A/N: A quick and dirty three-parter, but well...this is probably the nice part.
Take places after 4x14.
It's just past nine-thirty at night and the streets of Storybrooke are already well clear of people – the early curfew that Regina has taken to enacting in times of danger back in effect the moment that Maleficent had been risen from her ashy grave. Now, the only sounds to be heard are the clipping of Emma's boots against the cement of the sidewalk as she walks towards her parents' loft (she's coming from Regina's house – again – and she could have driven but she'd needed the fresh air to try to work her mind around all of the turmoil swimming around in it) and the whistle of the wind.
"Swan," she hears from somewhere behind her and then there's a burst of smoke. When it clears, Maleficent is standing in front of her, in human form as opposed to the previous dragon one that Emma had seen her in when they'd faced off against each other down in the mines beneath the library. Her voice is clipped tight and icy cool and there's certainly an air of almost casual indifference there, but her blue eyes are too sharp and keen for Emma to actually buy that this woman staring back at her – trying to read her – is as emotionally disengaged from her words as she would like Emma to believe.
"Maleficent," Emma answers, turning slowly towards her. Her hands are jammed into the tight pockets of her dark jeans and she can almost physically feel her the razor sharp edges of her own anxiety as it mounts in response to Maleficent's appearance. She's ready to move quickly if she has to, she's ready to react with necessary violence if the woman gazing at her were to attack (and an attack would be understandable considering their short but violent history). But Emma has a feeling about this - a feeling that the dragon-witch isn't here for her at all; no, she's here about Regina.
Regina who she hasn't seen even a hair of since Pinocchio's kidnapping two insanely long days ago; the boy had thankfully been recovered in the garage of his own home the next morning after he had been taken, disorientated and confused as to where he'd been the following evening and how he'd ended up out in the forest and then back where he should be.
He had told Emma and David and an angry and fretful Gepetto (he keeps saying that he never should have trusted that woman, never should have believed her capable of change and it breaks Emma's heart because she knows the truth and knows that as much as she wants to defend Regina on this, she doesn't dare do it for the sake of her safety) that he had seen Regina there, remembers her being in the woods with him, and recalls her using a hard tone to urgently telling him to get home to his father immediately. He'd arrived unharmed and with only rips in his clothing to indicate his odd night.
Everything else is a blur of nothingness – just lost time and empty spaces in young Pinocchio's swiss-cheesed mind once again; while that hadn't been helpful to them before when they'd wanted to know more about the Author and his origins, Emma thinks that's probably a good thing this time considering that it's likely that his experience with Regina and the three Queens hadn't been at all pleasant; it's highly likely that August had been tortured and that Regina had assisted with it.
Because when you're undercover, when you're running a job (and Emma still isn't overly clear why Regina is, just that she feels some compulsion to do so and she knows why everyone is lying to her and there's a likelihood that everything is in some terrible way tied together), then sometimes you have to do the kinds of terrible things that will destroy your soul.
Emma knows the feeling, has been there and has blood on her hands that she wishes she could forget about.
And finds herself wondering how much worse it is when you've never been able to stop seeing the blood on your hands.
"You're looking for Regina," Maleficent states and there's no room in either her tone or her crisp words for arguments; she's not asking for Emma to dispute this, instead she seems to be more than a little bit disinterested in Emma attempting to try.
"I'm not just looking for Regina - I'm looking for all of you. You think this whole little bad girls routine you're on is fun, but it's time for it to end," Emma replies authoritatively, firmly and resolutely sticking to the script of the agreed upon (not exactly) undercover operation, even if she would prefer that this damned thing didn't exist to begin with. Because Regina still is running a con (or trying to, at least) and if this is a bit of a test from Maleficent, she won't be the one to out Regina.
She won't be the one to endanger Regina's life so casually and easily.
But when this is over and she understands the why of it better, she thinks she might just shake Regina for it.
Later.
When everyone is safe and she's bringing bottles of root beer to Regina's office once again.
Maleficent laughs, the sound both amused and annoyed all at the same time. "Oh is that what I'm supposed to believe? That you have an issue with a little bit of casual - all right, let's be fair and go with heavy - drinking and setting police cars on fire? Or is that you're looking to protect your lover from getting herself in too deep too quickly. Maybe getting herself killed." Her eyebrow arches when Emma starts to protest and she shakes her head and smirks at her. "Of course I know."
