't be, because if that were true, then why does her chest still feel so goddamn hollow?
"No, you're not," Henry argues, sighing and shoving his plate away. "But I know you wish you were."
"I do," Emma swears, because she wishes that Henry could be enough, and she knows that he should be, even if he isn't. "I do, Henry."
He smiles, but it's all wrong. It's hurt and pained just like his voice was before, and it's all for Emma, so she swallows, and looks down, because she knows what comes next.
"You should tell her," Henry says.
Emma knew it, but she cringes, anyway.
"I can't," she chokes. "Henry, I can't," she pleads.
She pleads for him to understand, for him to just see, because Regina is happy. Emma thinks Regina's actually, honestly happy, and Emma just can't take that from her.
"She might not love him," Henry tries, ever the optimist. "She might not, Emma. She might just be pretending. She might be scared, or just lonely, or – "
"Or she could love him," Emma interrupts, ignoring, ignoring, ignoring the moisture pooling in her eyes until she forgets it's even there, so she doesn't notice when it spills over and paints her cheeks wet.
Henry doesn't say anything else about Regina that night. And it's for the best, too, Emma thinks, because every word he says about her makes Emma hope, and that's dangerous.
"You always have me," Henry promises, cheeks rouging with color as he slants a kiss across Emma's forehead when she tucks him in.
"You're all I need, kid," Emma turns the corners of her mouth upward.
That's more accurate than what she'd said before, about him making her happy. Because Henry is all that she needs.
But, oh, Emma wants, too.
She shoves the thoughts away and crawls into bed, but she doesn't sleep. She can't. Not anymore. Because loving Regina Mills… It's exhausting, but Emma never gets to rest, which makes it so much worse.
When Regina picks Henry up at ten the next morning, Robin is there, too, promising Henry sword practice and riding lessons and stories from another world with a possessive hand looped around Regina's waist and hugging her opposite hip, and, oh God, it hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts everywhere, and Emma can't even stand it.
Because, fuck it all, Henry's all she needs, but Henry doesn't need her; not really. He has a mom – a good one; a reformed one; one who loves him like nothing else in the world, and who would give anything for that sweet, sweet boy – and now he basically has a little brother and basically a dad, too, and it's not fair.
They can't take Henry from her, too. She needs him.
But Emma can't do anything. Not without hurting Henry, and not without hurting Regina, so she flashes her teeth and smiles and smiles and smiles until her face hurts and the muscles of her jaw ache.
Regina watches it suspiciously, but Emma ignores that, too, because does it really even matter?
"You'll pick him up on Sunday, Miss Swan?" Regina raises her brow expectantly.
"Sunday," Emma nods in confirmation.
Because, how could she forget?
Emma hates Sunday. Sunday, they have family dinner – Roland and Henry and Regina and Robin – and Emma isn't there. Because, Emma thinks, she isn't family. So Emma isn't there until the end, when they relax on the couch and chuckle and lounge around with full bellies and sated hearts, until Emma destroys it all by taking Henry away, and she wonders, wonders if she should.
Regina tells her to get Henry on Sundays, so Emma does (because Regina owns her, even if she doesn't know it), but what if she didn't? What if Emma didn't get Henry on Sundays?
It wouldn't matter, she thinks the next week. It wouldn't matter if she didn't get him, because Emma needs Henry, but he doesn't need her. And Emma wants Regina, but Regina doesn't- won't- can't want Emma, because Regina wants Robin and Roland and Henry and family.
And Emma doesn't have a family to offer her.
Emma has Snow White and Prince Charming and a baby brother she never sees, because she can't even look at any one of them without that hollow feeling in her chest spreading all the way through her toes.
But they're not her family, not really, because Emma doesn't think they even have time to notice that she doesn't come around anymore, and family– they notice. They don't, though, so they can't be Emma's family. Which means that, as usual, Emma still doesn't have one.
Emma doesn't get Henry on Sunday.
She packs her clothes and her toiletries and leaves the picture frames behind, because her eyes sting and her throat hurts and her chest aches when she looks at them – at Mary Margaret, not Snow, laughing in the kitchen of their tiny loft, and Henry beaming at a camera with the damn book that started everything clutched tightly to his chest, and an article by Sidney Glass that Emma only kept because it reminded her of heat and a fire and Regina leaning into Emma's side for protection that Emma had only sparingly been allowed to give her.
So she leaves the picture frames behind, and her baby blanket, too – because that blanket had been hope for a family that never existed for Emma – and she drives to the town line with a layer of shiny, red leather armor that doesn't at all feel strong enough slipped snugly across her shoulders.
Her fingers fold loosely around the steering wheel as she stops, the 'Welcome to Storybrooke' sign fully restored and lurking in the distance.
