Two Sides of the Same Coin
Hi guys – I had a fluffy idea and I'm kind of stuck with my other stories so you get this instead! It…I failed you. It didn't turn out fluffy. And it's pre-SwanQueen. Sorry.
Please enjoy.
Two Sides of the Same Coin
It was a Monday when Emma called Regina about an…issue.
"Is it about Henry?" Regina asked first. It wasn't. "Is someone dead? Are you wanting to question me again?" was her second question. It was filled with half annoyance and half amusement. But that wasn't why Emma was calling her either. "Miss Swan," the mayor said sharply. "Is this a matter of life or death?"
"Ah, well, no." A moment of silence. "Here's the thing," she said and Regina knew this was going to be interesting. "Okay no I can't talk about it over the phone. Can you just come down to the station?" She hesitated for a moment and Regina then blinked down at her phone when she heard the childish "please?" that echoed through the line.
"Fine." Forced to pack up her things and make her way to the station, Regina made sure that her heels clicked threateningly. There was a difference, you see, between letting them click without purpose. That was how other women might wear heels. But Regina…she knew subtlety. She knew precision. And she knew how to change the way her heels clicked from merely 'here I am' to seductive to purposeful to threatening.
The heels stopped clicking as Regina stood in the centre of the office and, only a second later, Emma peeked around her office door. She smiled at the mayor.
"Hi!" she said eagerly. Too eagerly… Regina narrowed her eyes.
"Miss Swan, what is going on?" The darker woman looked around the room, trying to detect some kind of mischief – a trick or trap – that the woman may have set up in her excessive free time. But there were none and so Regina looked back at the blonde woman who was still half hidden behind her door, biting her lip and fidgeting with the lock on her door. "Miss Swan?" she prompted again.
"You have to promise not to laugh!" Emma blurted out and even before that statement had finished settling between them, Regina was smirking.
"What have you done?"
"You can't laugh!" Emma insisted again, stamping her foot. The mayor just crossed her arms and sat back against the deputy's desk. Waiting. Emma played with the door handle for a moment more before she nodded to herself and stepped out of the office.
Regina didn't laugh. Not exactly. What the mayor did was, well, it would probably be defined as a 'guffaw' or simply as hysterics. She even had to wipe away a tear before she calmed down enough to ask what on earth had happened.
"I was…I was reading comics, okay? I was reading them and I thought it would be really cool if I had some of those superpowers," she explained. "And also, I thought you weren't going to laugh." The woman pouted and crossed her arms.
"I made no such promise," Regina said as she examined the sight before her. "Who were you trying to be? Mystique?" She stepped closer. Her lips curled up and Emma huffed a little in minor annoyance. She couldn't truly be angry with Regina. One, because this whole situation was her own damn fault and two, because Regina had a lovely smile.
"The Beast," Emma admitted.
Regina nodded, taking her time to catch every last detail of Emma's shocking appearance. "Of course."
The entire right half of Emma's body was blue, clothes excluded. But given that Emma had taken off her jacket and was standing in her jeans and a tank, Regina could see enough to be reasonably sure the blue continued down all the way to her toes. The mayor took a step closer, fascinated by Emma's half-transformation. She noted, with a little surprise, that Emma had done an admirable job with it. The woman looked slightly lopsided, her right side broader and thicker than her left. Her nose – just the right side, mind you – was flattened slightly and the nostril flared as it took in Regina's scent. The iris was a deep bronze, the pupil a dark slit through the colour. There was a sharpness to Emma's teeth, her ear was vaguely pointed, and there was the matter of the blue. And the fur. With each step Regina took toward Emma, the womans fur bristled and then relaxed as Emma reaffirmed after each step that the dark woman wasn't a threat. Probably. Regina touched her fingers to Emma's chin, tilting her face this way and that. The blue of her skin was sleek and glossy and continuous, the fur wasn't at all patchy, and Regina found herself nodding. It was an impressive transformation, despite being only half the body.
"I'm assuming you want to return to your normal body, yes?"
"Huh?" Emma blinked slowly and then pulled her chin out of Regina's hold. "Uh, yes. Please. I got rid of this half," she said, gesturing to her incredibly normal half, pale and smaller and with far less hair. "This side," she continued, gesturing to her right side with a clawed hand, "just isn't behaving right. Like, okay, see I can do this." Emma closed her eyes and the blue ripped, changing swiftly between her normal white tone and the blue again and again before settling firmly in blue. "See? It just won't stick."