Emma frowns and tucks her hands even tighter into her pockets. "I –"
"I know Regina," Maleficent says quietly, looking away and down the street, watching a wrapper blow across the sidewalk. "I've known her for a long time and we have a lot of history together. Both good and bad, violent and not. I knew her when she was just a sweet naïve heartbroken young queen who was allowing herself to fall into Rumple's wicked trap. And into my world. She was so different back then, just a little girl who could still smile and believe. She still had hope deep within her. But for all the wrong reasons." She laughs at that, thinking of pep talks delivered in the name of achieving vengeance.
"I don't understand what you're getting at."
"You do. I'm saying that I know that you care deeply about her."
"She's a friend."
"Of course she is," Maleficent answers with practically a roll of her eyes.
"Enough of this," Emma growls out, her frustration finally causing everything in her to pull tight and hard. "Enough of the games that you people always insist on playing about everything. Why can't you ever just play anything straight?"
"Everything is a game, Savior."
"Well, I'm done playing. With you. With everyone. Where is she? Where is Regina?" Emma snaps, stepping closer to Maleficent, aware that the visual she's presenting – of moving in tight towards a terrible woman that the entire town believes is about to try to destroy them all – is deeply unnerving. But Maleficent knows something and more importantly, she's trying to tell her something and right now every instinct in Emma's body is buzzing hot and fiery and trying to tell her that this is something she needs to pay attention to.
"Exactly where she's been the whole time – she's with us," Maleficent says softly and then a hand is lifting up to gently cup Emma's chin. It's an oddly - and uncomfortably - intimate gesture and yet her fingers are soft and not all aggressive like Emma would expect them to be while enacting such a hold. "She's with us. Her old dearest friends. Well, at least I'm supposed to be that to her." She says the word "friends" like it's an expletive, a spat out declaration of vile deceit. Emma thinks about a story in Henry's book, one about Regina betraying Maleficent and then thinks about slaying a dragon down below the library and wonders if this is all just a giant bloody mess and they've been fools from the very beginning of it.
Had Regina really believed that she could re-connect with someone that she'd enacted such a gross punishment upon?
Is that what this is? Revenge from Maleficent? Notice being provided that revenge will be provided in horrific measure?
"Then why are you here?" Emma asks, swallowing hard as she tries to push these thoughts away. "If she's there –"
"It's because she wants to be, yes I know that that's what we're supposed to believe, but truly, dear girl, none of us actually do. None of us have believed for even a moment that the Regina who could be a ferociously protective mother of that precious little boy - Henry is his name, right?" She smiles humorlessly at this and at the way Emma shifts as if to try to defend Henry even though he's not around. Maleficent continues, "Yes, Henry. Named after the father that she murdered so that she could enact this curse." She laughs. "But that Regina wouldn't be humoring Snow White and Prince Charming in any way. That woman isn't at the one who was once the deeply feared Evil Queen." Maleficent steps even closer now, her forehead almost against Emma's but not quite touching - this is simply to ensure that no one can hear them should they happen to try to. "Understand, Savior, I'm here to give you a warning. To make you realize that you might think that you know Regina and you might think that she's strong enough to survive any kind of threat to her life because so far she has managed to survive them all, but you don't know these people…these women that we're with. You don't seem grasp what they will do to her when they actually realize that she didn't just fall asleep like she claims that she did; when they get that August didn't just escape us because she happened to doze off for a minute. He's a boy again; that means that Regina had to have used magic far beyond her means to make that happen – magic that belongs not to her but to the Dark One."
"The Dark One. Rumple –"
Maleficent's mouth moves to Emma's ear and Emma feels herself inhaling sharply at the close intimate contact and the soft puffs of warm hot air she feels against her skin as Maleficent speaks. "Is here in Storybrooke with us. And he has his own dagger back and his own agenda." A tongue slides over the shell of her ear and Emma has the feeling that this physicality is all just a theatre - a reminder of who is actually in charge of this and almost something that Maleficent can't quite resist doing "Which I suspect Regina somehow used to change August back into young Pinocchio and to help him escape from us. Because she's not the Queen that I knew and she actually has a desire to protect others even at the cost of her own life."
