Hello and Thanks for reading. Bit of a disclaimer this is just an idea that came to me and I wrote it out quickly to see if it would be any good and worth exploring further. I would love to know what your thoughts are. Also if anyone is interested in being a beta reader, please let me know. Thanks.
Regina sat back in the leather chair. the fire crackled and its flames warmed her skin. The pine smell oozing from the walls, although it meant to be calming was overwhelming, like an cheap ski lodge. But unlike your typical vacation spot, August was tied up in the corner. Technically her prisoner, but also her ward; as she had promised to protect him, although he did not know that. His eyes looked over to her's filled with confusion with a sense of betrayal and pain but mostly fear. She hated that look, she had once craved it. For years she got a high off of other people's terror but now it only made her feel queasy.
She looked away and closed her eyes for a moment. She wasn't in a cabin in the woods undercover with a band of villains, she was sitting under a tree with Daniel, running her fingers through the blades of grass. She couldn't speak to him, as this wasn't real just an escape in her mind, but she could look at his face, look at the way he looked at her. She could feel the breeze, see Henry's castle, her childhood home, in the distance. Inhabit the memory until it felt more real than her actual surroundings.
Sometimes when she closed her eyes she was in the woods with Robin, or in the garden with her father when she was a little girl, or in her own living room in Storybrooke when Henry was little and taking his first steps. They drifted in and out, but when she was there she felt as though a calm had come over her, relaxing all the tension that she could feel building up in her chest.
"Emma!" Her mother's tone was warm but made her jump slightly, her eye's opening suddenly. She was surprised for some reason to see the inside of the bathroom stall at the Storybrooke Sheriff's station, Tallahassee had seemed so real and she was just there. She always surprised herself when she found herself going somewhere else while sitting on a toilet.
"Yeah?" Emma responded, bringing herself back to her actual reality.
"You okay? You have been in there a while, are you feeling well?" Mary Margaret asked with concern.
"Fine Mom, I just got distracted." Emma made her way out of the stall and washed her hands and Mary Margaret stood behind her with a look of suspicion and concern.
"While going to the bathroom?" Mary Margaret half asked, half muttered to herself.
"What?"
"Nothing...sometimes I just wonder what is going on in that head of yours."
"Just the usual...trying the figure out the next curse or problem to ward off in good old Storybrooke."