"I see." Regina shrugged out of her blazer, draping it neatly over the back of the chair that also held her handbag. She nodded and took a moment to roll up her shirt sleeves. "Very well. Do that again and I will see if I can't help it…stick."
Emma's eyes lit up and she beamed, nodding. "Cool. Thanks Regina. I knew you'd help me and I mean, come on, there was no way in hell that I would want Gold to-"
"Miss Swan, if you would please focus on the task at hand?"
It was interesting for Regina to see Emma blush. For two reasons. First, it flushed her pale skin a light pink and her blue skin a sweet shade of purple. And second, Regina wasn't sure what had caused the woman to blush at all. Regina brandished her hands and Emma grinned weakly.
"Sure. Sorry."
Ten seconds later, Emma was her normal shade. Though, she proclaimed as she examined herself in the mirror, "I think I have blue sideburns." Regina gripped Emma's chin and turned it from side to side, entertained by the prospect. She released her, disappointed.
"I'm afraid not, sheriff. Now I really must be going. Do try to behave yourself." She collected her bag from the chair and made to leave but Emma was already lingering by the front door.
"Can I, okay, I was thinking that I, that we, could get a coffee and lunch or something. I'll buy it as a thank you!" Emma said brightly. Regina stared at the other woman, suspicious. Emma spread her hands out wide in surrender and innocence. "I thought we could talk about Henry. I know he's going to your house tomorrow night-"
"That is not up for discussion!" Regina snapped, terrified that Emma would retract that offer.
"What? Why not?" Emma blinked and then realised how Regina may have taken the suggestion. "No, wait, that's not what I meant. I'm not saying that he can't go to yours tomorrow – I'm working the late shift anyway. I'm not saying that he can't go." Emma's face softened. "Trust me on that." Regina didn't react to that and Emma gave a little half shrug. "I was just saying that I could tell you about the homework and assignments and stuff he has going on right now so he can't weasel out of it by saying he did it with me. Not that I don't want you two to have fun!" she added on, scared Regina would assume again that Emma was being cruel. "I already told him to try and get everything done so you two could just, I don't know, hang out." Emma scratched her neck. "I just…I thought you'd like to know what he's up to in school and he could keep a similar schedule with both of us even though he switches sometimes…" Emma trailed off then, fairly certain that she had completely rambled her way through making a mess of her offer, sure that Regina would decline.
"I'm afraid that I have work to return to," Regina said, turning Emma's words over in her mind. "But perhaps next time, Miss Swan." There was too much to consider in that brief moment and so Emma just nodded, seeming to understand that the other woman needed her time to think and plan. Where Emma liked to leap in with both feet – or, rather, not that she liked to do that but that was what always seemed to happen regardless – Regina plotted.
They parted, Emma with a little wave as she thanked Regina once more for rescuing her, and Regina with a nod that was bordering on friendly. No. What was she thinking? Polite only, not friendly. Emma Swan was not her friend.
That being said, Regina made a mental note to get Henry to take some dinner to his other mother tomorrow night. She knew that Emma either forgot to eat or ate continuously for the entire shift, always junk. But that didn't mean they were friends. She just didn't want the woman to have a premature heart attack.
The second time Emma called Regina, it was three days later and it wasn't so much of a 'call' as a pathetic wail.
Regina's head jerked up when she heard it. A muffled swear of oh bloody shit bugger no no no no no and it sounded strangely like a certain blonde sheriff. But, with a cursory glance around her office, that woman certainly wasn't in Regina's office. So why could she hear her?
Oh crap, was next. Regina shook her head, sure she was just imagining it. But then the voice said Regina? I wonder if she can hear me. I doubt it but
"Yes I can hear you, Miss Swan!" Regina said into the emptiness of her office. It didn't seem to make a difference. Emma's voice went on. Reginaaaaaaaaa, it called, Regina help me. I need help. I did something stupid again. Regina. Reginaaaaa, went that pathetic sound and the woman sighed, closed her eyes, and transported herself into the sheriff's office. It seemed to be empty and she was about to leave when a bright voice greeted her.
"Oh Regina! Hey."
Regina looked up to see Emma sitting on the ceiling, wrapped in a white material that looked like…webbing?
"Spiderman?" she asked as explanation for the way that Emma, struggling a little for effect and pouting at Regina, was well and truly stuck.
"Yep. How did you know?"
"You look like a cocoon, that's how."
