The final sequel to Hearts Left Bleeding and Hearts Awake. Emma and Regina are reunited at last, but at what cost? And with a scheming witch from Regina's past targeting her and mysteries and manipulations unraveling around them, only one thing is clear: not everyone will survive this with their hearts intact.
And if Emma and Regina are going to be able to stop any of this, they have decades worth of baggage to sort out in the process.
FUN FACT- this was actually where I wanted to start the original fic. It's been nearly a year of backstory fic and now we're finally at the place I intended to begin the fic. So. Oops.
Anyway, throw out everything you know about 3b! Except Zelena, probably, and a few other common themes. The closest we'll get to canon is going to be the content of NYC Serenade and Witch Hunt, and those will be mostly done by the end of this chapter.
If you recall where we left off, Emma had just rallied up her Merry Men and Regina had just said goodbye to Henry and sent him over the town line with David while she stopped Pan's curse. This fic will contain Parts III and IV of the story, so don't be confused about that!
And I'm so glad that y'all are back with me for this fic (I hope), I promise I'll start making things better now! We had to pile on all the baggage but now it's time to unpack. Promise. :)
There is a brief reference to cutting in this chapter.
PART III
"Rocinante! Rocinante!" Emma is left desperately pressing her heels in her stirrups as Rocinante bolts through the woods, yanking at the reins and getting only an explosive bray in return. "Rocinante, no!"
The purple cloud has dissipated, the magic gone again, and the land is different already. There's a murmur of life to it like Emma hasn't sensed in so long, more birds and horses and the forest feels like it's finally back, like this isn't a dead land swamped with flying monkeys and ogres anymore. And Emma knows exactly where Rocinante is running and she won't, she can't, not yet. She isn't prepared for what she has to do and–
She manages to twist Rocinante just a bit, enough to have him slow and run at a slightly different angle than he'd been going, and now when she digs in her heels, he finally begins to falter. "Good boy. Good," she murmurs, running her fingers through his mane. "We just need to…"
She freezes, catching sight of an unwelcome presence in the woods. Two horses, passing through a path ahead of them, and astride one sits a woman Emma's seen only once before, hook at the end of her arm glittering in the sunlight. Milah. And a second woman beside her, one who looks vaguely familiar. "I don't even know if I trust you," the second woman is saying. The accent is one of the northlands, and Emma finally places her and blinks in surprise.
Belle. Rumple's old maid. Emma had thought Zelena must have killed her. But now she's riding with Milah and darting cautious glances at her and Milah says, "You don't have to trust me. But trust that I can give you what you've always wanted." She smiles. There's no malice, but she looks dangerous, promise on her lips and the great unknown in her eyes. "You help me find my ship and you get all the adventure you've ever wanted. Everyone wins."
"That depends on what winning means," Belle says warily.
"Did winning mean sitting in a pawn shop for the rest of your life, darning his socks? I know you. I was you." Milah rides on and Belle looks outraged but Emma misses her response, Rocinante's head already listing back in the same direction he'd been running before.
She tugs him to the side and they compromise with a brisk trot still in the wrong direction. Emma can hear more voices now, a bit further down the road, and she rides alongside them toward a darker corner of the forest.
She listens only briefly for the sound of a boy whose voice she can still remember and hears nothing.
Nothing…and then a screech, high-pitched and threatening, and Emma turns and rides forward on instinct, squinting up at the sky as a long-winged monkey shoots up and then down again a couple hundred feet ahead. There's a flash of orange and then a shout- a shout she knows, and she flies forward, drawing her bow, and snaps, "Get down!" and fires, eyes on the monkey and not the two people it's trying to kill.
Her arrow flies true, impaling the monkey in the shoulder- sorry, Friar Tuck- and it screeches again and hurtles off, back to Zelena. Emma dismounts and steps forward. "Snow?" she ventures, because that had been her, hadn't it?
"Emma!" Snow is flying to her, arms out and tears already streaming from her cheeks, and Emma buries herself in Snow's arms, her own eyes suddenly cloudy and sightless. It seems like years since their last conflict, all in vain at the end, and she holds tightly to her as Snow kisses her cheek and chants, You're alive, you're alive, Emma, Emma, over and over again.
She feels the prickle as though she's being watched and she remembers seeing a second figure out of the corner of her eye, one she hadn't focused on upon hearing Snow's shout. David. Of course it'll be David. "Yeah, I'm alive," she says, a smile spreading across her face as she separates from Snow to turn to him–
Regina stares back at her, devastatingly beautiful and her eyes stricken as she gazes at Emma. Emma is frozen in place, gaping at her. "Oh," she manages.
