Author's Note: I have no idea if this is any good. I'm off on a writing retreat for work, and I was supposed to be writing a reflection on some stuff we did. Instead this episode tag for the season 3 finale came out.
Summary: Yet another episode tag after that dreadful season 3 finale. Regina can't kill Emma; she's struggling even being angry with her. Emma follows her from the diner. Again. More ripples, and echoes ensue as moments from their past replay with new tones in their present.
Ripples and Echoes (and nothing is ever the same again)
"Well, let's hope you didn't bring anything else back with you." Regina kept her temper behind her teeth, staring at the woman she had begun to regard as an ally. She pursed her lips when all Emma did was drop her gaze.
The woman looked more beaten than Regina felt, and that was saying something. A pain stabbed in Regina's chest — and that killed her. She couldn't even have her pain to herself anymore. She needed to leave, needed to get away, be by herself… Away from the expectant stares, the hum in the air that readily expected her to gut Emma Swan where she stood. Green eyes found hers again. She couldn't. Regina caught sight of Henry out of the corner of her eye. For him, yes, but Emma, sad sack Emma standing before her. Somehow she mattered just as much, if not more.
Regina slammed out of the diner, grim satisfaction in hearing the foundations of the place reverberate with her passing. The haze that had gathered to ward off the empathy in green eyes finally faded behind the ticketa tacketa of her boot's heels on the concrete. But it didn't blot out the sound of the diner door opening and closing once more. And it didn't quell the momentary flash of this same occurrence after Emma and Snow's welcome home party. Before it all went to hell again shattering Emma's belief in her. Silly Regina, she scoffed at her shattered naivete, almost imagining it crumpled on the pavement between them. She'd begun to believe in the savior, too.
"Regina!"
She turned, spine stiff, avoiding Emma's eyes as she spoke to the air, the distance, the gaping chasm that now lay between them.
Another chasm rose in her mind's eye. And Emma rising toward her on the magically supported pieces of that shattered bridge.
Damn it. She rolled her shoulders, ice sliding protectively into her veins, making her throat — and the voice from it — hard and unyielding, a shield. "Miss Swan."
Emma's face fell momentarily, but she rolled her own shoulders and lifted her head again. Regina's fingers twitched hidden in her pockets.
"I… I'll bring Henry to the house. Tomorrow. Regina." Through Emma's expression, wan and glassy, Regina easily read the undercurrent: I'll see you. I will. And a plea spoke from the tremble of Emma's bottom lip.
"Just send him," Regina replied firmly. A single lowered note in the word himconveyed her own subtext: Don't come yourself. Don't be an idiot.
She was disturbed to sense the humor larger than the sarcasm on the thought of idiot, feeling her resolve to be angry at Emma slipping in the face of something else, something indefinable. She spun on her heel, leaving Emma and her own confused feelings on the sidewalk outside Granny's Diner.
Emma's voice stopped her foot on the curb. "I'll bring Henry for breakfast," she said.
Regina's hand twitched, her throat twitched, her eyes started to sting. She hurried on. Away. One foot in front of the other.
Behind her, the door opened and closed to the diner again. Regina could not resist a look back over her shoulder. The stoop to the eatery was empty. A glance in the window found Robin with his arms around Marian, kissing her forehead as she hugged Roland.
No anger, only despair in a muffling cloak black as pitch, descended upon Regina. She couldn't be angry at Robin. She'd been living a pretense. She'd known, back in the Enchanted Forest, she'd been the one to order Marian's death, for helping Snow White. Whether or not she had known the woman's name at the time. Robin's story of her capture had too easily matched up with Regina's own memories.
Now the woman was alive, and back with her family. With what had been about to become Regina's family.
Regina's palm was sweating with anxiety as she reached out to open her front door. The urge to commit violence, so often her defense for these feelings in the past, flowed under her skin like a lava flow, rising and rising.
But she had just gotten Henry back. She wouldn't endanger that now. She recalled her kiss — True Love's Kiss — had broken the year-long memory curse on all of them.
She needed that feeling back. Now.
With a wave of her hand, the candle sparked to life in her living room. She sat on the sofa, staring into the dancing flame until it gutted and extinguished her anguish in the hours before dawn. Finally, with her head only full of the memory of the golden light's glow, Regina slept.