"Ha! I know. Isn't it cool?" Emma wriggled her shoulders and frowned when nothing happened. "I was watching the old movie. Not the new one. And this happened."
"And that is different how?" Regina asked. She neither wanted nor needed an answer but she thought keeping Emma occupied was a good idea as she chose between severing the web or dissolving it.
"Well, in the first Spiderman movie he got bitten and then he could shoot webs from his hands and stuff. In the new one he was a nerd and made the web." Emma was quiet for a moment. "I think I like the new one better. Pretty sure that in the comics he made the webs as well. Because, you know, he got cool stuff like heightened senses and better reflexes and strength, stuff like that, but he uses his geekiness to add to that and make awesome webs. In the old movie, he just gets it with the transformation and I dunno," Emma shrugged, "I like it that he had to work at it. It's cool."
"I see."
"Oh, yeah but before when I said how did you know I meant how did you know that I needed your help?"
"Ah." Regina set her blazer down, laying it over the chair. She rolled her sleeves up. "It seems that you acquired telepathic abilities in your distress. It was distracting."
"Oh." Emma tilted her head to the side. "You didn't just come to talk to me?" the woman pouted and Regina waved her hand. The web disappeared, dropping Emma to the ground with a heavy thump and drawing out a long, pained groan.
Emma popped up onto her feet a second after she was done complaining and, as she brushed herself down, she smiled at Regina. "Thanks! Coffee?"
"Pardon?"
Regina blinked at the other woman as Emma plucked a string of web from her shirt and rolled out her shoulders. "God that was uncomfortable." She smiled at Regina. "You said next time we'd get coffee," she reminded her. "So…do you want to?"
"And what would we be discussing? More assignments you let Henry leave until he's with me?"
"Hey come on, he's twelve. He's going to be getting more homework now that's just the way it goes. But actually," Emma said as she opened her office door and let Regina out first, following close behind, "he keeps saying that he's going to the arcade but I think he's got his eye on someone." She tapped the side of her nose knowingly and winked. When Regina frowned at her, Emma dug her hands into her jacket. "What? It happens to everyone."
"And you wish to discuss that. With me," Regina asked with no small amount of surprise.
"No, Regina. Not really. I mean, yeah sure but I just thought we could get coffee and chat."
"Chat."
"Yes! Chat!" Emma threw her hands up in the air and stormed ahead, yelling back over her shoulder. "You can have a hot chocolate if that's better."
Regina watched the so-called saviour march off, stomping her feet a little too much than what adults usually permit themselves to stomp, and then let a little smile break out. "Coffee will be adequate, thank you."
She said it softly, not expecting Emma to hear, but the blonde turned right around and marched back to Regina. "Finally," the blonde grumbled.
The third time Emma asked for Regina's help, it wasn't a good time.
Regina had slept late that morning, forewent her caffeine in favour of making it to a mandatory meeting on time, broke a heel on the way back to her office, found out that several important documents had been thrown away, had two hours of her time wasted by incompetent people, Gold had taunted her, and the cashier at the grocery store had refused to serve her.
"Hey Regina," Emma said, quickly shutting herself in the office. "Look, um, there's this,"
"Do you ever knock, Miss Swan?" the mayor asked sharply.
"Umm…no? Not really."
"No." Regina leant back in her chair and levelled a glare at the other woman. "A fact that is becoming increasingly obvious."
Emma shifted, clearly uncomfortable. "I can go out and knock if you want," she said. Her voice was strained a little with effort and Regina shook her head no.
"You would only be wasting more of my time."
"Right. Right, okay, well in that case can you help me turn this off?" Emma pulled her hand out from behind her back, which Regina had overlooked in her annoyance, and Regina stifled a shriek. Orange flames cracked around the skin but it didn't appear like Emma was hurt at all. Yet. "I wanted to be the Human Torch," she admitted sadly, staring at the hand. "But now I can't get rid of it and it's a bit hot and also it feels like it wants to jump out and burn stuff."
"That is the natural drive of fire, yes," Regina said as she strode over to the woman. She conjured a sphere of water and shoved Emma's hand into it. It steamed and sizzled for a good minute before Emma smiled.
"Awesome!" She tugged her hand out of Regina's hold and wriggled it for them to see. Flames gone. "Thanks!" She smiled again, an extra special and wide smile for the woman who had helped her. "Coffee?"
