Been fighting with my sheets
And nearly crying in my sleep
Yes, I'm battling that well taught gripe
The most restraining type
Emma rolled over, glancing with cloudy eyes at the clock next to her bed. She noted groggily that it had been 30 minutes since she last checked.
She had been up half the night searching for the author. She was berating herself for not being more prepared when she'd freed him. She'd known he was trouble from what August had told her, but she was too anxious and emotional to think rationally about the situation. She should have waited for Regina.
Regina - Shit, Regina was going to be so pissed that she'd let him escape, her impulsiveness creating yet another obstacle to Regina's happiness.
She sat up in bed, twisting her body to place her feet on the cold floor. It jogged her more uncomfortably awake. Her throat was aching, her stomach in knots. She could feel her limbs shaking from lack of sleep.
She'd been tossing and turning for two hours, unable to get more than a few minutes of sleep at a time. She wasn't resting her body as she'd planned. She was just allowing her anxiety to get more out of control.
She padded quietly into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of cheap brandy. It burned her throat as she choked it back. She poured another glass and found her way to the couch, pulling a soft blanket over her bare legs.
Within minutes the tension in her throat and stomach released, overtaken by warmth. The alcohol dissolved the cotton in her brain and stilled her shaking limbs. She knew that was probably a bad sign, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She had bigger problems right now.
Her thoughts drifted to her parents. For being obnoxiously optimistic people, they showed zero faith in her. They were so sure that she would become evil that they ruined two lives to prevent it. Despite this and the fact that she had proven herself to be a hero - the savior of them all - they still believed she could be swayed to darkness so easily.
Worse yet, they lied to her about it. She wanted so badly to believe in their goodness and love for her that she repressed the feelings of distrust, chalking it up to being lied to so much in her past. Aside from Henry, she trusted them more than anyone.
They made her into a fool.
She checked her phone, expecting to find a message from Regina stating that she was safe and in for the night. This was one of Emma's stipulations about Regina going under cover. When she didn't find such a message, she shot out a quick "Where are you?" She was irritated that Regina could have forgotten something so simple but important.
After five minutes passed without response, she huffed in annoyance and called Regina's phone.
No answer.
Placing her glass on the coffee table - she dared Mary Margaret to comment on her drinking right now - she freed herself from the blanket and back to the bedroom. Only instead of crawling back into bed for round two, she walked over to her hamper and pulled out yesterday's jeans, clumsily putting them on. She grabbed her jacket flung over a chair and slipped it on over her tank top, doing her best to ignore the worried thudding in her chest.
You should have racing stripes
The way you keep me in pursuit
Sharpen the heel of your boot
And you press it to my chest and you make me wheeze
Then to my knees you do promote me
She slammed the door to her bug and called Regina's phone again.
"Dammit, Regina. I swear to god if you're sleeping like a baby while I'm panicking..." she muttered the empty threat to no one, having hung up on the voicemail.
She drove swiftly to the mansion, allowing irritation to overshadow her worry.
When pounding on the front door received no response, she pulled out the key Henry had given her, letting herself in.
The house was dark and quiet. She didn't make a habit of being in Regina's home unaccompanied, so she found it extremely unsettling. She couldn't even bring herself to disrupt the eerie peace by calling out for her. Instead, she wandered around the house quietly, checking each room for any sign as she went.
Feeling confident that Regina's bed hadn't been slept in, she returned to the bug.
She activated the GPS search for Regina's phone, despite knowing how much Regina hated her using it. She wasn't about to wander all over town looking for her just to appease her sense of privacy. This was exactly why she had installed it. And anyway, she was the sheriff.
Her vault.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me."
She wasn't sure why it made her so angry, really. It wasn't as though the Queens of Darkness or Gold couldn't easily be there with her, but it was Regina's safe place. If she was there, she was safe. She was probably wanting time alone, ignoring Emma's calls.
She approached the vault with no caution whatsoever. She was fuming. She was done.
It wasn't until she was nearly down the steps that she caught sight of Regina's body crumpled on the floor.
