Just a little one shot that I wrote for a friend today. I realise that the ending is not great so I'll probably return to this at some point :)
Regina stared at Emma, breathing hard.
"And you're sure you've never done this before?"
Emma smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck,
"No, I guess it just comes naturally or something."
Regina rolled her eyes at Emma's nonchalant attitude. Their magic lessons had begun shortly after Elsa had arrived in Storybrooke and continued regularly ever since. Emma wanted to learn to control her magic, rather than just relying on her emotions when in a dangerous situation. Regina had decided that today they would practice attacking opponents with magic. It had taken only two hours under Regina's instruction for Emma to successfully incapacitate her with magic; she was feeling very bruised, physically and mentally. She hadn't expected Emma to beat her. She walked across the room, limping slightly from where Emma had thrown her into the wall. Unfortunately, Emma noticed,
"Oh my god, I didn't mean to hurt you. Why didn't you say anything?"
Regina shrugged, this was not the worst pain she had been in. Only a few months ago she had been thrown into the clock tower,
"I'm fine dear, I've suffered worse. Now, let's move on to defending yourself rather than just attacking."
Emma still looked upset,
"Regina, please let me fix you. I've managed to heal myself a few times so I might need help but I know I can do it."
Regina sighed, rolling her eyes fondly. She knew Emma wouldn't give up until she knew that Regina was okay,
"Very well, Miss Swan. It's all very well knowing how to heal yourself, healing another is slightly different."
Emma nodded, albeit by as confident as she had sounded a moment ago,
"Okay, so what do I have to do?"
Regina beckoned with her hand, encouraging Emma to cross the room.
"Okay, first you must place your hand above the affected area."
Regina moved Emma's hand so that it was hovering above the area around her hip, glancing up, Regina ensured that Emma was following,
"To do the actual healing, you need to focus on the emotions behind it; why you want to heal that person."
Emma's brow creased in confusion,
"I don't understand. How do I do that?"
Regina offered a small smile,
"Look at it this way. If, god forbid, Henry was hurt, you'd focus on why you wanted him to get better; because you love him. However, if you had a criminal who was injured, you'd want to heal them so they can give information, so you'd focus on the 'desire' for information. Understand?"
Emma nodded, she understood now. The only problem was settling on one emotion to focus on. She felt so many regarding Regina. Obviously, she was Henry's mother and he would be devastated if she was hurt. But that somehow felt wrong to Emma. Perhaps she should focus on an emotion she felt herself rather than on behalf of someone else. Closing her eyes, she focussed on her magic.
After a few moments, her eyes snapped open again, nothing had happened. Regina noticed the look of disappointment on her face,
"Sometimes it doesn't work if you focus on the wrong emotion or the emotion isn't strong enough. Try again."
Emma huffed, maybe she didn't really understand. Looking at Regina, Emma tried to think but came up with nothing,
"What emotion would you use, if you had to heal me?"
Regina froze, avoiding Emma's gaze,
"Healing people I...care about has never been my strong suit. Most of the people I ever healed were people I hurt. I wanted information out of them which worked fine. I've never been good at positive emotions. If you can't focus on a memory, positive memories can also work."
That gave Emma something to think about. As more of a visual person, Emma thought this would work better for her.
She thought back, all the way back to the first time she had met Regina. As she scanned through her memories, Emma sensed a common emotion in almost all of them, although she could not pinpoint what it was. She got to more recent memories, the queens of darkness, running from the Chernabog...
Emma went back to the memory of the Chernabog. Whatever emotion she felt, it was stronger in this memory. Focussing, she tried to dissect her own emotions. At first, she only felt relief, relief that they were out of danger, relief that the Chernabog hadn't succeeded, relief that...relief that Regina hadn't died.
Delving deeper, Emma tried to figure out just why she was so relieved that Regina hadn't died. Of course, she was Henry's other mother, but that didn't really seem to fit.
Resolving to come back to that later, Emma instead searched her memories for when that feeling was amplified. She didn't find any that had quite the same feeling, although she did feel something similar when Cora hurt Regina, and when Zelena hurt Regina. But Emma already knew that she didn't like it when Regina got hurt,
"Regina, I don't think this is going to work. 'Not liking when you get hurt' isn't an emotion!"
Regina smirked, she knew Emma's problem. Emma wasn't focussing on /why/,
"Focus on why you don't like it when I get hurt. And that's the emotion you focus on."
Regina waited patiently, allowing Emma time to think. She'd never understood why she had so much patience when it came to the blonde, she had very little time for anyone else. Whilst she was thinking, Emma was still scanning through memories and emotions.
There. Emma had found an emotion, but it was vastly different from what she was expecting and had no trouble identifying. Jealousy. But why would she be jealous of Regina and Robin? Maybe she was jealous that they were in a happy relationship. Looking closer, she realised that this memory was after she had gotten together with Hook, so that couldn't be the reason. She began thinking of other instances with Regina and Robin and found that she was jealous, even subconsciously, every time she saw them together. But she couldn't figure out why she was jealous of R-...oh. Now she knew why. Perhaps, yes. This was why she didn't feel anything when Hook broke up with her to go sailing between realms again. She had the emotion now,
"I've figured it out now."