"Miss. Swan." Regina said with unusual force. The words clicked out, heavy, and she sighed. She felt the beginnings of a headache at the base of her skull and her lips tightened. Emotions – mostly annoyance and anger – pushed to the fore and made her snap. "I have had quite enough of this. Why do you continue with this, this utterly childish behaviour? You have better things to do than go about being foolish and I know that I have much better things to do than be called away by a sheriff I did not elect to fix problems I did not cause." She took a breath, trying to calm down, but it seemed that once she had begun she had no intention of stopping. "You have a family to look after and be with, Miss Swan, and the next idiotic scheme you decide will be so fun to try out may not be so easy to fix." It was bitterness, mostly, that welled up and made her spit the words venomously at the blonde sheriff. Bitterness because Henry used to be her son, just hers, and she never had to share him with that sickeningly sweet family and maybe, just maybe, there was a little bit of fear as well that next time he wouldn't come back to her and bounce into his room and leave his shoes on the stairs. She would be alone in that big, empty house of hers. And here was Emma throwing away everything that she'd been given, handed, and so mostly it was terrible, white-hot anger that clawed its way out of her. Her magic wrapped in tendrils around Emma and deposited the woman outside her office.
"Leave me alone, Miss Swan. We are not friends. We are barely allies and I have had enough of you."
In the moment between Emma dropping and falling on her ass and Regina's hissed we are not friends, Regina watched Emma's face fall. Not drastically, not obviously, but enough that her angry haze faded and she began to reconsider. Had they been friends? Certainly, they weren't now. Emma stood slowly and brushed herself off, shrugged.
"Okay. Sorry for wasting your time." Did she clench her jaw? Was it just Regina's imagination that Emma's voice was tight and forced? "I guess I just wanted to be a superhero but that's okay." Her face crinkled into a smile and she scratched the back of her neck. "I'll be more careful, promise. See you around, Madame Mayor."
And then she was gone, waving over her shoulder and trotting down the stairs.
Emma didn't call Regina at all in the next week. Or the following one. Henry still turned up on the doorstep of the mansion a few times a week and Emma must have been working hard because he came to stay with her both weekends instead of every alternate weekend as had been agreed. Regina never saw his other mother. Well, she did once. At the town meeting. It only helped to confirm that a polite distance between them was firmly in place and if there was one thing that Regina had always known about Emma it was that the woman wasn't polite and there had never been much distance between them. It was odd. More odd was that tightness in her chest that hinted to Regina that she actually missed Emma.
It was nothing, really. It was just…Regina found she would pick up her ringing phone and hope that it was Emma calling, asking her to fix some ridiculous dilemma. Or she would walk into the diner and search for Emma, thinking they might have lunch or coffee together. Emma had made sure they did that. She found she now wanted to talk about Henry and about their schedule and the misdeeds of the citizens and the upcoming events and what they were doing that day, that week. Regina considered that maybe, just maybe, those lunches had been the point of Emma's little tricks in the first place.
But that was giving Emma too much credit. Forethought was not the blonde's forte and so she couldn't have planned like that, tricked Regina into coffees and pleasant outing. No. Surely not.
Regina's phone rang toward the end of her work day, just as she had decided to leave a little early. She dove on it.
"Regina Mills," she answered coolly, ignoring the fact that her heart thumped against her rib cage.
"Hey mom," was her answer.
"Oh. Henry! What a lovely surprise." Then, a moment later, "Is something wrong?" she asked, hoping that he was all right.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, everything's cool. Umm," he said, buying time, and Regina could just about see him in her mind's eye barefoot and hair tousled in that careless and ruffled teenage way he was adopting. "We just can't find Emma so I was wondering if she was with you."
"No dear," Regina said, voice high with surprise. "Why would she be with me?"
"I dunno I just thought maybe you were having another magic lesson. Which is totally fine with me, you don't have to hide it. I'm glad that you're helping her," he prattled on. Regina's pulse picked up a little. Emma had been lying to Henry? "Anyway, if you guys meet up tonight, Snow just wanted me to remind her that she promised to bring an icecream cake to the baby shower."
"I'll pass that along," Regina said softly, barely registering the goodbyes or her own movements as she clicked the phone into its receiver.
Emma had thought they were friends – were they? Honestly, if Regina hadn't been having such an awful day then she would never have said those things. Her lips pursed and she sighed. She was in the wrong, not having called and apologised for her behaviour, but it hadn't occurred to her that Emma had cared overmuch.
