A/N I wanted to write this before anything else after last episode. Emma's destruction is just too much to let it pass…

Set on: After last night's episode "Last rites" not taking into consideration the preview of the upcoming episode "Only you"

Pre-relationship.

Fight

The rain hadn't stopped but it had transformed from the heavy downpour to just a few drops, the grass beneath Regina glistening with the remains of the storm. Light had also go from light grey to the beginning of dawn and as the former queen closed her eyes and let her lungs get filled with the graveyard's smells of grass and nature she smiled sadly, remembering the too many times she had linked that particular smell with the man that was now buried a short walk away.

She had tried to poof herself away at first once everyone had left the vicinities of the cemetery –Henry hugging her close once again, his long arms completely enveloping her, another painful and still strange reminder of how time truly passed even if she wasn't aware of it- still, she hadn't been able to do so and once she had thought about start walking down the road and go home she had found herself stalling, her eyes searching for something she wasn't sure what it was.

Not until Snow had arrived at her side and had mentioned how Emma wanted to stay for a little while that is.

Opening her eyes and looking once again at the moist grass beneath her feet she followed the movements of hundredths of drops reaching their end from the top of the grass to the already dark mud that waited under it. The dark glasses hurt her nose bridge and she pinched the flesh there, hoping to alleviate some of the pressure she felt there, her back completely still, unable to leave or turn.

Zelena had left her one of the last, the baby's soft cries what had prompted her to finally leave with a crooked smile and pain still shinning on her eyes. Pain that had felt bitter as Regina had seen the green glow of the woman's magic drift away under the soft wind that carried with it those same drops that kept hitting against the knuckles of the hand that hold the umbrella, now practically useless. It had been precisely the touch of magic against her own aura what had made her tremble, her breath getting caught again when Snow had hugged her, tiredness on her eyes and a deep glow of sorrow.

"I'm sorry" She had said and Regina had wanted to laugh. Or cry.

It wasn't the loss of a future she had thought she would finally be able to have. Yet it felt hollow the way she had nodded at such words. It wasn't lost love; it wasn't the same stinging sensation she had felt when Daniel had cried.

It was… different. It was just a confirmation of what she had perhaps being fighting ever since Neverland; it didn't matter how much she tried. There was always a catch for her whenever fate appeared.

Once she had told Henry she wanted to be alone she had seen both Snow and David leave, the man hugging the shorter woman close to him, their steps slow and tired in the same way Regina felt exhausted.

It was perhaps because of that exhaustation that once she heard steps at her back she looked over her shoulder and just blinked at the sight, unable to say anything at the slowly approaching figures of one particular and recognizable couple; Hook's good hand draped over Emma's shoulders as the blonde eyes seemed to be able to only see him walking by her side.

Regina would have lied if she had said that that it didn't sting. Sting because it suddenly made everything seem less, like it had already been doing since Camelot.

The pirate nodded towards her and seemed ready to walk away without nothing else but a smirk adorning his features -arrogant and silent- before looking at Emma when the blonde stopped, waiting patiently for her and scowling once he realized that Emma seemed unwilling to take any other step from where she seemed to have decided to take roots in; just a few meters away from where Regina was actually standing, feet firmly planted on that moist grass.

"Emma" He said, his voice piercing Regina's ears, making her want to turn and scream at her, wrath bubbling inside of her, her magic seeming about to ebb away from every pore of her skin.

However, the blonde didn't answer to his call, choosing to keep looking at Regina, water falling down her cheeks, her clothes, her hair, rivulets of rain framing those pupils that seemed to look at Regina in shame and silence.

"Emma?"

Regina didn't say anything when she saw the blonde blinking slowly and turn her head towards the man, a look of desperation crossing those eyes, a look of tiredness showing behind the apparent happiness. She knew that in another time she would have said something.

She also knew that they weren't in that time anymore.

"You should go"

The words curled behind her tongue, waiting to be said and still silent when she opened her mouth, that same tongue wetting her lips, the bubble of anger just choking her voice, her tears now burning under her eyelids still as silent as the vocals she needed to say.

"I will stay here" The blonde voice seemed weak, almost as if she was pleading for permission, like the child Regina was sure she never had been and that voice alone, that tone, made her skin prickle. Still, she didn't say anything, her pupils focusing once again on the blurry spot behind Emma's shoulder that was Robin's grave.

She registered the groan the pirate let out alongside with the words Emma mumbled just to make him leave. She, however, didn't bother on filtering them, her knuckles just clutching the umbrella even tighter than before, the steady sound of rain bouncing against it seeming to envelope her as she stood there. Waiting.

For what she wasn't sure anymore.

Robin's grave called her and yet her feet didn't move, her magic asked for her and she wasn't able to use it. The sound of steps moving closer to her didn't make her move also, her body suddenly filling with the scented magic of an aura she would have recognized anywhere.

