Note: Written for a prompt on Tumblr: something hot about Emma and Regina being stuck in an elevator (or a small close space) and Regina having a claustrophobic attack. It's not exactly hot, but hopefully you still like it.
Title taken from a Kevin Spacey quote.
Emma feels pretty certain that in a past life she must've done something really terrible. Like, maybe she was Judas or Brutus or Benedict Arnold or something. Because bad karma is about the only explanation she can come up with for her cosmic bad luck. She is surely being punished for something, otherwise she wouldn't currently be stuck in an elevator with Regina, who is quite happily listing all the ways that this is entirely Emma's fault.
Like it's her fault because she got into the elevator with Regina and doesn't she know that no one gets in elevators with Regina because she's apparently doing her best to emulate Meryl Streep in that fashion movie? At least the devil part fits. And it's obviously Emma's fault that she's not getting any cell reception in a freaking metal box that's stuck between floors in Town Hall. And it's Emma's fault that no one is answering when she hits the emergency call button because it's well after five on a Friday. And it's Emma's fault that children in Africa are starving and global warming is happening and the Titanic sank. Hell, at this point, Emma's pretty sure that she also shot JR and caused Firefly to be cancelled, because why not add those to her growing list of sins?
She's about to turn around and belt Regina because there's no one here to stop her this time when the elevator shudders and drops a few inches, the lights flickering out and casting them into complete darkness.
"Fuck." She hisses, because she's sure that this is going to be her fault too - her added weight is making the elevator fall or something - and because she's not exactly thrilled about the fact that the elevator could plummet at any moment. On the Tower of Terror it's totally fine. On a real elevator that doesn't have safety belts, a cheesy Twilight Zone opening and a lovely view of a Disney park, it is in no way okay.
But the minutes pass and the accusations don't come from Regina. With a frown, Emma turns, trying to see through the darkness. And then, a tiny miracle occurs as the backup lights finally kick on. They're weak and don't do much more than cast an eerie green light that actually freaks Emma out just a bit, but in the glow, Emma can make out Regina's huddled form. And that's when she knows that she's being royally punished for something. Because if being trapped with a pissed off Regina was bad, she's sure that being trapped with a scared Regina is even worse.
"Regina?" She asks softly, moving tentatively across the small space they're enclosed it. Regina doesn't answer, doesn't acknowledge her in any way, and as Emma gets closer she can see that Regina has not only slid down to the floor but is actually shaking while crouched there. Her skin looks pallid and with the green glow of the backup lights, Emma can almost imagine her as an actual fairy tale villain. Her eyes are wide and unfocused and with a sinking feeling, Emma realizes that she's also holding her breath.
"Hey, Regina, you need to take a breath." Emma tells her as she sinks down to her knees in front of the mayor. Emma's lived in enough group homes and dealt with enough less than stellar foster families that she can easily recognize a panic attack when she sees it. One of the younger girls at the group home she'd stayed the longest in - almost two years from the time she was ten until she ran away just two weeks shy of her twelfth birthday - used to have reactions just like this when she was in small spaces or when it got especially dark. Lily was her name, Emma remembers - the only person from her childhood that she's allowed herself to remember with any clarity - and she'd been taken from her parents after neighbors realized that they were beating her and locking her in a closet for days at a time.
"Regina." Emma says again, louder this time, but the mayor still doesn't respond. "Regina, you've got to take a breath. You're going to pass out." Emma insists, reaching out and taking hold of Regina's shoulders, giving her a slight shake.
The touch is enough to make Regina gasp in a breath, instantly shrinking away from Emma's hands. Then, when the air burns in her lungs, she begins to take big, gasping breaths, and Emma realizes that she's hyperventilating now.
"Damn it." She sighs, even as Regina shrinks back farther into the corner of the elevator, trying to get away from Emma and whatever danger she's apparently perceiving in her.
"Regina," Emma speaks softly, trying to make her voice as soothing as she used to with Lily when she'd had to talk her down from her panic attacks, "Regina, it's me. It's Emma. I'm not going to hurt you. Okay?"
Regina's breathing slows just the tiniest fraction, but she still doesn't acknowledge that Emma is in the elevator with her. In fact, Emma's pretty sure that Regina herself isn't in the elevator anymore, at least not in her mind. It makes her wonder what the hell happened to the mayor in the past to make her react this way now. But that's a question for another time or maybe never. Right now, her priority is to get Regina back in the present.