But now, Emma was lying to her family about where she was, what she was doing, and who she was with. That didn't bode well, particularly since the lowest one could really go – so long as the Charmings were concerned – was Regina. That Emma was keeping it a secret meant that something worse was going on. And that meant that Emma was missing. Henry didn't know it, the Charming's didn't know it, but she did. Somehow, she just knew.
Regina marched from her office, telling her secretary they were no longer needed today. Once outside, the town seemed far more daunting than it had for twenty-eight years. It was small, yes, but there were so many places that Emma Swan could be hiding. And when Regina considered that Emma could also leave Storybrooke, well. Perhaps she had.
Regina disappeared in a cloud of purple.
The sheriff's station was empty, except for Leroy who had started early on drinking. That or he was still drunk from the previous nights escapades. He waved cheerily at the Queen and slurred a little before she left. Granny's was empty. Well, empty of Emma. Regina appeared, glanced about, accidentally terrified some patrons, and left. Snow's apartment was empty, of course, and so Regina was stumped. She honestly didn't know enough about the other woman to know where she might go. She closed her eyes and returned to the diner, scaring those same patrons into giving up and tossing money onto the counter before leaving. She muttered a quick apology to Granny before cornering the waitress.
"I need you," she said, and disappeared with her.
They arrived in the sheriff's office and Ruby crossed her arms. "What the hell was that, Regina?"
"I apologise," she said, not sounding very sorry at all. "I need you to tell me where Emma is. Can you track her at all?"
"Is she missing?" Ruby asked, worried, perking up instantly.
"I…well, I'm not certain. I can't find her and she is supposed to go to her mother's baby shower."
"You, you know about that?" Ruby asked quietly, sounding a little guilty.
"Yes of course. Henry is my son, he tells me things occasionally." When Ruby still looked guilty, she sighed. "I never expected Snow to invite me to something like a wedding or a baby shower, Miss Lucas. I do not even wish to go."
The younger woman nodded. "But you want to find Emma. Are you worried about her or something?"
"I'm concerned that she may be practising magic without me," she said. Ruby nodded and Regina realised that the lie – that they'd been practising together – was more far spread than just the Charming family. "And I'm concerned that she may push herself too far. Now, if you would?"
"Sure thing!" Ruby saluted her jokingly and set off quickly, sniffing around for a moment to find the strongest and, hence, most recent trail. She followed it for some time, only getting distracted when they passed Archie and Pongo and having a little pat session with the Dalmatian, until they reached the edge of the graveyard.
"I think this is quite far enough," Regina said softly. "Thank you, Miss Lucas."
"Sure thing, Regina. Umm…" She glanced around. "Say, could you do the poofy thing and take me back to Granny's?" Regina was thoroughly distracted, staring into the copse of trees that separated this pleasant enough street from the creeping dark of that place. She touched Ruby on the shoulder and the young woman disappeared in that familiar swirl of purple. Then, setting her shoulders back, she marched into the cemetery.
Regina was angry when Emma looked completely fine. The woman was sitting on a headstone, her back to the mayor, and the ice-cream cake was in a box on the ground. Not particularly hygienic but at least she was enough in control of her brain to remember that simple task. Regina took another step toward Emma and…stopped.
Something was strange, odd. It felt off. Everything felt wrong – even the taste of the air. Regina looked more closely and her steps faltered before stopping completely. A wind was whipping up, snaking its way through the rows of graves and marked by the way it buffeted and clung to Regina's clothes but nothing else. The leaves on the trees stood still, the grass didn't shift. The crickets, obnoxious and loud ever since the incident at the mines, were silent. Emma shifted, her head sipping low as she ran her hands through her hair, and Regina heard the power lines that ran nearby crackle and pop.
Regina was still as Emma stood and rolled her shoulders. Then it began. She thrust her hand out and bottles – Regina saw them now, balanced atop the grey markers – burst one after the other. The first merely cracked and fell to the ground, split in half. A moment of stillness once more settled as the sound sharp like a whip shot through the air. Then the rest of the bottles just…exploded.
Fragments of glass were shot even as far as Regina, who flung up a temporary barrier and let the glass ping off it. She hoped that Emma would stop with the bottles but instead Emma's hand tightened into a fist, tensing until the knuckles were white and she turned her wrist quickly. A great tree, as wide as Regina's mausoleum and far taller, groaned and cracked right through the middle, bark shooting out like tiny arrows. Regina felt one skate across her cheek roughly and regretted dropping her shield.