Emma's voice was barely a whisper but Regina heard it clearly, she always did,
"Very well, take your time."
Emma nodded and focussed on what she had just discovered, calling her magic to her hands. She smiled as she felt the healing magic work. Suddenly, Regina gasped, as though in pain. Emma's eyes snapped open, flicking to Regina's face. However, Regina wasn't looking at her, she was looking at her stomach. Regina whispered softly,
"What did you do?"
Emma frowned in confusion'
"I did exactly what you told me to do. I focused on why I wanted you to heal, and healed you. I don't understand, did I do something wrong?"
Regina shook her head minutely, her gaze still fixed on her stomach,
"No, Miss Swan, you did something right. You...you reversed...you fixed me."
They were both silent for a few moments. Emma didn't know what Regina was talking about, but she didn't want to ask either. She was jolted from her thoughts as Regina's tone became more urgent,
"How? What emotion did you focus on?"
Emma blushed,
"Does it matter? I healed...whatever was wrong with you."
Regina looked at Emma strangely,
"It matters in this instance because that was supposed to be irreversible. I made it that way."
Emma was intrigued now,
"Wait, you did that to yourself, what was it?"
Regina sighed heavily,
"An infertility potion. I wanted to get back at my mother and I regretted it the moment I took it. It was to spite her for taking...no. You can't be."
Emma was even more confused than before. She had cured something that was irreversible? Even she wasn't powerful enough for that, and she was the product of True Love. Only the Dark One would be able to do that.
"I can't be what? And how did I do that?"
Regina began casting spells on herself, studiously avoiding Emma's eyes as she explained,
"I thought I had made it irreversible. Daniel was dead so I told Mother it was irreversible. I never suspected..."
Regina trailed off, looking at symbols and diagrams that had appeared in the air. She cast another spell and suddenly a wisp of Emma's magic was pulled from Emma's chest in the form of a small amount of white smoke that she had become accustomed to seeing. Her eyes darted to Regina and noticed that a similar wisp had come from her, although Regina's magic was a deep purple colour Emma had always admired.
"What did you just do? What is that?"
Regina shot a look at Emma, clearly telling her to be quiet while she concentrated. Regina watched with a neutral expression on her face as the two wisps touched in between herself and the blonde opposite her.
Emma watched in fascination as her magic mixed with Regina's, creating a beautiful blue colour. However, she didn't know what that meant,
"What does that mean? That we have similar magic? I don't understand."
Regina sighed and shook her head. She then waved her hands and dissipated the magic.
"It means, Miss Swan...Emma, that we, we appear to be True Loves."
Emma's mind blanked. What?
Regina apparently noticed that Emma was in shock and proceeded to explain,
"When I created the infertility potion, I added a 'clause', if you like, that it could only be reversed by my True Love, who I thought was Daniel; hence why I said it was irreversible, he's dead. But you just reversed it."
Emma nodded dumbly, she had reversed it.
"That test I just did? It's a way to discern if two people are True Loves. It takes a wisp of your soul, or magic in this case, and tried to infuse it with the other persons. If they are not True, then the will twine together, but they won't mix. True Loves completely mix, and usually change colour, like you saw."
Emma just nodded again before speaking,
"Regina I only figured out that I love you like, 10 minutes ago! I don't know how to deal with this."
Regina smiled softly,
"To be honest, Emma, I have only known a few months how I felt about you. When the pirate left, my first thought was that I now stood a chance. I didn't believe my feelings would be reciprocated."
Emma's eyes filled with tears,
"You love me?"
Regina smiled, her eyes shining as she grasped Emma's hand gently,
"I do."
Emma smiled and leaned her head on top of Regina's, pressing a small kiss the top of her head.
"No one's ever loved me before. Not completely like you and Daniel."
Regina flinched,
"Graham would have, I think, given time."
Emma smiled sadly but didn't comment. She remained peaceful in the comfortable silence that enveloped them until a thought struck her,
"What about Henry?"
Regina turned to face Emma, wrapping her arms softly around her waist,
"What about him, dear?"
Emma gestured between the two of them before her arms found their way around Regina's shoulders,
"How is he going to take this? I mean, won't he think it's weird? His moms are dating."
Regina raised an eyebrow at Emma's use of the word dating but didn't comment,
"I'm sure he'll be fine with it, dear."
And two days later when they told him, Henry was absolutely ecstatic,
"I knew it! How could you not be in love? The Saviour and the Evil Queen, it's the best love story you could get. I'm gonna start a new storybook, just for you guys. And I'll chronicle everything up to this point. Everything!"
With that, the excitable teenager dashed off, presumably to retrieve his writing equipment. Emma and Regina shared a look of amusement. Slowly, Emma leaned in, lightly brushing her lips against Regina's before whispering,
"I love you."
Regina smiled, her eyes shining with absolute love and blissful happiness,
"And I love you."
.
.
.
.
I hope you all enjoyed it, please review :)