"Emma," Regina breathes, and Emma returns to herself at her voice.
She's charging forward a moment later, all fists and fury and Snow has to seize onto her and hold her back. "Emma, stop! She's on our side! She's one of us now! Emma!"
"Where's my son?" she demands, struggling against Snow, attempting to push past her without hurting her. Snow seizes her wrists and she strains to break free. "What the fuck have you done with him? Henry! Where's Henry?"
She tears away from Snow and crosses the distance between her and a still-seated Regina, on the ground in her finest queenly clothes and an opaque mask descending over her features. She struggles to breathe in the face of Regina's empty look and fails. "What…what happened to…I'll kill you," she croaks. She reaches for her bow and finds it missing.
"Emma, please." It's the plea that has her turning to face Snow again. Tearing her eyes from Regina is always a struggle, even more so when she's furious and drawn to her anyway, when she needs to know about Henry and Regina is here and it's hard to believe that she's real. That any of this is…
"What happened in Neverland?" she demands.
Snow starts. "How did you know about Neverland?"
"What. Happened. Where is Henry." It isn't a question anymore but a demand, and her face is tight and cold and Regina stands on her own behind her and Emma takes a step away from her.
Snow squeezes her hand around Emma's bow. "I can't let you hurt Regina," she says. "We saved Henry from Peter Pan. And then Pan tried to curse us all. Regina was able to save everyone, but at a price." Her eyes convey exactly what that price had been, and Emma is nauseous at once.
She rounds on Regina, eyes flashing. "You gave up Henry for the lives of these assholes?" She'd made the opposite decision once and had paid dearly for it, but she'd thought that Regina, at least, would have backed her up in that. Would never have put the greater good ahead of Henry.
Regina stares silently at her, unreadable. "He's safe," Snow hurries on. "He's happy. He's with David," she says, and her face crumples.
Unless Regina had been so sure that Henry would be all right, and broken both their hearts in the process. "Oh, no," she whispers, distracted from her own plight at the brokenness on Snow's face. "Snow, I'm sorry." Snow is back in her arms a moment later, chin on Emma's shoulder and her body quivering with unshed tears, and Emma stares down at the ground with determined focus, anywhere but at the woman whose eyes are boring into her back.
And then, a choked, "Rocinante!" and Regina is moving past them, pressing her cheek to Rocinante's mane and Emma holds onto Snow and peeks at them from the corner of her eye. Rocinante is rumbling against her like a pleased cat and Regina has an arm under his neck, her hand pressing against the other side of his jaw. She's shaking slightly and Emma hates her, hates her for taking Henry away again when she'd finally believed…
She says, "Let me ride with your camp," and refuses to look at Regina again.
Neal and Lancelot and Mulan are all received by the caravan with more excitement than she'd been, and she sulks on the side with Red while the others fawn over the "war heroes" and "old allies."
"I'm happy you're here," Red offers. "We've been worried about you for years. Thought you might be dead for a while there. Good to see you alive."
"Thanks." Neal, meanwhile, is saddling a new horse up to leave already, and she hurries over to him. "I thought you were trying to get back to your family?"
"My papa is dead." The Dark One gone at last, and she's relieved over that even if Snow had called him an ally now. Her tolerance only goes so far. "Henry is back in another world. And my mother apparently left the group to go find her ship as soon as they got here." He shrugs his shoulders helplessly. "She's all I have."
"Your mother is Captain Hook," Emma says, making the connection. "Of course she is." Neal's family tree is considerably more fucked up than her own, and she'd had a set of doppelgangers for long-lost brothers.
"Take care of yourself, Emma." He smiles and it's brotherly, whatever old attraction had been there for him long gone with the years that had passed for him. She manages a smile in return and leans against Beetle, watching him go. Another Merry Man lost. Two, maybe, if Lancelot returns to Snow's service.
"You look like a lovesick child," Regina mutters behind her.
"You look like an evil witch," Emma mutters back, hatred still simmering enough that she doesn't correct her.
"At least I don't stink of the woods." Regina brushes past her, head held high and gait arrogant, and Emma loathes her with all she has.
"Incoming!" Mulan shouts, and Emma sees the monkey return, swooping down to where Snow is standing in the middle of the road. She raises her bow, running forward, but Regina gets there first, hurling a blast of magic at the monkey that has it vanishing in a burst of green light an instant later. She turns, Snow still positioned behind her, and mutters something that has Snow nodding unsteadily.
