A/N: I've been meaning to write a ouat/dw crossover for a while now, so here goes! These will be a series of oneshots from various points of view. The title is from the song "Blinding" by Florence + The Machine.
Regina vanished one day.
Emma knows it can't be truly right because there was no glamour to the ordeal, no grandness. She was simply gone, like one day to the next. Like a remote control and a couch. Like the brush of autumn into spring. It isn't sudden, because Emma didn't notice for about two weeks. She feels the guilt of that bury somewhere in her gut. She knows, she completely knows how she's avoided the subject of Regina, and the all-confusing emotions surrounding her opinions ever since Cora was defeated.
She remembers how lost Regina look that day, how alone, and it struck her how much she understood those feelings. Brown eyes caught her like a deer in the headlights before the mask was back in place, and Regina vanished in the crowd before Emma could call out to her. The words settled back into her throat and lodged there, and are still there now. I know, they say, and sometimes the word love is tangled up in them. It's a big word for all those unsaid to handle.
It's Henry, oddly, and yet not oddly enough who notices it first. He's eating cereal, a sugary kind Regina would never let him have, but Emma's lenient on the first day of spring vacation. Kid's had a tough week with a math test and a science test. One bowl of lucky charms isn't going to kill him, right? Right. Or maybe it's the stack of unfinished paper work lying on her desk at the Sheriff's office, and the gnawing that reminds her she still hasn't gotten this mothering business down. She's stepping in the dark, and has no idea where the damn light switch is.
"Where's Mom been?" His eyes are deeply concentrated on a green fake marshmallow, and his face shows concern. Emma wonders if he notices how easily he still calls her Mom, despite all his professing otherwise. Emma's starting to realize that love can run so deep, even being the Evil Queen herself can't stop it's strength. It terrifies her, if she's being honest.
She furrows her brow, buries away the sudden fear clenching her. She really doesn't know. She hasn't seen her at Granny's, where she still occasionally gets coffee. Doesn't see her at the supermarket. And if she really thinks hard, she realizes how high the grass has gotten on her lawn when she passes by it on the way to the police station. That definitely spoke volumes of many shades of wrong.
"I..don't know, kid. Maybe she needed some time to herself." Emma murmurs.
"Yeah, but she needs to eat. And her car's been collecting dust. It's been in the same spot, for like ever." Henry purses his lips again, and drops his spoon.
"Worried about her?" Emma says softly, knowing she's treading on troubled water.
His eyes look panicky. "I…is that okay?" He says quickly.
"That you're worried about your Mom? I think so."
"But she's-"
"Was, kid. Was the Evil Queen." And not really anymore, judging from the last time she'd seen her. Which was admittedly, longer than made her comfortable.
"Okay." He lets out a breath. "Yeah, I'm worried. What if someone's still mad about the curse? I mean she helped us save Storybrooke from Cora, but still…" His voice trails off as he starts to contemplate his marshmallows again.
His eyes light up then. "Can we go by her house? I know she said she'd rather not have us visit, that she'd come to us, after Cora died, but…"
She ruffles his hair. Someday they'd figure this all out. With Regina, after they make sure she hasn't been eaten by an ogre, or convince her to stop being a recluse. Maybe they could help each other heal. And maybe those words could finally be free.
"Of course, Henry."
"She's actually gone!" Henry says, his hands thrown up in the air. Emma shivers, the mansion has a dusty coldness to it that wasn't there before. That "hasn't been lived in in a very long time" feeling she remembers from chasing criminals all around the country. It makes her nervous, more nervous than she's going to let on to her son.
The bed upstairs was unmade, a nightgown strewn across the sheets. The purple one, Emma's favorite. She remembers how it outlined every curve, every dip of Regina's body. As she touched the silk fabric, she was suddenly struck by the remembrance of the softness of Regina's skin, her tousled hair made by Emma's fingers. They're thoughts she hasn't allowed in a while, and they cause a longing close to where her heart is. The dresser is covered with a film of dust, like car was, like the kitchen counters downstairs are.
She goes over to the fireplace and stares at the forgotten ashes. She takes a pinch in her fingers and almost hiss as the chill hits her fingertips. What once burned was now ice, apparently. It seemed like Regina literally hadn't been here in months, when really (Emma finally figured it out) it had only been about three weeks.
"How could she have left…" He trails off, sinking into one of the couches, taking in the day's events. The unspoken me actually was loudest part of that sentence.
"I…" She's dumbstruck. Henry looks distraught and heartbroken, and she has no idea how to handle it. Then he's looking at her like he always had; like she has all the answers when really she has none.
"She's gotta have left some kind of clue as to where she went, right?" She says with a false air of hopefulness.
"And you're really good at finding people, right?" His eyes are wide. She gulps, putting on a smile.
"It runs in the family, so I'm told." She appreciates her own dry wit sometimes, it makes heartache so much more bearable. He leaps up, grabbing her hand and pulling her upstairs.
"Then we've gotta work fast! Who knows where she is?" For now, all thoughts of the Evil Queen were gone. Her kid was just left with the need to find his mom, and save her, for he loved her, because she was more than just the Evil Queen. She was mom. And usually that thought left Emma in a state of despair, that someone else is still mom, because she gave up that chance eleven years ago. But right now, her mind is too full of a need to find her too. Because the word love has become entangled once more, and she finds she doesn't want to leave it's grasp.
She glances out the window before they reach upstairs, and she's 99.9% sure it's due to the fact that she never had her coffee, but she swears she sees Regina for a second, looking in, straight at her.
And next to her, a funny looking man in a suit with a bow tie. Looking at the house with a curious expression, his lips pursed in a line, but not unhappily.