"I thought he wanted you to go with him" She mumbled, careful words, stillness on the way she didn't dare to move even if she could feel the prickling sensation of her power being called from deep inside of her.

"He doesn't own me"

The words fell flat and Regina did nothing to contain the scoff that escaped her mouth, a crooked smirk crossing her lips as she finally turned to look at a now pale-looking Emma, the light of apparent happiness that had filled her now completely gone. With a dizzy realization Regina saw the veil behind the words, the bitter taste of them gagging her own reaction, turning her smirk into a scowl.

"I'm sure he is indeed in debt with you"

It was callous, full of anger, but Regina couldn't find herself to stop. Not this time.

She moved back to keep looking at the graveyard, rain finally stopping completely, the humidity of the air stifling any other smell of the forest. Like perhaps the magic she still could feel cracking under her skin, dancing on her cells.

"Zeus revived him"

The words stabbed her in quick successions, the need to scream just growing under the desperate attempts, under the echo of thirst for forgiveness.

She wasn't mad. She wasn't.

Still…

"Maybe we can contact him? Ask for Robin's…"

"Robin is dead"

The words were out just in time to caught Emma's, the sudden slack look the blonde got making Regina's magic to twist painfully inside of her. And it was true, Regina reflected looking at the grave one long last time before finally looking back to the eyes of the taller woman, Robin was dead.

And no matter what, he would stay dead.

"Robin is dead" She repeated, voice stronger this time. She didn't say anything but the hidden words were still obvious. And she wasn't the kind of woman to hate, to react, but it still hurt. And she still wasn't sure of why she had wanted to cry when she had looked over her shoulder and Hook had been there. Alive.

"True love…" The blonde started to say and Regina wanted to scoff again, even if it was just because of how strange those words seemed coming out of Emma, the woman who had fought against every type of fate.

And it hurt because as improbable as it had been the relationship she had had with the thief was something she still liked to think about. Just like what she maybe could have had with another person, with the person she had in front of her.

"Don't"

The blonde opened her mouth but nothing came out of it, her eyes casted down, a dejected glint ebbing out of them when Regina managed to get a glimpse of those pupils.

"I'm sorry he is gone"

The former queen sighed, hands now on the umbrella's handle, feeling her feet slightly digging on the mudded terrain.

"I know"

The quiet response made Emma's head to snap back, a look of self-recognition crossing her pupils, a sense of relief seeming to fill her features for one single second before the dejected look settled back on them.

"You know?"

It seemed to come from a much younger woman, a child almost, and Regina's mind went back to when Henry had been younger, the same tensed looks whenever he knew that he had done something bad yet he didn't know how to address it.

"I know"

Emma nodded and seemed about to turn, ready to follow Hook's steps. Her face slack, her strength, the strength that seemed to haunt Regina's mind ever since she had been able to breathe outside Hell, gone.

"I told Zelena something" She started, and no, she shouldn't be doing that, she knew it. Still the words came out of her.

But maybe I need you.

"Love can blind us"

Emma stopped walking, turning and looking back at her, the lost strands of her hair sticking to her sides, little red dots mapping her face.

"Love is strength" Regina kept talking, voice seeming to reach out to the trees that surrounded the two of them. "Your parents, Henry… had shown me that, but love can also blind us, can also make us think that nothing else matters"

She saw the second Emma's eyes glowed with tired sadness and for a second she thought on leaving it like that, to just smile and stop, to let her walk away. However, there they were, in the middle of a graveyard, graveyard which already had her father's bones and Daniel's memory and now Robin's body. And as much as she had wanted to love the former she knew the hundreds of lies and the hundreds of truths she had told to herself.

And perhaps she owned Robin as much.

"And life… life matters. Our own self-respect is another kind of love"

"Regina…" It was pleading, yet the brunette didn't stop. She owned Emma as much too.

"We sometimes need to fight" The beginning of tears burned yet she didn't stop. "We sometimes need to say what's enough, we sometimes need to realize that love is not a place we need to reach, love come along with us"

"I know that"

"You knew that"

She shouldn't be doing this, not today. Regina was conscious of that. Yet there she was, grabbing the umbrella and her glasses hurt on her temples and nose and her chest felt constricted and she wasn't able stop.

"You knew that" She repeated, softer this time and it was perhaps her voice what made Emma lick her lips and fidget in front of her, paleness against her dark clothes, against the grey skies.

"I'm sorry that Robin got in the middle of this, Hook… I thought I needed…"

"Stop"

She didn't raise her voice; she didn't need to. Emma stopped instantly and that second alone made Regina sigh.

"Robin is gone and I will not forget him" She enunciated, softly, sadly. "As much as you won't forget Neal. Or have you?"

The blonde didn't answer to that; the questions that were there, hidden beneath words and times and lies seeming to echo inside of Regina, between them, in the same way her magic seemed to crack, to dance, to sparkle against her skin, against Emma's.

