Chapter 1

Regina sat in her study, glass of wine in hand, staring at the wall. Telling Robin to find a way to fall in love with his wife again was both easier and harder than she thought it would be. She struggled with why it felt harder to tell him that she was more afraid at failing to unfreeze Marian than to say that she was still distraught over him losing him in the first place. Damn this conscience and good will thing seeping into my world. It was so much easier when I could just be fueled by anger and grief.

Seeing the way Henry, Emma and even Snow looked at her in a new light seemed to make it almost impossible to resort back to dark magic. Despite her best efforts to not go soft, she felt this well of feelings deep inside her pushing her to the light and almost felt like the young Regina who was in love with Daniel and hated her mother's magic. Well, almost.

Lost deep in her thoughts, which seemed to be a routine occurrence these days, she failed to notice that her phone had been on silent all evening. Suddenly there were multiple, frantic knocks at the door. Immediately her thoughts turned in panic to Henry. He was staying with Emma and the Charmings tonight, and she was worried something had happened to him. With the regular stream of threats in Storybook, those fears were not unfounded.

She rushed to the door and quickly glanced through the side window to see who was causing all the commotion. Great she thought…just how I want to end my night; dealing with yet another emergency. As Regina opened the door, Emma rushed in and almost knocked her over as she blew by in frenzy on her way to the living room.

"Well, good evening to you too Emma," Regina said sharply as she glanced outside before quickly shutting the door. She turned towards the living room and walked to meet Emma where she was nervously standing.

Regina cocked her head and looked at the blond. "Is everything alright with Henry? I assume you would have called first if something were wrong?" Regina tried to sound snarky, but was betrayed with the feelings of concern she had towards the blonde.

"Henry's fine. He's at the movies with Hook and David," Emma replied as she fumbled through the pages of the book she was holding.

"Great, more quality time with the Pirate for our son. I can just imagine all the wonderful life lessons he is teaching him." Regina couldn't keep the sarcasm from her comment this time. "So why exactly have you come plowing into my house unannounced so late in the evening?"

Emma stopped what she was doing and stared Regina squarely in the eyes. She took a calming breath as to not make fun of Regina's snarky tone. She was always amused at her way with words, but now was not the time to test her. She needed Regina's help. "Regina, I did call you about five times. You never picked up. I warned you on my last message that I was coming over whether you wanted to see me or not because I was worried you weren't okay and because I found out something rather disturbing pertaining to the Snow Queen. Thanks for ignoring my calls by the way. I thought we had moved past that."

Regina retrieved her phone from her purse and indeed saw all the "Sheriff Swan" missed calls on her phone. "My apologies, I never took it off of silent from this afternoon's meeting with Mary Margaret at City Hall. For someone who wanted to rule my kingdom, she certainly doesn't handle the budget well. "

Emma took the open book she was holding and held it out to Regina. "Recognize anyone on that page that you know?"

Regina pulled the book from Emma's hands and closely examined the page. She quickly focused in on one of the photos and glanced back at Emma in confusion. "Your face is in a genealogy book from Arendelle? Emma you of all people should know that this is just some cheap trick. The Snow Queen is trying to find some angle to get to you."

Emma quickly pulled a scroll out of her pocket and threw it onto the open page. "I don't think it's a trick. This is some sort of prophesying scroll that she has talked herself into believing is true. It mentions me as the savior who will become her sister. I didn't understand a lot of what Belle and Elsa were saying, but the gist is that she is trying to make me her family and steal me back to some other world along with Elsa."

Regina laughed a deep and sultry chuckle, but noticed that the other women did not share in her amusement. She slowly walked over to the table, put the book down, and took a sip of the wine she had been enjoying from earlier. "You actually believe that everything this woman has been up to, right on down to being a foster parent to you, is all part of a grand scheme to get people to love her? I understand that people around here think you are fairly important, but even that is a bit much to swallow."

"Seriously? Regina, are you really going to tell me that there is no one else you know who would go to ridiculous and evil lengths to make people love her? I wouldn't be so quick to cast that stone if I were you."

Regina sat down on her couch and crossed her legs. "Touché I suppose. Magic does yield some unsavory results when basked in desperation. But even by my standards this is a bit far-fetched."

Emma signed deeply and ran her fingers through her hair. She walked over to the table with the scotch and picked up the crystal bottle, but hesitated before pouring. "May I?"

Regina couldn't help but smirk. "Of course you may. I'm surprised you even asked since you have a special knack at making yourself at home in my surroundings. Why should this time be any different?"

Emma finished pouring the drink and took a seat at the other end of Regina's couch. "Contrary to your opinions about me, I do try to practice some form of having good manners." She took a long sip of the scotch and enjoyed the warming sensation it produced in her body. Just once she wished that a conversation with Regina, or with anyone else in Storybrook for that matter, didn't always have to revolve around finding a way to thwart impending doom. "Regina, I know you have a lot on your plate right now in the solving other people's problem's department, but I really think our only chance to beat the Snow Queen is by working together. I know saving me isn't a priority of yours, but if she goes through with her plan it will most certainly affect Henry in some way. And I know that isn't something you want."

Regina winced at Emma's words. Yes, lately she was tired at helping everyone else all the time, but even more tiring was that everyone still expected her to help ONLY if it would serve her own selfish purposes. "Even though I am…was mad at you over Robin, and even though I have done some less than savory things to you where Henry is concerned, I certainly hope that by now you know that I don't look at you as a threat or someone I want out of the way. After all, you were the one to give the whole friends speech the other night. So, isn't this what friends do? Help one another?"

Emma looked at Regina curiously and tried to get a read on her, but only seemed to find something genuine in her eyes. "So that friend thing…you're willing to give it a try then? I wasn't so sure after our interaction in the woods earlier today."

