Emma Swan was used to the world being heavy.
She understood the weight on her shoulders, had learned to live with the burden of choice and circumstance and consequence. With both time and experience she had adapted to the ever changing expectations that accompanied this weight. And even with everything life had thrown at her, both real and in the (still unrealistic) realm of fairy tale, she had even learned to thrive under it.
Adding the new weights of two slightly overbearing parents trying to make up twenty-eight years of absence, a wonderful son who she was still struggling to know, and newly developed magic that coursed through her veins came as a challenge ― one that she usually took in strides. A challenge to blend ideals and desires with people who looked at her with the wide-eyed expression of new parents, though she had twenty-eight years of her own experience under her belt. The challenge of navigating the world of parenting, something she thought she had given up over eleven years ago, and the even bigger challenge called co-parenting.
Yes, her relationship with Regina was tentative at best. They tended to blow hot and cold, more violently that the changing seasons in Maine, but when it came to Henry they had finally come to the mutual understanding that what they both desired for him most of all was to be happy.
His happiness, his life, is what they fought for now. Together. Together they had stopped the trigger. Saved Storybrooke, and with it, their son. Their combined magic had fought against the pressure and won. So even though Emma should be feeling some miraculous weight lift off her chest as Ruby dropped a celebratory burger in front of her, as the happy smiles of her family and friends were exchanged around Granny's diner, as the clock tower chimed away another hour, she didn't.
In fact, it was an added weight, added pressure bearing down on her, that kept Emma's eyes focused intently on the table, wondering firstly, where Regina had disappeared to, and secondly, if a new kind of stress had settled in with their victory, or if she, the Saviour, had finally succumbed to her horrible eating habits and was having a heart attack.
"Emma, are you okay?"
She snapped her head up to find Snow (Should she call her mom now?) staring at her with puzzled concern.
Emma removed her hand from her chest where it had settled over her heart in subconscious worry and tucked it under the table, twisting it in her lap. "Yeah, you know," she said. "Just tired." She blinked, scrunching her eyes against the weight of her lids. "Kinda feel a headache coming on."
"I guess that can be expected when you save the town from an imploding trigger," David said, stretching his arm across the table. He rubbed her shoulder gently and a small part of her caved at the touch, letting the soothing gesture from her father satisfy the inner worries for a second. But only a second, then Emma lifted her head, steeled her gaze, and zeroed in on Henry, midway through his burger.
"You gunna chew there, kid? Or just inhale?"
"Ruby said it's on the house," he said after a long slurp from his drink. He let out a mighty sigh and collapsed against the back of the booth. "We didn't die today so I'm gunna indulge."
Emma smiled at him, the cocky smirk reminding her of Regina even more than the tilt of his eye brow. The eating habits, though; that was all her.
"Just don't make yourself sick." She pushed her own plate towards him, feeling suddenly full. With what she didn't know, because as far as she remembered the day was rather preoccupied with rescuing the town from self-destruction, so eating had been the last thing on her mind, but the thought of settling into the burger now almost made her sick. "Has anyone seen Regina?" she asked instead, taking her mind off the tight feeling in her abdomen.
"She slipped out a while ago," Snow said. "Said she wasn't feeling well, and maybe that's it, but I think she's just not used to being on the hero side of things."
Emma pondered that thoughtfully, running a hand absently over her chest.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Snow asked again.
"No," Emma said, still contemplating the heart attack theory, but seriously, wouldn't that just be the kicker. The cherry on top of an already royally messed up day. Not to mention she'd never hear the end of it from Regina. Her eating habits would be the talk of the town for months. Maybe even a year. The Mayor would probably designate this day as national triple-bypass day in honour of the coronary she was having.
"Do you want to leave?" David asked, getting to his feet.
Emma jumped at his response. "No, no. You two stay. Feed Henry. God knows he's obviously not getting enough at home since he's inhaling everything in sight."
"Hey," the kid mumbled around a mouth of fries.
Snow patted his shoulder and looked at Emma seriously, but at twenty-eight, a stern look from her parents didn't really affect her all that much.
"I'm just gunna walk around for a while," Emma said. "I feel kind of crappy. Maybe it'll help get whatever this is out of my system."
"Okay," Snow relented. "Just call us if you need anything. We'll see you at home later."
"Sure," Emma said, rising. She turned and ducked out the door before Leroy had a chance to grab her and demand another round of shots in her honour.
Across town, hands straddling her bathroom sink, Regina Mills took a settling breath, calming the rising pressure in her chest. She wanted to puke. But she didn't. Not really.
One look in the mirror told her something was wrong. Something in the way her face flushed red and hot from her cheeks to her ears, the weight behind her eyelids, the dry parch of her lips.
The day had been long, she told herself. Too long. Too demanding.
But Henry was safe. The town was safe. That's what mattered. She turned the taps on, splashed some water over her face and down her neck, her hand lingering just above her heart where a heaviness swelled. Then she opened the medicine cabinet, popped two Advil, and crawled beneath the sheets of her king-sized bed, desperate for sleep.
For relief from the weight. From the day. From the past.
Today she had been prepared to die as Regina.
Today she and Emma had saved the entire town.
Today she had become a hero.
And though there was some indecipherable tingling that swirled at the base of her stomach at the thought, the weight of said heroism was a lot more than she had expected. Maybe that's why she had spent so much time being evil. In the end, there was less pressure.