That's how it works, really, Emma supposes.
Emma had destroyed that sign, once. She'd made an impact on it. But there it was, like Emma had never even collided with it at all, and it was just like everything else Emma had ever touched in her life.
She's a ghost. She touches things, even moves them when she can, but then she's gone, and the owners move the objects back into place, and her actions are written off like some inexplicable mishap that's hardly even remembered.
Emma nods. Because Henry – perhaps the only one who will notice that things had even been moved, and, as ever, the only one who probably even believes in ghosts like Emma at all – would be just like that sign. In some months, it'll be like she was never in his life at all, only he'll be happier, because he has the family he always yearned for and a mother who isn't 'evil,' and he, too, will be fully restored.
He'll lurk in the distance, too.
Pressing her foot to the pedal should be easier, but it isn't. It isn't, it isn't, it isn't, because there are lights behind her, and Emma recognizes the shapes of the headlights that belong to that ridiculously classy Mercedes, and it isn't even easy to breathe, anymore. She keeps her foot on the break until the car behind her slows and eventually stops, and she hears the clack of expensive heels and the patter of anxiously padding sneakers beside them before she hears the hesitant rap of knuckles against her window.
Emma swallows, and swallows, and her fingers tighten around the steering wheel until her knuckles are pale.
"Emma," Henry implores through the glass.
And, God, she's never loved a weakness so goddamn much in her life, so she rolls the window down and turns to look at him.
At Henry, but not the woman beside him, because, God, it hurts.
"Emma, you can't go," Henry pleads, chin wobbling and tears leaking from the corners of his eyes that look so much like Regina's, even if genetics aren't involved there at all.
Emma closes her eyes.
"Running again, Miss Swan?" Regina sneers, but there's something else – something like maybe fear or reluctance or something bad that isn't directed at Emma, but at the idea of Emma leaving.
"I- I'm not…" Emma trails off, furrowing her brows.
Because she isn't running, is she? No, Emma realizes. No, she's not running.
Emma is the only thing that doesn't belong in Storybrooke, and all she does is cause complications where there shouldn't be any, because everyone has a family and they try to make Emma part of them, but it makes everyone else's lives hard and unpleasant. So she's leaving, and letting them have their family, and she can survive like she always has.
Alone.
"Please," Henry begs. "I know- I know you're sad, and you're lonely and you're lost," Henry hiccups, "but you can't leave. You can't."
"Kid," Emma rasps, shaking her head with a sad smile, "you don't need me."
No one needs me, she thinks to herself.
"I do!" Henry insists. "I do need you! You're my- my mom," he says fervently. "And I have a mom, I know – and she- she loves me," he sobs out, "but that doesn't mean I don't need you."
But isn't that exactly what it means? Emma wonders.
"It'll be easier if I'm gone, Henry," she says quietly.
"Easier does not mean better, Emma," Regina offers softly, and Emma can't help it.
She looks. She shouldn't, she knows she shouldn't – that it can only end in more heartbreak – but Emma looks at her.
"Don't," Emma sobs, leaning her cheek against the wheel, right in between her outstretched palms still holding on to the mechanism for dear life, and ignores, ignores, ignores the moisture pooling in her eyes until she forgets it's even there, and, as always, doesn't notice when it spills over and paints her cheeks wet, once more. "Stop pretending, Regina. Stop pretending that this isn't exactly what you want."
"Do not tell me what I want, Miss Swan," Regina snarls. "Because what I want is to drag you back into town with my fist in those ridiculously flattering princess curls and scream myself hoarse until you understand what an absolute moron you have been this evening."
"Emma, you have to listen to her," Henry snivels, wiping his wrist underneath his nose, and Emma is honestly, honestly shocked that Regina doesn't scold him for snotting up his sweater. "Please, you have to."
But Emma realizes, then, that it's Sunday.
They have family dinner on Sunday. They should be on the couch, shouldn't they? Relaxing and chuckling and lounging with their full bellies and sated hearts? With Robin and Roland?
But they're not. Regina and Henry aren't there, because they're here.
"I can't," Emma says, confused and hurt and, God, so sad she can't remember ever being anything else.
"You will, Miss Swan," Regina snaps. "You will listen, because this may very well be the only time that I will ever say it. You will not leave my town without my permission without even hearing what I have to say about it, do you understand?"
Emma's brows furrow, but she just can't understand why this is such a fucking problem for Regina. She's happy, for Christ's sake, and all Emma's doing is getting the hell out of her way, just like the mayor had always wanted, so what the fuck is even happening, here?
She nods anyway, because Regina owns her; she owns all that Emma is, and Emma's a fucking mess and an absolute sucker for it, but those black eyes have found her again, and Emma can't do anything else but nod.