The show of power was not so extreme when seen but for someone like Regina who knew how it felt to push and to pull and to fill those bottles with air and build the pressure until it shattered, feeling something give way under the power of your magic, of breaking everything. She knew that it was impressive. And terrifying. And exhausting. It was a tribute to Emma's power that she didn't seem to be finished there, that storm clouds were still steadily building and centred around the graveyard. Around Emma.
"Is this why you did it, Regina?" Emma called out. The mayor was surprised. She hadn't thought Emma knew she was there.
"Did what?"
"Evil stuff. Cursed an entire realm." Emma looked down at her hands, clenched them, relaxed. She tilted her head up to look at the sky and the tension dropped from her shoulders. "Because it feels so good?"
"Amongst other reasons, yes. I suppose so." Regina began once again to walk slowly towards the other woman. "The power was always intoxicating."
"Other reasons." Emma drew the words out, holding them for a moment. "Like fear? Like hate? Like knowing that they will take something from you, rob you of what you've always wanted even though you already have nothing?" Emma's voice was a low snarl but it wasn't the tone that made Regina shiver. It was the words. They captured so many reasons that Regina had done everything she had, and that little niggle of fear that had dug its way into her mind when Henry had called her grew fiercely. That Emma, powerful powerful Emma, knew these feelings…
"Yes."
"You just wanted your happy ending," she said. Thoughtful, almost, but Regina could see those broiling black waves of cloud.
"Emma, what's wrong? Clearly you have no trouble with controlling your magic. Why did you call me to your side so often?"
Emma was silent for a long time. Finally, she said "they're having a baby" and when she turned, Regina could see that pale face streaked with tears, eyes red and puffy, and cheekbones too stark against tight skin meaning clenched jaw, grinding teeth, meaning not enough food. Meaning tired and gaunt and sad.
"I know."
"They don't need me anymore."
"That's not-"
"They don't need me to be their baby, their little girl. I can't be their little girl, Regina! I'm twenty-eight years old. I'm an adult – I pay taxes and I drive a car and I have a job and I had a baby myself and they missed everything, they missed all of my life."
"I'm certain they regret that, Emma."
"No." She laughed, a high sound that cut off after a second. "Regret? Why would they do that? Why regret something? Why the hell would the two most optimistic, happy people in the world ever dwell on something that makes them sad, something that makes them feel like less than the heroes they are? Why do that when they can just talk about their true fucking love! They don't think about me and they certainly don't think about all the other crappy mistakes they've made. And Snow just ignores the fact that she killed your mother, that she made you do that, like it didn't happen. Like it doesn't matter. Like she gets to pick and choose what to remember and who to be. Well it doesn't work that way," she spat. "They don't want to talk. They don't want to remember. They just want to have another baby and try again. Do it right, she said to me." Emma's shoulders hitched with a laugh. Or was it a sob?
"They're idiots," Regina announced. She sat primly on a headstone – not truly a disrespectful act given that these were simply ornaments, props, she had created with the rest of the town and no bodies rested under this earth – and she took the weight off her aching feet. Those heels had not been intended for a jaunt around town and through the grassy cemetery. "But I do not believe they meant to hurt you." It caused an odd taste in her mouth, coming to Snow's defence, but hoping that it would bolster Emma's spirits made it palatable. She did not like this darkness that rolled off the powerful woman in wave after wave.
"Oh what a good thing they didn't intend to hurt me! Now I don't feel bad at all!" Emma dragged her hands through her hair. "I don't care if they meant to hurt me. They put me in a cupboard and shipped me off to some place – I could have been eaten. I was in a forest. And then I was carted around to house after house with families that didn't give a shit about me and when I didn't turn out the way she wanted me to, because I'm not a perfect preppy little princess, she wants to try again. Well that's just great."
"It was your father," Regina said, crossing her legs at the ankles. "He did the physical placing of you in the wardrobe." Emma shot her a look so venomous that Regina's teeth clicked closed a second later.
Emma took a moment to breathe. Regina hoped she was calming down but the heavy, heavy atmosphere belayed that hope.
"Family is important to them. Am I…I'm not…I'm not wanted, Regina. I'm not family because if I wad then they would want me there for the hard stuff and the easy stuff. Like talking about who Snow made a bad decision with your mom." Regina flinched at that, again. "And, and birthdays and parties and sharing and talking about shit and I hate that stuff! I really hate it but they're my parents and I would do that for them if they just asked me, if they actually wanted me to. But they don't. They want me to save the day, save them, slay a dragon for them. Go to work, they say. Be the Saviour. Make us proud. And I…I want…" Power crackled again and Regina tried to look unaffected by the strong winds and the sheer oppressive weight of Emma's power as it blanketed the area around her. She could not, however, ignore the shaking earth and reached out to steady herself.