"Ms. Swan, even if we do become friends, don't expect me to go easy on you. If I see a chance to point something out, good or bad, I'm going to take it. Speaking of pointing something out, I do think we should try working on your magic again soon. If I'm going to be running around this town with you trying to defeat another powerful menace, I want to make sure you don't get us killed with your lack of focus."

"Hey, I have focus! In case you didn't notice, the other day in the forest when we combined our magic, I was doing just fine. I can access it now when I need to. You already taught me how to do that."

Regina got up from the couch and walked over to the bookshelf and retrieved an old, leather bound book. "Emma, it's more than just accessing emotions to use magic. That is well and good when it works, but you need to be able to use it even when you aren't in perilous danger. It's also very dangerous to let emotion be the lone source of your magic. If you aren't 100% self-aware of your emotions at any given time, your subconscious can sneak on in and easily divert you away from what you wanted the end result of your magic to be. I want you to take this spell book home and actually read it this time. I know you aren't a fan of homework, but I promise you this is necessary to actually learn your craft."

"I'm not an idiot Regina. I can study something if I want too. I just prefer active learning. And based on our last learning session, I think that was pretty successful."

Regina walked over to Emma and shoved the book in her hands. Emma put her drink down and flipped through a few pages of the book before closing it and tossing it on the couch. Regina sighed and picked it up before sitting next to the blonde. She knew that she had to get through to Emma if this was going to work and that required some vulnerability on her part. Fake vulnerability was easy when she was trying to manipulate someone, but lately she was accessing real feelings and it scared her beyond belief. It was as if she no longer had control over keeping her emotions buried deep within.

Regina lightly placed the book back in Emma's hands. "Emma, you have extraordinarily powerful magic. I'm not going to lie; it scared me when I first experienced it. But soon I became impressed with your innate abilities and, as you know, mad that you had been squandering it all these years. But now you have to chance to become so much more powerful if you take your time with this. Don't make the same mistakes I made. I let emotion and anger fuel my magic, and I missed so many opportunities to grow and to experience all that my magic could truly do."

A light smile crept over Emma's mouth. In this moment she was so happy that she hadn't given up on Regina and for saying what she did in the crypt a few nights ago. Friendship with this woman wasn't going to be easy, but it also felt more right than any other relationship she had ever formed. And as much as she hated to admit it, Regina was right about her magic. Regina was right about a lot of things where Emma was concerned.

"Alright, I will give it a look, but I'm not making any promises that I will understand half of what this book says. I mean I'm not completely savvy on all the languages used in the Enchanted Forest which is where I assume this was written."

Regina smiled and relaxed back on the couch a bit. "You'll understand more than you think if you just open your mind to it. Can I refill your glass? It seems that you have emptied it already."

Emma looked down at her glass and contemplated staying a bit longer, but she was so tired that she could barely think straight. It had been a long day, and she couldn't even remember if she had eaten or not. "No, I better get back home. Henry should be back from the movies soon and frankly I'm exhausted; I can't wait to go to sleep tonight."

Emma went to stand up, but the room began to spin and she got dizzy. She slightly stumbled backwards, but Regina quickly stood and steadied her. "Hey, hey…easy there. Are you alright? I never took you for a light weight drinker Ms. Swan." Regina tried to make light of the situation with her sarcasm, but she was truly concerned. Emma never seemed to falter, especially when she was focused on saving the town from someone dangerous.

Emma slowly sat down and tried to regain her composure. What the hell just happened she thought to herself? "Yeah, I think I'm alright. I didn't really eat anything today. I was so busy running around, and then with the stress of everything going on, I was actually too nauseous to eat. I'll be okay. I'll stop at Granny's on the way home and grab a bite and then go right to bed, I promise."

Before she could even contemplate what she was about to do, Regina placed a hand on Emma's forehead. "Regina, what are you doing? I'm fine! "

"I'm just checking to see if you have a fever. And you are most certainly not fine enough to drive home in your state. So as much as I loath to have him anywhere near my house, I will call Hook and have him come get you. Unless you feel comfortable spending the night in one of my guest rooms? Either way I have some leftovers in the fridge that I'm going to insist you eat."

Emma looked at Regina in shock. Did she actually just invite me to spend the night in her home? I'm pretty sure she is the one with the fever.

Regina noted the look of confusion on the other woman's face and quickly tried to make light of the situation. "Close your mouth dear, it's not an attractive look. I may not be a fan of having guests in my home, but I'm not unreasonable to making sure that the other mother of my son is healthy. In fact, I've made your decision for you. It's late, and I don't want to worry Henry, so just call your parents and have him sleep over there for the night. Use the excuse that you are going to go on a stake out, or whatever you call that boring car thing that you do and they won't bat an eye."

"Umm, okay I guess. I would put up more of a fight, but I'm just too tired. So the guest room it is. Don't look now Regina, but you just fast forwarded to the sleep over stage of friendship. Maybe we will be braiding each other's hair after all." Emma laughed at her own comment and was quite amused with her snappy comeback.

"Watch it Miss Swan, or I'll make you an apple turnover." She looked at the blond to see if how the comment was taken. Thankfully, Emma smiled and got up off the couch to follow her into the kitchen. Regina rushed to her side to steady her in case she got dizzy again.

"No offense, but I think I will avoid anything apple related when it comes to you. Okay, feed me already so I can get to bed." Besides exhaustion, Emma felt another wave of something crash over here. She couldn't put her finger on it, but it seemed to be the comfort of having what seemed to be the start of an actual friendship. Even when they were at the most bitter points in their relationship, Regina and Emma always shared a special understanding…even if neither one of them was willing to admit it before the talk the crypt the other night.