One destined to die and one destined to save.

One destined for evil and the other to vanquish it.

A black heart and a white one that weren't meant to touch.

Regina knows of her fate, she has known for so very long, but it still chills her when Emma throws her up against the wall. It still shocks her when the tip of the sword meets her belly and digs in. She is dizzy, the world begins to spin and grow foggy. It is a dark and encompassing sort of mist and it is ready to claim her.

Blood is leaking warm and steady from the sword's slice. Regina fights to keep her eyes open, she knows that if they shut now, they will remain that way. That the savior and her wretched mother will win. The thought is bitter as her wakefulness wavers. Her ears are ringing now and beneath that she can hear the faint pounding of blood behind her ears as it works to leave her body.

She is still having trouble coming to terms with it. Emma didn't strike her as the killing type. But Regina knows that she has hurt Henry. That she has almost killed him, she believes that he hasn't got much time left.

She deserves this, she decides.

She deserves this but she is still scared.

Still in disbelief.

She thinks that she might be crying but physical sensations are becoming foreign so she can't really say for sure. "Swan…" her voice is mortifyingly weak. "Don't let him die. Don't let our son die." It is hard to speak, her lips feel fuzzy and her mouth feels oddly full. She wonders if the blade was laced. It doesn't register that she had said 'our' instead of 'my'.

It doesn't really matter now does it.

Not so long as the point is understood.

"Tell him..." She struggles, her breathing is labored, she has to force it out. "Tell him that I didn't mean to hurt him. I just—" She can't seem to find the words. Anything she said would have been an excuse. An excuse where there was none. "I didn't want to hurt him. I was trying to protect him." She wonders if Emma will understand. "I love him more than anything in any of the realms. I promise, I do." The blood is trickling from her mouth now, it leaves an awful coppery taste.

She thinks that now might be a good time to fade out, so she closes her eyes and lets her mind go blank. There comes a sense of knowing. Knowing that it is almost over, that soon she won't have to think about how her heart ached and pined for someone long dead. Knowing that she would no longer feel the scorn of everyone else. It is blissful to finally slip away.

Perhaps Emma is her savoir too, after all.

.oOo.

There is fury and dread in waking. Waking when she knows that she wasn't supposed to. There is an anguish in knowing that she had been so close to release and freedom.

She knows that the curse is broken, there is a new cleaner sort of feeling in the air. Her place in the world is less certain than ever, twice as perilous, and thrice as pointless.

It takes a moment to register that she isn't lying on the ground of the hospital or somewhere else unsavory. And that she hasn't come to on her own accord. Instead she lays in a hospital bed, she knows because she can hear the blip of a heart monitor. She holds a hand to her heart, she ought to end that incessant beeping. She can feel her heart beat beneath her fingers, she should rip it out and crush it.

And she does, she plunges her hand into her chest. But her fingers only brush the surface of her heart. Something has her by the wrist and keeps her from going any deeper. "Let go." She whispers. "Please let go, Swan." She doesn't need to look up to know that it is Emma. That very same iron tight grip had been holding her before things went dark.

"Then you let go."

"Of what?"

"Your heart."

"I didn't make it that far." Regina hisses. She wishes she had, she didn't have to yank it out to crush it.

Emma tugs her hand back out, "I didn't realize you could still do magic here."

"It's unpredictable." Regina confesses, she doesn't have anything much to lose in exposing a weakness. She was surprised that things went her way at all. But then, the world seemed to want to be rid of her. "You saved him, right?"

"You wouldn't be awake if I didn't." Emma makes an admission of her own.

"Why did you spare me?" Regina asks. "You're supposed to end me, to make sure I'll never hurt anyone again."

"I will."

Regina's heart leaps. "Then why did you bring me to the hospital?"

Emma laughs. "You were already here remember?"

"You know what I mean, Swan."

She chuckles again. "I didn't mean that I'm going to," her voice dips into a low mimic of Regina's own, "end you." She pauses. "But I'm going to make sure you'll never hurt anyone again."

"The two go hand in hand." Regina dismisses. "So get it over with, I'll lay still."

Emma tilts her head, "why are you so determined to die?" She offers Regina a carton of apple juice. Regina sniffs indignantly, so Swan has a sense of humor. She declines the offer. "Don't worry, I'm not the one who poisons apple stuff. I think that's your job, Madame Mayor."

"I am I really?" She can't imagine that she's going to get elected for a twenty-ninth term. "They're going to ask for blood, so we might as well deliver, yes?"

Emma sighs. "No. I don't care what they want, Regina."

"Are you aware that destiny is included in that 'they'?" Regina inquires.

Emma shrugs. "I never believed in that stuff."

"You should." Regina states flatly. She's know of her fate since she was in her teen years. "I was born to be sacrificed, to lose everything and cast this curse. That was my purpose and it is done now." It takes some time but she relays to the savior exactly how concise fate has been. How it had brought Gold, Whale, and Jefferson together among other things.

"Sounds to me like a bunch of people coming together and making choices. That isn't fate, that's a bunch of humans being manipulative. Even if it is true, this fate crap, then that means you get to chose your own purpose now, right?"

"Emma you're supposed to kill me now."

"I'm supposed to wash my bowl after breakfast, but haven't done that."

"This isn't a joke, Swan." Regina says firmly.

"I'm not joking. I never let destiny hold me back before and I'm not going to start. I make my own path and that's what you're going to do." She makes air quotes around 'destiny'.

Now Regina's self-pity and loathing is replaced by a stabbing sense of annoyance. She forgets that she is terribly hurt just long enough to abruptly sit up and then fall back, witty quip dying on her tongue before she meets the mattress again. "I can't." She whispers. She hates the crack that slipped into her voice.

Until now everything has been decided for her. All of the pieces put in place before her, waiting for her to move them accordingly. She can't seem to fathom a chess board that isn't already set up for her—for victory or loss.

She finds that she is afraid.

And Emma says something that frightens her even deeper. "You can't just blame your choices on fate. You chose to cast the curse, didn't you? And you're choosing to stay on the ground."

"I'm supposed to…"

Emma squeezes her hand. "Don't you think that you're meant for better things?"

That is just the problem, she doesn't think that she is meant for anything but loss and suffering and eventually death. Her quiet is answer enough. "Well you are." When she stays quiet Emma continues. "Okay fine, since fate is so important to you, how about this? I'm destined to be the savior. So I'm going to save you. I'm supposed to get rid of the Evil Queen and I will."

Regina crinkles her brows.

"I'll make sure that there is no Evil Queen, just Regina Mills."

Regina bites her lip, she can't remember a time when anyone truly fought for her and Emma is standing there willing to fight the fates. It unsettles her. It does so because she can't remember how to respond.

"But you're going to have to help me." Emma adds. "I don't think I can tackle the fate of the universe alone."

Something tells Regina that the savior won't be backing down. She never has in the past when she told her to do something that she didn't like. All the same, Regina doesn't think that she has any fight left in her aching body. She supposes that recovery isn't supposed to be any easy feat, especially if one wasn't meant to recover at all. The blonde stares fiercely at her. She doesn't have the will left in her to argue, so she mumbles a soft, "okay."

Emma grins. "Great, I had a feeling you wouldn't go down that easy."

But that is just it, she had every intention of doing just that. But Emma—infuriating, invasive Emma had to go and challenge destiny. She has chosen her over the prophecy that had been thrown at her since before conception. Regina realizes that this is the first time anyone as actively fought for her without being asked to do so. It gives her a twinge of hopefulness to think that she has someone so stubborn ready to help her combat the failures she has been set up for.

"I suppose I won't after all, Swan."