Emma looked repentant as she grasped that reaching hand. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. Really. This…the magic thing. That's why I've been messing up with my super power stuff. I've been trying to get rid of everything."
"Your magic?"
"Yeah. It's really, I don't know. It's really forceful. Insistent. And my…Snow and David don't really like magic and Henry's not so sure about it and so I can't use it at home and I can't use it around everyone else because they might freak out and try to stone me or something and what if I hurt someone?" Emma looked to Regina with wide eyes. "What if they thought you were pretending to be me or hurting me and then they hurt you and what if I did something with my magic like blow up the school or something? What then?"
Regina tried to interject but Emma barrelled on. "But I knew, I knew that if you were there you," she shook her head. "I don't know. I knew that you wouldn't let me hurt anyone and god I needed to use it. It's like a pushing in my hands and in my head and begging, demanding, to be used and Regina I'm scared." Her eyes glinted. "And now you're here and I'm not scared anymore because I get it. You're powerful and I'm powerful. I can feel it."
"Feel what, Emma?" Regina stood and stepped closer to the blonde woman.
"It's everything. Fear and, and hate and anger and"
"And you want to use your power."
"Yes," Emma hissed. "I want my happy ending. And Regina, you want yours and together we can take it." She grinned and Regina wasn't imagining the sharp edge to Emma's teeth or the rippling of magic underneath her skin. "We can do that."
"With what? A curse? Or perhaps you want to descend upon the town and tear everything, everyone to pieces. Take what you want?" Emma didn't answer her. "It isn't going to work, dear. Believe me. I know. Now stop before this gets out of hand."
"But why not?" Emma sounded excited. Her eyes lit up with some unearthly passion. Light, making the eyes glint and sparkle. They didn't look human.
Regina shivered. "I wanted revenge, Emma. Not happiness. And there is a difference. Please stop this." She laid a hand on Emma's shoulder, slipping down a little to press the ball of her palm above Emma's heart. "That's not who you are."
"Maybe everyone is wrong about who I am." Emma curled her hand around Regina's wrist. "Maybe this is who I am." Her eyes were clouded as she stared up at the clouds. "Maybe all I am is that stupid, scared little girl who did what I was told to do in Gold's game and now that I've done it, it's…this…it's going to kill me. They don't need me so I'm going to die." Emma blinked and looked down at Regina, so close. "That," she closed the distance between then and murmured, "or I'm going to do something bad."
"Are you?"
"What?"
"Going to do something bad? Be like me?" Regina pressed her hand harder against Emma's chest, pushing her back against a big marble monument. She fixed Emma so that the woman couldn't move and it was Regina's turn. Crimson lips stretched into a sultry smile. "Do you want to kill them, Emma?" Her free hand slipped down Emma's arm, wrapped around her hand. "It's easy. You just wrap all your power around your fist and…" Regina's hand shot out and a bottle, fragmented and destroyed on the ground, fixed itself. It drifted closer to the woman, manipulated by Regina's magic. "Pull the air from their lungs, let their bones crack, their blood boil, brains slip from their ears." The bottle crackled under the pressure but Regina refused to release it as spiderweb-thin cracks split the surface. "Do you want to rip their hearts from their chests, Em-ma," she drawled. Regina pressed herself even closer, her lips almost brushing Emma's ear as they both watched the bottle press in on itself as it was crushed so slowly under Regina's power. "Is that what you want to do?"
Emma blinked, the sheen of light disappearing until Regina could see familiar green. She continued.
"Or perhaps you want to go slightly more medieval, dear. Perhaps you'd force them to adore you. Or maybe you want to see it. See them bleed for you. Make them scream as you strip their flesh from their bones and you are coated in that thick red until it drips heavy from your skin. You can feel in your hair and splashing your hands and perhaps a drop will curl its way into your mouth and you'll be able to taste it on your tongue."
"Regina."