Emma hates her, hates this stranger wearing Regina's face who looks at Snow like that, hates this stranger wearing Regina's face who's had the luxury of years and years to reinvent herself when she'd never even tried before. Not when it had been Emma and Henry and the world in the balance, not when it might've meant that they could have been happy. No, of course Regina's switched sides once they've all been torn apart with no chance of reunion.
She isn't being fair. She knows she's being unfair. They're fortunate that she's just one less threat to worry about, and she has no idea what's happened to Regina since they'd last seen each other. But she doesn't care. Not when she's lost so much for Regina's whims, had loved her and tried to make the best choices for them all and had been left in the dust for it. Emma had never been a consideration in Regina's redemption. Fuck her, she thinks savagely, and stalks over toward Regina to…probably be an asshole. She hasn't decided what she's going to say yet.
The others begin to mill around them, setting out tents and tying up horses, and Regina is staring at the energy field that surrounds her old castle. They're supposed to be heading there for shelter, but it seems like a moot point now, and she's restless enough to pick a well-earned fight.
"You're thinking about Henry, aren't you," Snow is saying.
"I'm always thinking about Henry." But Regina turns, eyes glinting with new energy, and she says to Snow, "But I was also thinking…there are tunnels running beneath the castle that may run beneath the spell."
"You want to sneak an army inside?" Emma interrupts. "And they're supposed to trust you?"
Regina doesn't look at her, but she does respond. "An army would be detected. But the tunnels can get me inside to lower the shield." She smirks at Snow. "And then you can send in an army." There's a moment of hesitation between the other two women, and Regina murmurs, "If you'll be safe here until then. I made a promise–"
"I'll be fine." Snow takes her hands and musters up a wan smile. "I can take care of myself. And I have Ruby and Mulan and Lancelot and of course Emma's here."
"I'm going with Regina," Emma puts in, eyes distrustful on Regina. Next…she can do what comes next. What she has to do.
Regina says coolly, "Very well." She holds onto Snow's hands for another long moment and then abruptly turns, dropping them and speaking in a low voice to Red so they can't hear. She's writing something down now, handing it off to Red, and Emma's eyes narrow.
Snow says, "Emma, she's just lost her son."
"I know," Emma says tightly. "I lost him eight and a half years before she did."
"She loves you," Snow murmurs, and Emma stiffens. "She's loved you this whole time. I know you're angry, but that has to mean something, right?" Her eyes are pleading and Emma thinks of Snow who's lost David, who's struggling to cling to some affirmation of love right now. Who's searching desperately for it and is just wrecked enough to believe that she and Regina are a safe bet.
"It doesn't mean a fucking thing," she snaps, and stalks off toward the woods, waiting away from the crowd for Regina to join her.
"Follow me." Regina walks carefully along the cracks of yet another booby trap.
Emma hoists her bow up and follows, stomping on the ground. There's a flare of fire beneath her and Regina yanks her forward as the closest stone erupts into a geyser. She stands still, stiff against Regina's grasp, and Regina bites out, "I said, follow me. If you're going to be stubborn about this, you're going to die."
"And finish off what you started last time I went visiting at your castle?" Emma suggests. Regina winces. It's very slight but the first sign of life from her beyond irritation since they'd left toward these tunnels. Emma presses onward. "Is that why you agreed that I'd come with you? So you can finally murder me without Snow finding out?" She's speaking rapidly now, spelling out her own guilt and forcing it on Regina instead, and she switches tacks at once. "What's the deal with you and Snow? You got over all those years of wiping out villages trying to kill her?"
"For the first few months, he asked about you every day," Regina says instead, and Emma falls silent. "'Where's Ma? What happened to Ma? When is Ma coming home?' I never knew what to say because I never knew where you were. And I kept promising, 'Soon, soon,' and then finally he stopped believing me. It was the first time he ever lost faith and it killed me to see it." She's staring straight ahead and Emma can't see her face. "It killed me not to know. For him. For you."
"Stop it," Emma says, her voice scratchy and rough and her heart in her throat. She notices suddenly that she has a hand clamped on her bow, and she pries her fingers off of it subtly.
"I didn't know my mother stopped you from crossing over with the curse. Not until she came to Storybrooke. You were always meant to be there." Regina's voice is very smooth, no cadence to it to reveal anything deeper than cold facts, and Emma stares at her.