"Regina!" she shouted firmly.
She raced to Regina's side and fell to her knees.
"Regina!" she called with pleading inching into her voice as she rolled the woman onto her back, her head falling to the side. She shook the limp body by the shoulders a little too violently, anger and desperation overwhelming her.
She willed herself to calm her nerves, standing and pacing the room a few times.
She returned to her knees at Regina's side and placed her hands over the woman's chest, closing her eyes. A blinding light erupted from her hands and into her friend's chest.
Regina took a few small gasps of air and her eyes fluttered open.
Failing to resist yet another impulse, Emma pulled her into her arms, burying her face in Regina's neck.
Regina loosely returned the embrace and asked, "What did you do?"
"I don't know. Followed my gut." Realizing she was mumbling into Regina's shoulder, she pulled away awkwardly and returned to her feet. "What happened?"
"I would think that was obvious. I blew my cover. They knew the page you made was a fake."
Emma's nostrils flared slightly at this. "Are you saying it's my fault?"
"What? No, it was bound to happen eventually." Only then did Regina climb to her feet, Emma not offering a hand.
She knew this conversation would quickly turn against her once Regina asked about the location of the real page. She wasn't going to have it. She wasn't going to be berated when she was the one with more of a right to be angry tonight.
"Did you know?" she asked, looking vaguely towards the door.
"Did I know what?" Regina was brushing herself off, not seeming overly interested in this point that was so very important to her.
"About my parents and Maleficent. Did you know they were lying to me?" Emma glared.
Regina looked up at this, seeming to notice Emma's tone. About time.
"Emma…" She hesitated. She had the gall to look vaguely guilty as she raised one hand in front of her slightly, as if asking for patience or mercy or something else Emma had nothing left of.
"Save it," she spat, turning to walk out of the vault.
"Emma, please! Wait!" Regina grabbed her forearm, pulling for her to turn around. "I was trying to protect you."
"You were trying to protect my parents. You were lying to me. I told you I felt like I was being kept in the dark about all of this, and you lied to my face!" She could feel her eyes betraying hurt rather than anger before she quickly recovered.
"I was wrong," she spoke gently, as if to a frightened animal. "I should have told you, you're right. I see that now."
"I thought we were making progress. I thought we were friends. When you went undercover I did everything I could to be by your side and protect you. And it was all for a lie! You must think I'm so stupid."
"I don't think you're stupid!" Regina appeared to be fighting a losing battle with her temper. "Do you really think I've been risking my life to protect the Charmings of all people? That I was lying to you for their sake? I know what it's like to be disappointed by the people you count on! I was trying to protect you from that - from being hurt by their foolishness!"
A broken sob escaped before Emma could stop it. She threw Regina's hand off when it came to comfort her.
"Fuck you," she muttered, voice dripping with venom, as she fled the vault.
She needed to escape. She knew there was nothing to accomplish by verbally sparring with Regina. That's where Regina excelled, and she didn't want to be swayed into thinking the woman was innocent in all of this. She knew better. She had been willingly betrayed over and over again the past few days.
The light it fidgets through
The thoughts'll soon revert to you
About as bashful as a tribal dance
The first and final chance
And cause the audience
The frighteners and fiends
Divided up into two teams
When the acrobat fell off the beam
She broke everyone's hearts
She returned to the apartment and poured herself another drink. She immediately felt trapped.
She didn't figure Regina would follow her because for one, Regina didn't make a habit of groveling after those who disrespected her and for another, she would be there already.
Still, she was right where she was expected to be. She was a strong person and she knew that, but apparently everyone else in her life thought she was a child. They patronized her, kept important things from her, and thought her too stupid to catch on. And she proved them right. She needed space. She needed to get away from everyone.
She grabbed a few essentials, and flask of brandy in hand, she left. She didn't know where she was going, but she was going. She jumped in her car and drove for the woods.
She wouldn't allow herself to cry. She wouldn't let them make her weak once again. She let out a noise somewhere between a growl and a scream, banging her hands against the steering wheel.