"Hey. Look at me. Regina?" She reaches out and gently puts her hands on Regina's cheeks, trying to get the woman to focus. "Look at me."
Wide eyes blink and settle on Emma's face, but are still glassy and confused. "There we go. See, it's just me. I'm not going to hurt you. Nothing's going to hurt you. You're okay. Now, I need you to take a couple nice deep breaths for me, okay? Breathe with me, Regina. In. Out."
Emma makes a show of taking deep breaths until Regina finally joins in with her. "In. Out. There we go. Just like that." She offers a smile as she allows her hands to fall from Regina's cheeks. But the instant Emma stops touching her, Regina's breathing increases and the panic crosses her face again.
"Hey. Hey. It's okay." Emma assures, reaching out and putting her hands on Regina's shoulders. "I'm still right here with you. You're not alone."
"Emma." Regina's voice is so small and shaky that Emma feels tears gather in her eyes. She's never heard the mayor sound that broken before.
"Yes." She tries her best to smile reassuringly. "I'm right here."
Regina's eyes slip closed and it's then that Emma notices that she's still shaking. "Regina," she whispers, waiting until dark eyes open and lock on her own, "I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I promise. You're safe."
Regina looks pleadingly at her. "Please let me out."
Emma's heart breaks at those words. "I'm trying. I'm trying." She moves one hand away to pull her phone out, hoping for another miracle in the form of at least one bar, but Regina whimpers at the loss. Emma squeezes her shoulder with her other hand. "I'm trying to get us out of here, honey." She assures again, the term of endearment slipping out without any thought.
And Emma's pretty sure that this is all going to come back to bite her in the ass in the biggest way, but even if it does, she still can't bring herself to just let Regina panic the way she is. Unless Regina's some kind of Oscar winning actress in her downtime, there's no way she's faking this reaction.
She tries calling out again and once again curses her cell service. America's most reliable network, her ass. She tries to send a text message instead, but that fails too. Surely someone must have realized that she and Regina are missing by now. Sidney is always sniffing around Regina and shouldn't Mary Margaret be wondering where her roommate is? And Henry has to have noticed his mother's absence by now, right?
"Please." Regina whispers again, her breathing ragged. "I'll be good."
Emma's eyes snap back to Regina's. What the hell had happened to her to cause this reaction? "Regina," she soothes, gently running her fingers through soft, dark tresses, "you didn't do anything wrong. You're not bad. The elevator is just stuck, but it's not because of anything you did. We're gonna get out of here, okay?"
Emma then tears her eyes away, looking all around the small elevator car. There's gotta be an escape hatch around here. She could try to pull a Speed and climb out of the hatch, but she's pretty sure that it wouldn't actually work. She looks back at Regina, who still looks petrified.
"Hey," she smiles, "can you talk to me, Regina?"
"I - I'm scared. I want out."
"I know you do. I know you do and I promise that we are going to get out of here, okay? We've just gotta give them a little more time to get to us. But I need you to keep talking to me until they do. Do you think you can do that?"
"You won't leave?" Regina's voice is barely a whisper and Emma remembers another time they'd been stuck together in Town Hall and how Regina had voiced her fear of being left behind.
"No, honey. I'm not going anywhere." Emma tells hers, reaching down to take Regina's hand in her own. It's cold to the touch and still shaking. "Are you cold?"
Regina doesn't answer, so Emma releases her to shrug out of her jacket. "Please don't leave me in here alone. I'll be good. Please." Regina whimpers and in the dim light, Emma can just make out a single tear slipping down her cheek.
Slowly and carefully, Emma drops her jacket on Regina's shoulders. "I'm not leaving, Regina. I'm still right here." She wipes the tear away softly and then gathers Regina in her arms. She's sure that this will just be another thing to add to the list of her offenses once they're out of the elevator - truthfully she's been waiting for the sexual harassment allegations for a while now - but again she can't bring herself to really care.
Regina snuggles against her quickly, her fingers clenching the cotton of Emma's tank top in an unrelenting grasp. Her head falls to Emma's shoulder, nuzzling into the warmth of the other woman's neck. Emma rubs soothing circles on Regina's back, trying to keep her calm.