"And if the curse had taken me? What were you going to do with me?" Punish her, probably, have her see Henry every day and never get to touch him. Have her suffer in whatever hapless way she's sure Snow had and be forced to live that life for seven years. She can imagine what Regina would have done with her.
"You don't want to know that," Regina says, passing between a wall of spikes. Which is as good a confirmation as any. "Snow killed my mother."
If she's looking for compassion, she won't get it here. "Good." Regina might not have meant to separate her from Henry, but she'd done it, she and Cora, and Emma isn't in a forgiving mood. Cora is dead and gone, and she's glad. Regina still stands, and that's unjust enough for now.
For now.
"She tricked me into doing it for her, actually. I thought I was saving both of them." Regina holds out a hand when Emma stumbles into her and a shock goes through Emma's whole body. Touching Regina is as electric as ever before, still overwhelming in the emotion and loss that comes with it. She staggers again and takes a step back. "It was cruel. Ruthless."
"Necessary," Emma counters, feeling a bit sick. She won't feel any mercy for Regina, not now. Not ever again.
"Very necessary," Regina agrees. "I was proud when I wasn't planning her impending doom." She half-smiles, but there's so much grief in it that Emma misses out on the joke entirely. "I suppose she felt guilty. We mended things after that."
"That simple?" Decades of hatred, fixed with a single event? Emma doesn't believe it.
"Never that simple." They're inside the castle now, walking up stairs that open into Regina's quarters. Regina hastily moves in the other direction, leading the way down to the outside hall that her balcony overlooks. "Do you want to hear about Henry's first day of school?"
Yes, she does, more than anything. Oh, god. She trembles and says, "No."
Regina tells her.
They reach the outside hall where the barrier spell is being kept, a long green beacon to the sky, and Emma draws her bow and turns away from Regina. "You disable it. I'll keep an eye out for the witch. I owe her a few arrows to the throat."
"Were you always this bloodthirsty?" Regina says it reflectively, a hint of teasing in her voice, and Emma's angry again. The darkness surrounding them in the tunnels had been freeing, easier to talk in than this harsh green-lit hall just under Regina's old balcony. Out here, Emma's weighted by the past even more, her pain warped and redefined into a weapon.
"No," she says. "You were. And here we are."
"Here we are," Regina agrees, and she reaches out to the pillar of magic, holds her hand steady and sucks the magic from it until the spell dissipates. Regina doing magic now has Emma still breathless, still awed and terrified, and she bites back the emotions that surface as Regina turns back to her. "All right," Regina says. There's almost nothing on her face, not even resignation, and maybe just a hint of desire. "You can do it now."
Emma's hand seizes up around her bow. "What?"
"Isn't that why you're here, Emma?" Regina smiles at her. It's sad and restrained and it sends shockwaves of hurt through Emma's system. "You came to this castle to kill me."
Yeah. Yeah, she did. Regina has hurt too many to be welcomed back into the fold. Regina has hurt her, has taken away the only one who'd ever mattered to her and taken years she can never get back. Regina is the villain of this piece and Regina doesn't deserve to live anymore.
Emma wants her dead. Emma wants to kill her. Emma wants...
She brandishes the bow and curses her fingers for how they go limp around it. "Are you going to stop me?"
"If I'm going to die for any of my sins, I'd rather it be the pain I've inflicted on you," Regina murmurs. "I have no greater regrets." She sighs at the indecision on Emma's face. "Oh, come on. Don't go weak on me now. Think about what you've missed. What I've taken from you. Didn't you hear the stories?" That's what that had been in the tunnels, Regina maneuvering her and stoking the flames of hate to grow, grow, grow. "No one deserves this moment more than you."
Emma stares at her, uncertain. "Why do you want to die so much?" Regina does, and it's written all over her face. For all of Emma's determination and hatred for Regina, for the stolen years and the misery that preceded them, for a dozen sore points still left open, it's a struggle to muster up murderous intent now. But Regina seems prepared to accept her end.
"Why do you want to kill?" Regina counters, and Emma's fingers slide down along the tail of the arrow, tiny feathers soft against her skin.
"Henry," she whispers.
"Henry," Regina agrees, sitting down on the steps. She's smaller like this, more vulnerable, an easy target. Emma swallows hard and struggles to keep the arrow steady. "I'm yours, Emma. Do with me what you will. I have nothing else that matters. I can never see–" She chokes on the word. "He's lost to me forever."
Regina hasn't looked this open since the night she'd first traded away the curse. Emma had thought then that she'd only been a woman wearing a dress, the Evil Queen locked away. Today she's only ever been a woman in a dress in front of everyone.
