The Savior

[To others I'm… a hero. They've seen my strength, my ability to do the hard things even when I thought I couldn't.]

Regina just blinked when she opened her door, her eyes falling on squared shoulders and resolute expression, nervous-looking eyes and twitching fingers, blonde hair cascading down a back she knew far too well and an accent she also recognized far too well muttering her name and just a simple request: "Can I enter?"

And she just looked so beautiful, so dauntingly precious that Regina felt her heart beating faintly as she tried to take a breath, as she tried not to step closer into Emma's space and hug her. Hug her like she had been about to do on that haunted apartment. That, however, wasn't the moment and as Emma's green eyes focused on her own- emerald irises glazed with unshed tears as red splotches covered her cheeks and neck - she knew she wouldn't be able to step closer, to come closer to the woman she seemed about to fall apart and yet looked about to turn and run, run and never look back.

She had heard the words, the hushed rumors being tossed and repeated like a mantra as she had tried not to listen to them; how Emma's walls weren't nonexistent anymore. She, however, knew that the openness, the one Snow and David seemed unable to not look at, was just another kind of walls. Walls that were invisible to the untrained eye and yet Regina saw painfully clear as she licked her lips and hug her midriff, Emma all hard planes and convenient shadows in the middle of her hall. Walls that were created and were honed by the notion, the belief, of not being able to be anything else but what she was.

"I'm afraid" Her eyes screamed, clear, loud, her posture unnatural and her hands tightly closed at both of her sides. To the brunette the blonde made her think about the savior she had once saw as her own conclusion, as her death, the one she had seen in nightmares and the days after the first curse had been lifted; the one that wasn't supposed to be but yet was. And that perhaps hurt her more because she now knew Emma, the Emma that believed in people and was open to fight with whatever she had and would yes, do reckless things but kept standing over and over again. And those traits hadn't appeared because of her title, because of her name and title, but because she was, as she had put it all those years ago, a decent person. The kind of one that was rare and so painfully fascinating Regina felt her own hands clenching into thin air, nails digging on her hands as she did so.

"Want a glass of cider?" She whispered instead, softly far too softly, feeling a breeze of magic cursing over her when Emma nodded once, recognition shining on the back of her eyes, pupils closed and guarded and so filled with dread Regina swallowed, remembering the words, the words she still was too afraid to consider them to be truth or lie swirling on her mind: "It wasn't evil what made you strong". Yet, as Emma passed right next to her, magic still cracking, still running, burning, she felt fear, fear and weakness, a kind she had felt solely because of Henry for so long she almost lost her footing as she realized what it was.

The blonde had already seated in the very same couch she had once occupied with her hands clasped in front of her, elbows resting on her knees and a fragile, almost imperceptible, smile on her pale lips. "This almost looks the same." She whispered as Regina walked towards the decanter, her own fingers stalling at the sound of Emma's voice, at the silent admission that she could hear on it.

"But is not." She wanted to say as she studied closely the younger woman as she turned, the light sound of the drizzle outside echoing as she stepped closer. She sat next to her as she pretended not to notice the sudden stiffness and fear that covered Emma's features for a moment, her hands cold when she reached for the tumbler, ice clicking as she took a sip of it just to lower the glass in the very same movement.

Whether this have been months before Regina wouldn't have pushed. This, however, wasn't the past and so she raised her own glass and drank, the taste of alcohol swirling on her mouth as she swallowed it quickly, noticing the way Emma didn't seem able to look anywhere but her own right hand. Hand that seemed to tremble as Regina felt magic dribbling down her body once again.

"I'm not okay."

The admission came like a torrent, hitting Regina like thunder and lightning as the drizzle outside seemed to grow stronger with each word. Emma's eyes were cold and detached when she eyed her, seeming to wait for an answer as Regina felt the itch to touch those partying lips.

"I know I said I am" Emma kept going, seeming unable to stop herself, hand now between her tightly closed legs, the other rising the glass to her lips as she focused on something behind Regina, the splatter of the rain against the ceiling outside amplifying as she did so. "But I… I went to talk with Hyde."

Regina just nodded, knowing that this, whatever it was, could only work if she didn't question, didn't speak.

"He spoke about destiny and untold stories" Emma continued, licking her bottom lick absentmindedly, her right arm spasming for a second before stopping completely. "About how, as a Hero… as a Savior… my story needs to be fulfilled."

Her words were shaky, her chin seeming about to give in, her breath swallow and for a moment Regina wondered where Emma's mind was carrying her, what she was seeing now. A flash of fear seemed to glow on those emerald eyes, the distinct memory of her own voice, ragged as she tried to breath under Hyde's rage coming back to her. The moment of how Emma had almost fell over when she had come towards her, needing to know if she was okay.

"Emma?" She asked, gently, hand finally reaching for the blonde's shoulder, squeezing it until Emma blinked and seemed to break through whatever was closing around her. Regina felt chill her bones as she shared a look with her. "Emma" She repeated, not a question anymore but a call.

"I don't know what's left of me" Emma enunciated slowly, drink forgotten and voice on shatters. "I was just normal and then the savior, then a mother… Then I was nothing, the dark one… I gave myself to it. I knew it was the right thing to do"

"That's not…" Regina tried to say, tried to speak because they hadn't exactly talked about it, about the swirling vortex and Emma's tears, about the power she had felt back in that moment, the raw emotions that had broken her from inside and hadn't been hers, not entirely. However, Emma was already speaking once again, voice strong and yet lost, a reminiscent of how she had admitted to still be lost on Neverland, all hard angles and greys.

And oh, how beautiful she had looked in that moment, how breathtaking she had been.

"But now I'm the savior again and I have an ending, I have a destiny that needs to be fulfilled and my son, the one that once needed me, is the author, my flat mate is my mother, and you…"

She didn't speak, she didn't need to. Her voice was laced with loss and her face covered in reckless sadness and Regina knew far too well how that sentence was meant to end. The worse part was that she agreed to it, that she knew she was… not her anymore. Not the woman she had been. In a way it was good, in a way they all changed. Yet she wondered if that was precisely the reason why Emma was there, because she understood what changes meant, what was to be lost, to not be yourself, to be trapped and fearful and lost.

"I didn't hate your past." Emma admitted in a whisper, her breath like a caress, her profile illuminated, her lips casting shadows as a sad smile appeared on her face. "I didn't hate what you were. You, what you did, what you are, what you will be… I didn't hate it"

"I know." Regina repeated, looking into those green eyes, into that pale skin, into those pink lips. She had seconds, even less, before Emma seemed to pull away, glass being brought to her lips once again, her profile silhouetted in Regina's pupils, forever emblazoned on her retina.

"I sometimes miss that." The blonde talked, shoulders shifting, weight changing. "Miss us."

This time Regina did squeeze the blonde's shoulder without prompting because she knew; she knew she wouldn't go back into the hatred she felt in those days or in the fear and horror and anger she had needed to live in. However, there were moments in which she wouldn't mind be able to go back and look at herself, at Emma, at Henry, and know, and wonder, and ask.

"I won't leave you alone." She found herself saying, nodding at the blonde when Emma looked towards her, unshed tears still on her eyes.

And it killed Regina, seeing this, seeing the woman who had brought a gun to a fight against a dragon dreading life itself and not knowing anymore. It killed her because she knew, she knew far too well what it was to feel like this and she knew she should have seen, she knew she should have fought, she knew she should have done so many things and say so many others her chest just ached. And Emma simply looked at her and nodded, brusquely, hard and soft at the same time. So hauntingly gorgeous she needed to look at the glass, magic and rain thundering on her ears.

And for the moment that was enough.