"Regina," she whispers tentatively in her ear, "who left you before? Who left you in the dark?" She feels the mayor tense and start to shift, her breathing picking up, so she tightens her hold and continues the circles. "Whoa. Whoa. It's okay. You don't have to answer."
They sit like that for a long time, until finally Emma feels Regina's lips as they move against the skin of her neck. "My mother."
Emma's heart plummets like she prays the elevator won't. Fuck. Of all the things that she thought would come out of being stuck in the elevator with Regina, this was certainly not one of them.
"I was bad. If I had just been good -" Regina starts, the words flowing easily from her lips, ingrained in her head by the mother who had locked her in closets and done god knows what else to her. Emma had seen this before. Emma had said things like this before.
"No." Emma insists, pushing Regina back so that they're looking each other in the eye. Regina flinches a little at the tone in Emma's voice, the anger there. "You were not bad, Regina. You didn't do anything wrong. None of it was your fault. Do you hear me?"
Emma's hands reach up and take hold of Regina's face again, forcing her to listen. She's vaguely aware of the crackling in the air between them, but she's more concerned with making Regina understand than she is with the sexual tension that always seems to be there. "You. Were. Not. Bad."
"Emma." Regina murmurs, leaning closer to her, the air continuing to crack between them.
Emma knows what's going to happen then and she feels her stomach twist in anticipation of it. There's a voice in the back of her head that tells her that they shouldn't do this now, not when Regina is in such an emotional and vulnerable state, but then she feels Regina's breath against her skin and she can't think at all.
"Emma."
"Emma!"
Emma's eyes fly open as she realizes that the second voice didn't belong to Regina, but to Leroy. "Emma, are you in there?" His voice is coming from the speaker in the control panel of the elevator.
"Y-yes. Leroy, yes. We're stuck." She forces herself to say, wanting to kick herself and him and the god damn elevator as Regina slips out of her grasp and moves back to the corner.
"Who's we?" Leroy's voice comes through sounding tinny. Emma moves closer to the panel to be able to hear him and make sure he can hear her.
"Regina and I." She doesn't even notice that she didn't use Regina's title as she normally would.
"Shit." She hears Leroy curse and imagines that he's thinking about all the damage they'll have done to each other.
"Don't worry, Leroy, no blood has been shed." She assures with a smirk. "Yet."
She hears the sigh of relief that Leroy tries to hide and glances over at Regina, who is huddled in the corner. "Leroy, how long is it gonna take to get us out of here?"
"I called Marco and he's on his way. Looks like a gear is stuck. Once he gets here it shouldn't take more than twenty minutes or so."
Emma frowns. That's way too long for Regina to be stuck in the dark like this. "The lights went out on us. Any chance of getting them back on before that?"
"Sure thing, sister." Leroy says and true to his word, the lights flicker back on a few minutes later. "Marco's here. We're gonna fix the gear now. It might get a little bumpy, but we should have you out in a few."
"Thanks, Leroy." Emma says, even as she moves over towards Regina again. "Hey," she says softly, laying her hand on Regina's arm, "Marco and Leroy are working on the gear. We should be out of here in a few minutes. And the lights are back on. It's all gonna be okay."
Regina looks up at her and Emma can already see her working to slip the mask back on. Now that the stark lights have fallen on her face, chasing the darkness away, the scared little girl is being chased away by the formidable mayor. Emma fights the urge to frown and tries to quell the disappointment. She should be glad that the little girl is gone, that Regina isn't afraid anymore, but she can't help missing the weight of Regina in her arms. She also worries about just how buried that little girl is.
"Do you think you can stand up?" Emma moves to try and help her, but Regina quickly shrugs her off and Emma feels the rejection stab her in the gut. So they're back to this again. Nodding, Emma moves to the other side of the elevator. She shouldn't have expected anything different.
The silence that settles between them is nearly deafening and so awkward that Emma has to fight the urge to go bang on the doors and start screaming about how long it's taking to get them out of here. Instead she grips the metal railing and counts down from sixty in her head, tracking the slow progression of time. She's on her fifth countdown - the longest five minutes of her life and that's saying something - when the elevator shudders and drops a few more inches.
"Emma!" Regina's voice sounds panicked again and Emma looks over to see her clutching the railing, looking as white as a ghost.
"Hey, hey." Emma moves over to her, carefully removing her hands from their death grip on the railing and holding them in her own. "It's okay. Leroy said it might be a little bumpy until they got the gear to work. But we're okay."