That night she'd been naked and they'd been sobbing and making love at once, Regina spread before her and Emma buried inside her and it had felt like a mournful concession instead of a revelation. Today Regina is open before her for another mournful concession. I'm yours, Emma.
She won't play…whatever game this is. She can't execute a willing victim, not like this. Not Regina. "I…" she starts, and her finger slips.
She doesn't know if it's accidental or not, if somehow subconsciously she hadn't been able to let Regina escape this. She doesn't have more than a split second to contemplate it, to catch the naked grief on Regina's face and to feel her own face twist into devastation–
–And then the arrow vanishes and they're left staring at each other in wide-eyed terror as Zelena drawls, "Now that would be a tragic waste of a perfectly good heart."
Emma spins around. Zelena, green-skinned again and in a very familiar dress, toys with the arrow in her hand. "Zelena," she says warily.
"Zelena?" Regina echoes, and Emma turns back. Regina won't quite look at her, but her eyes are fixed on Zelena with a perplexed sort of familiarity. "Did you say Zelena?"
A smile spreads across Zelena's face, dark and hungry like she's come to play at last and Regina is the toy she's been waiting for. "Hello, Regina. It's been a while."
Regina gapes at her. "You're not…but how did you… you're green." And yet there's still recognition in her voice. Do all witches know each other? Is there some kind of magical witch sisterhood?
"And you're rude," Zelena shoots back. "No great welcome for your big sister?"
Regina blinks and Emma remembers with a churning stomach Zelena telling her about her family. I was the bastard daughter of a woman who married the fifth son of a king. I spent most of my childhood cleaning to earn my keep. My sister…
Regina's never mentioned a sister. Henry Sr. had once, though, and she'd forgotten to bring it up to Regina after. And now Regina is shaking her head as though she's just as confused as Emma. "Sister?" she repeats. "That's impossible."
"Cora never told you. Of course she didn't." Zelena sniffs, dropping the arrow, and Regina is still open-mouthed and staring at her. "I was the bastard dirty little secret, meant to be your playmate and your bodyguard. Never your equal. Never your sister. Just another girl to be discarded when I became inconvenient."
"You weren't inconvenient." Regina is looking vulnerable again, taken aback with a short smile as veneer for the uncertainty Emma can see lurking beneath it. "I told you I'd never leave you alone and I meant it. My…sister?"
"You lied. You ruined my life and you left me alone to suffer." Zelena sneers at her. "Well, now it's your turn. I'm going to take everything away from you."
Regina recovers at the threat. "You can have my skin cream if you think it'll help. I see you've already taken my dress," she says, wrinkling her nose. "It's atrocious with your complexion. Have you considered something brown?"
"Have you considered shutting up?" Zelena snarls at her, tossing her hair, and oh yes, there's the family connection, squabbling sisters already. Emma takes a step forward, raising her bow again. And abruptly, she's hanging in midair, Zelena holding her pinned in place as she windmills desperately, snapping out a curse. "Everything," Zelena repeats, flicking a lazy finger at Emma.
Emma chokes in midair, her eyesight going fuzzy, and suddenly she's flying above the trees again in her mind, caught against the shadow to Neverland and being thrown. She sees grey death and terror and her heart is racing, her hands flying in helpless circles and her head pounding and stomach falling out from under her.
"Over my dead body." Regina waves her hand and Emma is dropping again, but this time she lands in a crouch just in front of where Regina's sitting. A light hand is on her shoulder now, gentle and possessive and Emma shakes under it, still sees nothing but grey and falling to the trees..
"That is the eventual plan," Zelena agrees, and Emma fires an arrow at her blindly. It clatters somewhere near them and Regina pulls Emma back, stands in front of her as Zelena's eyes flash and a monkey hurtles into the room. "You were always so tiresome," Zelena grouses, glaring at a still half-present Emma- Neverland, dropping through the trees, HenryHenryHenry– "I'm going to make both of you suffer."
"Bring it," Regina growls, and whatever gentleness had wormed its way into her earlier interactions with Zelena, it's gone now. "You touch Emma and I kill you, no matter who you are. If you're my–" She swallows.
Zelena smiles, cold and unfriendly, and Emma's seen that face in the mirror enough to catch the anger and the hurt beneath it. "You work on that. See you around, sis." She holds out her hand and a broom appears in it, and she's cackling and flying off before Emma can can fire another arrow at her.