Emma stopped at the end of the walk, staring up at the silent mansion. Resting her hand on Henry's shoulder, she swallowed hard. God, this felt like starting all over. She was the unknown, the stranger in town, bringing back Regina's runaway son, trying not to think too hard about the fact that the son she had given up had come to find her, spouting nonsense about fairytales and evil queens. Regina hadn't looked anything like the part. She'd been beautiful, heart-wrenchingly so, frantic and stunned by turns at Henry's return.
"I can go in by myself," Henry said, obviously sensing Emma's reluctance.
"No, no. I told her I would bring you."
"But, she could be angry."
"I told her to trust me, Henry. I gotta follow through."
"It won't change what happened."
Emma shook her head. "I know." She nudged his shoulder and stepped right in behind him as he moved quickly to the front door.
Henry found it unlocked. Emma pushed open the door, searching through the spacious home as he crossed the threshold.
He ran to the living room where he pulled up short at the sofa. Emma realized he had finally noticed Regina was only sleeping.
"Mom?" Emma shushed him. She reached out for a blanket laying over the back of the sofa and settled it over Regina pressed into the cushions.
Emma motioned Henry out where they spoke in low tones back in the foyer. "Go put your things in your room," she told him, pointing up the stairs. "I think we'll stay here for a while."
"We?"
"Yeah, well, Snow and David kinda have their hands full with Neal. So I think you being with your mom is a good idea."
"But you said —"
"Henry?"
Both Emma and Henry turned to see Regina standing in the living room archway holding the blanket Emma had given her over a shoulder and across her chest. She looked rumpled and tousled and, Emma noted, worried.
Henry ran to her and hugged her. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his hair. "Hi," he said against her chest.
"Good morning," she burred softly.
Emma wanted to leave them alone. This was all she had ever wanted since bringing Henry back to Storybrooke, for Henry to reunite with Regina and know her as his mom.
Regina glanced up, then looked through Emma as if she wasn't there, before looking back down to Henry's smile. "May I offer you some breakfast?"
"Pancakes?" Henry asked.
"Anything you like." Emma watched Regina slide an arm across Henry's shoulder, pointedly doing so in a way that turned her back on Emma.
Emma took two steps to follow them toward the kitchen. Regina nudged Henry forward, making him enter first, then spun sharply on Emma. "You may find your way out." The ice from the night before stung Emma with its bitterness.
Shaking her head though, Emma held her ground.
"You'd better run along before someone thinks I ripped out your heart."
"You wouldn't."
"They believe I would. After all she still thinks I'm the Evil Queen. It wouldn't take her long to convince them."
"Regina, don't—"
"Miss Swan, get out of my home."
"What about Henry?"
"What about him? He's here with me. Where I am always putting his needs first.Thinking about the consequences. Because he matters to me."
Emma seized on that. "You matter to me, too, Regina. You're family."
"Tell me, dear, why the Evil Queen didn't rip out your heart when you took her prisoner from her?"
"She couldn't."
"She tried?" Regina was suddenly startled, anger shedding as fast as the blanket she dropped on the floor.
"No, no. The Evil Queen didn't know I had freed her prisoner, at least not while I was there."
"Well, I do now, Miss Swan."
"You're not her, and you're not going to become her again, Regina. I knowyou're angry with me, and I'm sorry I hurt you."
"But you're not sorry you saved her."
"No, no, I'm not. I can't be. Same as you can't regret all the things you did that brought you to find Henry. I needed to make that choice. But I want your trust back. You need to trust someone."
"I trust Henry," Regina retorted.
"Someday, Regina, you'll trust me again, too. I swear to you." Emma nodded to the kitchen. "Go on, feed Henry. I'm leaving, but I'll be back."
Regina stared at the door for several seconds after Emma was gone. The ghostly imprint of her golden hair and determined face had finally faded from sight.
"Mom? Pancakes?"
"Coming, Henry." Regina shook herself as she entered her kitchen.
A shiver raced down her spine. She was unsure if she was afraid Emma wouldn't do as she promised. Or if she was afraid she would.