"You need to fight, you know that, you know he should have been gone. I know Daniel shouldn't have gone so early. I know Robin shouldn't have been killed, you know Neal deserved better. I know that what I did to Graham was horrible. Death are awful for us, for the living, not for the death"

Her voice wavered, the he on her voice implicit, explicit on the way Emma looked at where Hook had left. His footprints already erased.

"Why are you saying me this?" Wraith already rising on the back of the blonde's throat, a fiery look, one that almost made Regina feel nostalgic. "I did… I transformed into the savior, no one wanted anything else from me. Except…"

"Except me"

"Hook…"

"Your pirate only wanted you to be the savior for himself" The words were harsh, harsher than what she had intended, but every step of the conversation they both were having weren't the ones she had wanted to be. "I never wanted to you to be it. I accepted it in the same way you accepted me as Regina"

Silence, the beginning of rain already starting to fall again. She didn't move though, nor she used the umbrella again. She merely took out her glasses and let Emma see the reddish circles around her eyes, the glazed look on her pupils.

"And I needed to accept that Daniel was gone, and it destroyed me in the process. But dead should be dead. Because then the living haunt us in the same way the ones that had left us still do. And that's grieving Emma, and you know it"

Emma's jaw muscles were visible as she seemed to swallow, anger surfacing but never quite as strong as Regina still remembered there, back when everything had been about mother and son, about mayor and sheriff.

"He is here" A whisper, a murmur, the shadow of the woman she had been. "Why can't I have that?"

The former queen closed her eyes, opening them again once the wind started to whoosh gently between the trees she moved closer to Emma, raising her right hand and moving it closer towards the blonde's cheek. Almost touching her, but not quite.

"And why can't I?"

Her voice wavered, which she hated. Hated because the woman in front of her shouldn't matter to her so much, memories, images of them filtering through her mind. She hated the tremor on her voice, the way she needed to touch her face.

"Why can't I?"

The blonde looked at the grass between them, her whole body trembling, the image almost mirroring one Regina still remembered, still was able to close her eyes and conjure it up. The mines, the terror, the loss.

"Please, don't move"

She knew that she shouldn't ask such things, she knew that their friendship, the one they tried to follow, wasn't about touch, wasn't about adoration. And still it hurt, hurt and broke her, smoldering words burning her from inside.

"Please"

When she hugged the younger woman she felt her body tremble, her whole breath seeming to be taken out from her lungs. Still, even if she felt the stiffness on Emma's back, the taller woman didn't move, not until, ever so slowly, she raised her own arms and hugged Regina back, muttering soft "I'm sorry" that finally felt real, vowels breaking against clenched teeth.

And as much as Regina tried she wasn't sure of what Emma was asking forgiveness for, neither the blonde seemed to be sure of it.

"I loved you" She finally admitted, tears streaming down her face, and no, they never talked about it, never said they did, not even after New York, not even after revived memories, not even after friendship, not even after the dagger, not even after Camelot. They never talked about it, not once. However, the admission felt easy, far too easy. "I love you, but I can't" She kept going. The use of the present tense making Emma look at her with a startled look, green eyes shining, always shinning. "Robin is gone, Daniel was gone. And you aren't… I need…"

Taking a step back she eyed the blonde, the woman she still perceived as a friend, the one she knew she was still there.

"I will be here, for you" She kept talking, voice soft, rain not once transforming into the storm it had been but hard enough for her to blink away the drops that kept hitting her face. "But…"

Taking one second to look at Emma's features she finally eyed one more time to Robin's grave, her eyes blurring. "Did you know?" She asked to herself, knowing she shouldn't even ask herself such question.

He probably didn't since she hadn't known herself. But there were answers to questions she knew she wouldn't ever be able to answer if she didn't say how much she truly cared for Emma.

And she hated herself for that. Or at least resented the time she had lost, the time she could have had.

Emma finally nodded, making her look back at those green eyes, a soft smile playing on the blonde's pink lips. Regret on the way she fidgeted with her fingers, long and pale, far too pale. A ghost of a former savior. One Regina had seen way before Emma had tried to be the one the town asked her to be. A real savior, an imperfect one.

A person.

"I've screwed things up, uh?" The words were out in one single push of air, a watery smile following them soon.

Regina laughed, darkly, tiredly, left hand playing with Emma's clothes, right still holding the umbrella,

"You could say that"

The blonde sighed and nodded, smiling softly as she took in her the former queen's hand.

"Let's go?"

It was a question full of doubt, doubt Regina decided not to fight, not today. There were far too many things she would need to fight, too many things she would need to address and she already was spent.

"Let's go"

And so there they went, the savior and the queen, Emma and Regina, rain slowly erasing their footprints once they disappeared from the graveyard grounds.

There were far too many things they still needed to talk about, far too many histories they needed to fight for, walk down. But for now they walked next to the other, not daring to ask but knowing they needed to.

And well, it wasn't enough, but it was a step. An important one.