Emma twitches and falls, feeling droplets of sweat sliding down her forehead into her eyes, and gentle hands cradle her face. "Emma, listen to my voice," Regina murmurs. "Focus on that. Since when are you afraid of heights?"
"Bad fall," Emma croaks, opening her eyes. Regina gazes back, eyes determined and concerned, and Emma can't help the way her heart surges to life with Regina this close to her. "Trying to get to Henry." She struggles to hold onto the resentment, onto the years of loathing a woman who doesn't seem to exist anymore, and she grasps it just barely. Henry, she thinks again, and they're both crying silently when she looks up, tears sliding down Regina's face and down the fingers still on Emma's cheeks.
"Are you ready to kill me now?" Regina whispers, and this time, she doesn't disguise the pleading in her voice. And then she goes on, hurriedly, as though she really does believe her time is running out, "I promised David that Snow wouldn't be alone. I need you to stay with her and keep her safe. Make sure she doesn't appear weak in front of the people while she mourns him. Zelena will want me. I don't know how she'll react once I'm dead, but she might be willing to cut a deal with you after. In my quarters here, you'll find–"
"Regina," Emma says faintly, and Regina falls silent. "I'm not…I can't…" She struggles to find the hate again, useless as it is now. "What gives you the right to give up now when you wouldn't give that to anyone else? Seven years, Regina!"
Regina opens her mouth and Emma cuts her off. "You can't just…quit just because life isn't going your way anymore." She's still crying, sitting on the steps below Regina and ducking her head so her hair covers her face. "We don't get to say 'No Henry, so I guess I'll die.'" Regina reacts at the we, puts a hand on her arm, and Emma twists away from her, her voice low and rough.
"Do you have any idea how hard it was to live after losing him?" She'd fought ogres and cleaned house and sometimes watched Aladdin's Aziz, just about Henry's age, and she'd curled up in corners of the castle with her head on her knees and a knife pressed to her own wrist. And every time, she'd reminded herself that she was needed, that she couldn't quit now. "To go through…day by day…just knowing that you…"
She takes in a shuddering breath and Regina hurries to cut in. "I do know that." Her eyes are dark now, mournful and brooding. "I did it too, remember?" A year and a half from Regina's final defeat until the curse. A year and a half Regina had spent without Henry. They've spent so long trying to do what they'd thought had been best for him that all they'd done was lose, lose, lose.
But Emma had had valid reasons to keep Regina from him. Regina had… She clenches her fists and waits for Regina to snap at her so she can retort. "Emma," Regina says instead, and it's sorrowful like a young queen alone in a carriage with only her loneliness and regrets. "I wish I'd never…I've had a lot of time to think. And I put you through so much. I hurt you–"
She raises her face and breathes, and the sincerity in her eyes is terrifying when Emma finally peers up at her. She could get lost in it, love Regina again as she had when she'd been a girl and forget all her resentment. Regina has always been too easy to love, but like this, it's an inevitability.
"Well. It was kind of mutual." Emma's voice cracks and she's turning inside out, resentment harder than ever to muster. "And you know you helped more than you ever hurt me," she admits grudgingly. "Up until the curse. You were the reason Henry and I were safe."
"I was the reason you were in so much pain."
"Yeah. But you…" Regina hadn't tried to hurt her, not until the end. Emma had just been collateral damage in her vendetta against Snow. She'd trusted Regina with Henry and her safety, if not their hearts. "Tell me he was happy," she says urgently. "With you. Tell me he was happy." She doesn't doubt that Regina had loved him, that Regina had done everything in her power to keep him safe. But if he'd been reduced to what Emma had been, watching Regina destroy and be destroyed and helpless to fight back…
"He was happy," Regina murmurs. "He never let me make the mistakes I made with you." And Emma feels a stab of something that can't be jealousy. Because Henry is their son and of course he'd never allowed himself to be Regina's collateral damage. Of course Regina had loved him enough to cast aside her vengeance. Emma is irrelevant to this story.
And Emma doesn't give a damn about Regina's love anymore unless it's about Henry. "Yeah, okay. Good." Regina's face is warm like sunshine and Emma hasn't seen her like this in so long that it's almost like a mockery of the real Regina, a twisted reimagining of the woman she'd loved into the woman she'd always wanted to see again.
Regina says, "Emma…" and her eyes are searching, struggling to find meaning in whatever she can read on Emma's face.
"I do still hate you," Emma bites out, uncertain and longing and terrified, and she jerks away to stand, stalking from the hall down the path to where she can see Snow's camp moving toward them.