Behind them? A huge blue box. Bluer than blue, and standing stark against all the gray colors of Regina's mansion.
But when she gets back to Regina's bedroom she hears a noise, sounding like a machine in use, and the vision is gone she finally opens the drapes and sunlight pours in. Only the grass is there, somehow greener.
She deflates from the small hope like a balloon.
"Hello, Ms. Swan."
Emma's so startled that she knocks over her coffee cup. Luckily there was nothing in it anymore, so minimal damage except to her pride. She looks up and expects Regina to be rolling her eyes or smirking dangerously or something familiar, but she's instead looking at Emma with indescribable emotion on her face. Guarded, like always, but her eyes are shining like she's trying not to cry, reverently like Emma's the most precious thing she's ever seen. Emma's up and yelling at her before she can run over to hold her close.
"What the hell, Regina? You've been gone for a month and all you can say is Hello, Ms. Swan like nothing fucking happened?" She's leaning over her desk, fury poured into every word.
At this, Regina furrows her brow before her mouth settles into a sneer.
"It's supposed to be a few hours from when I left." She mutters, smoothing out a non existent wrinkle in a suit. "I apologize, Ms. Swan."
"Enough with the Ms. Swan bullshit!" She goes over to her and stands in front of her before her mind can catch up. She stares at her face, still so beautiful and abhors the way she feels all over again. She reaches out to stroke it lightly with her fingertips.
"Jesus, Regina. Henry's been inconsolable for weeks. He's barely talking to me, he thinks I've…" She drops her hands. "…failed him."
Regina's expression is wry, but somehow softer than Emma would expect it to be.
"Welcome to my world. Do enjoy your stay, I endured a year in it."
Emma shakes her head an takes a step back. "Where were you?" She demands, making sure to hold Regina's eyes.
Regina shakes her head. "It's hard to…describe. Know that I am safe, well…more or less. Depending on the day, and I can be back at any time. Literally, I may add. I'm…" She searches for the word, mouth pursed and eyes careful. "…traveling. With an old friend."
Emma's about to ask you have old friends? incredulously, but that's a particularly mean thing to say and she doesn't really want them shouting at each other. Maybe Regina did retain a few old buddies after she started tearing out hearts. There's a lot Emma doesn't know about those days.
"Okay." She nods. "You're traveling. But you couldn't…leave a note? Drop a line? Let our son know you're alive and well and not kidnapped by the ghost of your mother or an ogre?"
"Ghost of my mother or an-?"
"He's spent a lot of time thinking about this." Emma explains, not wanting to go into all of her son's slightly outrageous explanations for his mother's disappearance. She's encouraged them, if only because it gets an eager and hopeful expression on his face that clenches Emma's heart.
Regina has the decency to look guilty. "Please tell him I love him for me. Please make sure he knows how very deeply I do, and how I am going to be back. Soon. I promise." She looks so sad and lost, so similar to the day of Cora's death, and yet so different. Just a little bit more hopeful, as if someone threw her the sun and told her she wouldn't get burned, just that the light was being turned on. It baffled Emma. How this happened, and how much Emma herself saw the subtleties.
"I will." She says horsely. Because if anything, she knows that Regina never does anything without reason, and that she loves her son.
Regina sighs then. "And this was the message. Like I said before, this was supposed to come a month ago, just after I left. There was screw up, evidently, because I'm a bit late."
Emma blinks and stares. ….What? That sentence went completely over her head, missed it by miles. She shook her head. "Then why are…you here now and not then? You're making no sense, Regina."
Regina looks around at the Sheriff's office like she hadn't seen it in forever, and well it would seem that she hadn't seen it in forever, but right now Emma doesn't know what's going on. She just waits for answer, because it's all she can do.
"If I told you the truth, you really wouldn't believe me." She finally says.
"Well your track record for telling the truth isn't too stellar."
She shoots Emma a pointed look. "Neither is yours, dear."
Emma shuts up then, because that most definitely, was the truth. And the truth can hurt a lot, depending on what it is.
"So what I'm getting is that you're not going to tell me why a message that was apparently supposed to come a month ago is coming now, or who you're traveling with, or if I've passed out in front of my work again?"
Regina rolls her eyes. "Do you feel like you're dreaming?"
"No."
"Then you're very much awake, and all of your other statements are correct." She catches Emma's eyes again and reaches forward to take Emma's hand. She turns her palm over and places something in it, and clenches it once more, holding it tightly, as reverently as she looked at Emma when she first arrived. Her eyes are harsh now, a bright light in Emma's darkened room.
"You'll get the full truth soon, that I can promise, Ms. Swan." Her brow quirks up and she smiles quickly and it's almost that familiar smirk, and she squeezes Emma's fist and Emma almost thinks she's going to lean in for a kiss, but she just turns away to leave, her hips swaying their usual dance.
And it's then that Emma remembers something from their conversation.
"Wait…you said more or less safe? What does that mean?" She calls.
"Goodbye, Emma." She says before she's gone and closes the door behind her. Emma thinks there may have been another eye roll in there too.
As Emma goes back to her desk to figure out that mind-fuck fest of a conversation, she hears that machine noise again. She rushes from her seat, but outside there is nothing but the grass, trees, wind, and every other aspect of the world except for a blue box.
She hopes that most definitely actually imaginary happenstance won't become a regular thing.
As she took her seat to completely settle back in, she finally unclenches her hand. What she finds in it brings her hand to her mouth and renders her without speech and gives a pang in her stoamch as she places the object on the table. It's a small stuffed animal, meant for a little, little girl. Because it was hers. Twenty-five years ago. It disappeared one day. Like Regina had.
She leans back in her chair to stare at the stuffed animal, and wonders about just how much she really doesn't understand.