"And you might love their screams. Hearing them echo around you, in your ears day after day well into the night. Feel their tender flesh beneath your fingers," Regina hand released the bottle and it crumbled into dust in the grass. She drifted her hand across Emma's stomach. "Feel it as you press forward into their body and you grip hard and you find its not so hard after all to just curl your hands," her fingers curled in the shirt, scraping against her muscles, "around that thumping organ and tear it from them and their screams, their screams Emma, fade away because everything they are is in your hand. Everything they feel, their every want and every pain and regret." She somehow managed to move closer, shoulders and breasts and hips and thighs touching pressing now. Emma was panting roughly and Regina curled around her, smoky voice everywhere. "You would know then, Emma, what they think. What they love and if it isn't what you want, if it isn't you, well..." She laughed, breath hitching across Emma's cheek. "You can just crush it, you can grind it into dust and-"
"Stop."
"Stop?" Regina caressed Emma's cheek. "My dear, we are just getting started. Don't you want to know all the vile, delicious things we could do?"
"No." Emma actually looked slightly faint, a green tinge to her lips and cheeks.
"No. And do you know why you're so horrified, so disgusted by this?"
Emma took a deep breath and leant her head back against the cold stone. "Because I'm the Saviour," she mumbled. "Because that is dark and I am light."
"No."
Emma's head jerked up and she frowned at Regina, at that certain tone, at the amusement Regina felt thinking that would be the reason Emma felt so sick. "What?"
"Forget light and dark. You hate the sound of that because you are who you are and that has nothing, thank god, to do with your parents." There was that same twist to her mouth that showed whenever she spoke about the Charmings. "It is because you know what it's like to bleed and to fight and to have and you have…" Regina shook her head and chuckled. "I never thought I would say this of a Charming but you have truly risen about that and Emma, you are a good person."
"What good is me being nice if I'm a nobody."
"Shut up." Regina flicked her wrist, binding Emma's tongue in a silencing spell. "I said good. Not nice. Nice is what I made Mary Margaret. Nice is letting people walk all over you. Nice is pleasantly talking to people you have no desire to talk to." She stared Emma down, watching as the woman tried to shift. She was clearly uncomfortable. "You are a good person. You fight for what is right for yoy and for Henry and,"
"That's being selfish. Not good."
Regina rolled her eyes, annoyed at once that Emma refused to understand what she was saying and also annoyed that the woman was infinitely more powerful than she. "Is it?"
"I was," Emma gulped. "I was going to leave you. With the mine. And the diamond. I was going to take that bean and go."
"But you didn't."
"Yeah because my parents talked me out of it. I'm such a good person."
"You still didn't leave. You could have. You can walk over that town line and you could have left me. But you didn't and you didn't let the town kill me and you saved me from a fire and a wraith and-"
"It's still selfish." Emma wouldn't meet her eyes. "I didn't…I needed you. You are Henry's mom and I needed you to help me." She shrugged out of Regina's hold and the darker woman flinched for a moment but it seemed as though the clouds were dispersing and Emma just looked tired now.
"For Henry."
"Yeah. For Henry." It was true, they both knew. But there was something else that they seemed to agree to skirt around. Just for now.
"So." Regina clasped her hands, retreating a few steps now that she began to feel that yawning space between them, now that Emma wasn't so close and dark and dangerous. Now that Emma was good again and Regina was left alone and small and dark. She shook her head. It was as it was supposed to be.
"So." Emma bent down to pick up the ice cream cake. "I…thank you. For helping me."
"Yes, well, you seem to make it a habit of getting into trouble with your magic." Regina flicked a strand of hair back into place. "And that is, ah, that is what friends do," she said, coughing awkwardly at the end of the statement.
Emma felt a grin spread across her face. "That's what I've heard." She started out of the cemetery, holding out a hand for Regina to grip onto as they crossed the grass and her heels dug into the soft ground. Soon they came to the road and Emma stopped.
"Do you want to come? To the baby shower?"
Regina paused. No, she didn't. But Emma looked nervous and she knew that if Emma's magic felt anything like her own did, the woman would be grasping to the edges of her sanity trying not to use the addictive power again so soon.
"I will go with you," she said slowly. "It may be time to make peace," she continued very softly. "Especially if you are to continue studying magic with me. Which apparently everyone knew you were doing except me."
Emma winced. "Yeah. Sorry about that. I just needed some space and I dunno. They knew we were friendly and you had magic so it seemed good enough."
"I am sorry. For what I did."
Emma just nodded, shoving her hands in her pockets. "And I'm sorry I went all cackling super villain just now. It won't happen again."
Regina pursed her lips. "It might." She patted Emma's elbow lightly. "But I'll be here."
Not sure how I feel about this but I had to write it. Please review. You can follow me on tumblr – unicyclehippo (I had to change it from elizadownunder if you know me like that). Happy reading, readers :)