Emma gives her hands a little squeeze and Regina squeezes back tighter, holding them as though they're a lifeline. "Don't leave." She whispers again.
"Okay." Emma assures, even as she waits for the rejection that is sure to come once the elevator doors open. "I'm not going anywhere."
"Why?" Regina asks softly a few minutes later, when the silence has become oppressive again.
"Why what?"
"Why did you help me?"
And there are so many things that Emma could say to that. She could spout off the 'good people' speech again or say she'd done it for Henry's sake or talk about her own shitty childhood. But instead she just shrugs and replies with the only true answer she can give. "Because you needed it. And because I couldn't stand to see you look so scared."
Regina opens her mouth as though to reply, but the elevator starts to move again and the words die on her lips. She releases her hold on Emma's right hand, but when the sheriff tries to slip her left hand free, Regina squeezes it tighter.
Emma looks at her in surprise before offering her a small smile and moving to stand beside her, still holding her hand. The doors finally open to reveal the lobby of Town Hall, Marco, Leroy, Mary Margaret, Sidney, and Henry.
"Hail, hail, the gang's all here." Emma mutters and Regina still doesn't release her hand.
"Emma!" Henry rushes into the elevator, heading for Emma, until he catches sight of his mother's face and he stops, frowning at how pale she looks.
"Are you okay, Mom? Emma?" He asks, wrapping his arms around both of them and looking up at Emma for some kind of reassurance.
"Henry." Regina breaths, holding on to him tightly with her right arm. "I'm -"
"Madam Mayor! Are you alright?" Sidney moves into the elevator, fawning all over Regina and Emma rolls her eyes.
"Emma!" Mary Margaret rushes over, squeezing her shoulder. "I'm so glad you're okay."
"Are you okay, sister?" Leroy asks as he steps through, his eyes trained on Regina and Emma's left arms. Henry's body might be blocking their joined hands, but Emma's pretty sure that everyone already saw them.
Emma offers him a small smile. "That's sheriff to you. And I'm fine. Thanks, Leroy, Marco."
"We're only sorry it took so long to get you out." Marco says as he too steps through the doors into the elevator.
"It's okay. We survived." She squeezes Regina's hand gently and that's when she notices the slight shake in it. Glancing over, she can see that Regina is trying to control her breathing, but it's getting faster and faster. "However, I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we'd really like to get out of the elevator, not have more people get in."
Everyone laughs at that, but moves quickly out of the small space. Once they're all out, Emma looks back at Regina. "Okay?" She asks quietly and Regina nods but doesn't let go of her hand. "Then let's get out of here, huh?"
Emma starts to step forward, but is stopped by a tug on her hand. She looks back to find Regina staring at her. "You won't leave?"
"Not until you want me to." Emma assures. "And probably not even then."
That gets a small smile out of Regina and this time she follows Emma out of the small space, finally feeling like she can breathe again.
"You know what I'm thinking this deserves?" Mary Margaret says with a soft smile. "Ice cream. My treat."
"Yeah!" Henry exclaims happily. "Can we, Mom?"
Regina just nods, watching as Henry bounds towards the door in excitement, everyone else trailing after him.
"You gonna be okay with going to get ice cream?" Emma asks. "Because I'm sure Mary Margaret would be happy to take Henry and bring him home later if you want to go get some rest."
"I am perfectly capable of deciding whether I want to go get ice cream or not, Sheriff Swan." Regina snaps and Emma frowns, dropping her hand.
"And there it is." Emma mumbles as she starts towards the door. Truthfully, she was surprised it had taken this long for Regina to revert back to her old self.
"Emma, wait!" Regina calls out to her. "I - I'm still adjusting to all of this." She motions between them when Emma turns back to her. "I want to go. But first," she pulls on Emma's arm until she's in her personal space and then presses her lips to Emma's. Emma feels the electricity in the air finally crack and strike her as Regina's lips press against hers. It's even better than she thought it would be.
"I know we still have things to talk about." Regina says when they finally pull away, their foreheads pressed together, "but can we do that later?"
"Only if you promise we can do this again later too." Emma grins, kissing her again.
Regina nods before she heads for the door, still holding Emma's hand. And as they move towards Granny's, Emma feels pretty certain that in one of her other past lives she must've done something really good. Because good karma is about the only explanation she can come up with for this bout of good luck.