"I need you," Regina hisses, like she detests the words and the situation that forced them out of her. "I loathe that I need you, Emma Swan, but I do. Understand?"
"No," Emma whimpers.
Because she doesn't. Because nothing about this makes sense to her at all, and she needs– God, she needs to press her foot against the pedal and just go.
"I am meant to be good now," Regina sneers. "I am meant to be honest and decent and kind," she grits out between clenched teeth, her cheeks hollowing beneath the force of her fury. "And at times it is simple," she confesses, more softly. "At times, it comes easily to me. But most times, Miss Swan," she says coolly, "I am dark. I am not permitted to be dark – not by anyone in this town – because they do not understand.
"You," Regina growls, lowering herself at the waist until her face is half inside the window and her breath splashes over Emma's neck until she shivers, and shivers, and shivers until her entire body is thrumming with want, "are the only person in my town who allows me to be whomever I desire, even if what I happen to desire is darkness. You allow me my spiteful thoughts and ill wishes without ever allowing me to be so dark that I would act upon them. You," Regina insists, her voice dwindling and dwindling until there's barely a whisper between them, her eyes an inky, ashy black, "understand. You understand, Emma," she repeats, flicking her eyes between both of Emma's. "And you care for me in spite of it," Regina swallows, her tone something akin to awe, or wonder, or reverence, or something that Emma thinks shouldn't belong there.
"I shouldn't," Emma tells her, allowing a blink that lasts far longer than it should as she finally – finally – feels the tears on her face and swipes a palm against them.
"But she does!" Henry exclaims, his voice quaking. "She loves you, Mom!"
Emma's jaw clenches, and she screws her eyelids so tightly together that she hardly remembers what light looks like, because, God, what had Henry just done?
"I know," Regina whispers.
"Let me go, Regina," Emma grates out, like the words she forces out are bits of broken glass that char the walls of her throat.
"No," Regina denies. "Look at me. Look at me," Regina persuades, with so much care and gentleness that Emma's heart swells and burns in her chest.
But Emma does what she asks, because she is owned, and Regina's eyes– they're not black. Not tonight. Not this time.
They are kind, caramel sweetness, and it's all for Emma. But what does it mean?
"I know," Regina murmurs, her mouth playing lightly across Emma's in a way that makes her want to lean in, even though Emma knows better. "And you aren't alone."
"Mom!" Henry snaps violently. "You have to say it! You have to, because she's gonna leave if she doesn't know. You have to say it!" He demands, desperately fisting Regina's blazer between his fingers.
"I love you, too," Regina sighs reluctantly. "Not," she adds sharply, "that you even said it to begin with, Miss Swan," she finishes primly.
The words are thick, and heavy, but Emma doesn't even have the time to revel in them like she wants to, because she realizes, again, that they are here.
Regina and Henry are here for her. Because–
"You noticed," Emma chokes out, eyes wide and fearful and hopeful, too.
"Huh?" Henry frowns.
"You noticed," Emma repeats, though she knows it means very little to Henry, "that I was gone."
"You were late," Regina states, regarding Emma with confusion but earnestness so sincere it makes Emma's teeth hurt.
"Yeah, but you noticed," like a broken record.
"Of course we did," Henry frowns. "You're always late, but never more than ten minutes."
"Family notices," Emma whispers, more to herself than either of the two outside her window, eyes vaulting between the pair of them like she's never seen them before in her life.
But realization dawns slowly over Regina's features, anyway, and she quirks her lip into a pleased smirk, pulling up from the worn, yellow Beetle and tugging crisply at her jacket to straighten it.
"Well then come home, Emma," she directs impatiently. "With your family."
"Robin – "
"She kicked him out, Emma!" Henry rushes to explain. "She kicked him out because he got mad that she used magic to find you, because she said that you're our family!"
"I kicked him out," Regina drawls slowly, "because he didn't understand. As we've already discussed, Miss Swan," she pauses, weighing the silence between their ears, "you do."
Emma doesn't entirely understand what's happening, or what it means, or how to proceed – but she heard Regina say that she needs her. She heard Regina say that she loves her. And, God, Emma heard them both when they told her to come home.
Home with her family.
Emma unbuckles, and steps out of the car, hugging Henry until her chin rests on top of his head, and so tight she thinks his ribs might crush.
Regina says nothing; only watches Emma with a gleam of understanding that promises maybe.
Maybe someday soon.
"God, you're exhausting," Emma sighs out through a rush of watery chuckles. "Loving you is exhausting."
"I assure you, you are no less taxing to love, Miss Swan," Regina scowls.
And, God, it's probably the most unromantic moment of Emma's entire life, but it's perfect and they're her family and they need her like she needs them, too, so it's okay.
It's okay.