When she couldn't maneuver her car any further, she slammed the door and continued by foot, burying herself into the woods, far away from where anyone would think to look for her, throwing the flask back as she went.
Finally, she screamed. She screamed as long and as loud as her lungs would allow. She felt the ground shake around her, giving her an idea.
Fuck throwing things and hitting things. She was powerful. She raised one hand towards a large branch a few feet away. She made a swiping motion and the branch fell to the ground with a large crash.
She smirked. She thought about her parents. She thought about them lying to her.
She used the magic emanating from her hands to raise the branch and launch it away from her, splintering against the trees in its path.
She thought about her parents being so sure she could be overcome by darkness.
She chose a medium sized-tree, using all of her strength to pull it from the ground. The roots cracked and split. Once it was free, it took no power whatsoever to fling it behind her, knocking down smaller trees until crashing into a large one and splitting in two.
She thought about Regina.
Finding the largest tree around, she poured her energy into yanking it from the earth. She felt the ground move beneath her as her arms began to shake.
Regina had deceived her.
She released her hold and took a few breaths, wiping sweat from her brow. Redoubling her efforts, she latched on again.
Regina had been putting herself in danger, with no thought to what it would mean for Henry if something happened to her. of what it would mean for Emma.
She pulled until she couldn't see straight, vocalizing her efforts unintentionally.
Regina risked her goodness. She had confided in Emma how tempting it sometimes was to slide back into the comfortable familiarity of darkness.
The tree split from the ground, leaving a large hole behind. It was nearly as much effort to keep the tree lifted this time.
Regina had betrayed her trust. She'd made her feel like a moron for putting her faith in Regina. She cared for Regina in a way she cared for no one else, and Regina must have realized that. She was irritatingly smart. But instead of respecting that care, she took advantage of it.
She thrust the tree horizontally away from her. Every tree in its path was flattened, creating a wide open space before her.
She realized too late that it wasn't pure white light that propelled the tree away from her. It was darkness. A mist as a black as night was being carried away in the breeze.
She froze, watching the remnants of what she'd created disappearing, fading into the remnants of what she'd destroyed.
"Emma."
I'm pinned down by the dark
A-N-I-M-A-L
Makes my head pirouette
More than I would be willing to confess
D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S
She didn't bother turning around. She knew it was Regina.
"Was that…" She knew it was dark magic without getting confirmation, but she couldn't bring herself to accept that it had come from her own hands.
"It's okay."
She slowly turned around at that. Regina looked hesitant.
"How did you find me?"
"You're making quite the magical ruckus out here." Emma saw her eyes dart to the flask.
She knew that wasn't the whole story. Gold would be here too. Maleficent, maybe. She couldn't think about that now.
Regina approached her now, slowly.
The air was cold on her wet cheeks. Her body was shuddering from what it had just produced. She felt faint.
Regina must have noticed, because she placed her hands on Emma's upper arms and guided her to a large boulder, sitting down next to her.
Several minutes passed in silence.
"I'm sorry."
Emma's eyes shot up to Regina, who was looking firmly at the ground as she spoke.
"I was wrong in my actions. I want you to be safe, and I want you to be happy. That was what I meant to achieve in all of this, but I can see I've caused the exact opposite. I shouldn't have lied to you. If I could go back now and change it, I would."
She looked up now, meeting Emma's eyes, searching for a reaction.
"I know." It was all she had to offer. She couldn't forgive her yet. She didn't know why it was Regina she placed all of the blame on. She knew the words she spoke in apology were sincere.
Regina blinked a few times, looking away.
"I need your help." Emma knew tears were falling, but she didn't care. She felt cold. She felt alone.
Regina turned to look at her again. Her eyes were soft while she appeared the size Emma up.
"I know." Indescribable warmth spread throughout Emma's body as Regina placed her arm around her back, pulling her into a comforting embrace.
Emma nestled her face into Regina's neck, not caring that she was crying on the woman's clothes. Regina placed one hand in Emma's hair, holding her close, while the other hand gently rubbed her shaking back.
"I know."