"She's changed," Emma agrees breathily. "She's better now." The words are clumsy and not at all what Emma means to say but she can't begin to figure out how she would explain the depth of Regina's growth to anyone who hasn't seen it.
Nor does she really care to try.
"That's debatable, but what isn't is that she's going to get herself killed before this is all over if you don't do something to stop it. She seems to have little regard for her life, but I promise you that my companions have even less than that for it. And believe me when I tell you that they won't just snap her neck when they kill her. If they realize that she's betraying them as I have, if they decide to make her pay for her deceit, then for as strong as she might believe that she is, she won't be strong enough to stop them from destroying her mind before they rip her heart from her chest and crush it."
"Why are you telling me this?" Emma asks, her voice shaky and unsteady as he tries to push away the horrific mental images that Maleficent has just given her. She's seen hearts pulled out now and thinking about it being Regina's -
"Would you prefer I just let you find her body? Mangled and broken."
Emma's jaw clenches. "No, but if you already know she's betraying you –"
"You wonder why I won't just let her face the consequences of her lies to me and to the others. The consequences of turning me into a dragon for thirty years and then letting you slay me. Oh, it's a good question." She licks her lips before replying thoughtfully as she steps ever so slightly back and away from Emma, looking down the empty street again, her eyes narrowing for a moment before she answers," But the thing is, the way that you feel about her…" Maleficent smiles thinly. "As I said, Regina and I have known each other for a long time. We have quite a bit of history and we once had…some kind of a relationship that actually meant something to the both of us for a time and for the sake of that history, I would prefer not to see her lose her life." She looks at Emma once again, her eyes eyes sharp. "You understand, I think."
"Whatever history you have…it's not shared; she and I, we're not lovers."
"Because of the pirate?" Maleficent queries, clearly disdainful.
"Because our time…well, we never had it…but whatever it was, it passed."
"Mm," the older woman answers with a knowing smirk. "Considering that I'm fairly certain that you're the one that she's engaging in this bit of tasteless deceit this for, I would say that maybe she doesn't agree with you on that."
"Me? What does –"
Maleficent's eyes harden and for a moment, Emma thinks that the older woman is staring into some kind of darkness visible only to her and whatever demons plague her. It's a look that she's seen on Regina's face time to time and it reminds her that all of these woman are carrying around their pasts with them, constantly fighting back their internal monsters.
"I'm here for Regina and because I need someone to do what I can't. I can't save her from herself and from her desire to save you – I won't – but understand this, precious Savior, of I weren't here for her, I would gladly answer that question for you." She steps forward and again and then her hand is back on Emma and her fingers grip harder on the blonde's chin. "One day, I will answer that question and then perhaps I will be the one pushing a sword into your belly, girl." She steps back and then lets out a breath. "But that day is not today and Regina will die if you don't find a way to help her."
"How do I get to her? Where is she? Is she in imminent threat?"
"We are all holed up - Regina included - at Rumple's little cabin over by the lake. Hopefully, she's kept her typically sharp wits about her while she's with him, but Rumple always did have a way of crawling beneath her skin and if he has realized what she did, it's possible that he could have already done something. Unlikely, though – he always his reasons for everything and killing her has never been part of his plans. But he likely won't protect her, either. Not if they suspect her. Right now, he's completely in it for himself and if she looks to stand in his way -"
"If he touches her, if he harms her in any way, I will kill him."
Maleficent smiles darkly - even macabrely - at that. "So as it turns out, perhaps it doesn't matter what our parents do to protect our perfect innocence after all, perhaps our true natures will always shine through."
She puncutates her words with a chilling laugh and then she's gone a moment later, leaving Emma standing in the middle of an empty street, the cold air whipping around her and smoke dissipating into the rapidly lowering fog of the night. Emma's confusion is strong, but her need to get to Regina – her fear for the woman who means so much to her for reasons that she can scarcely begin to put into actual words ("our time has passed"...has it?) – is so much stronger.
So she reaches for her phone, dials a number and says, "Whatever is going on, whatever her reasons are for doing this and whatever you guys aren't telling me, it's over; Regina is in danger and it's time to pull her out."
TBC...