"Regina. Regina, wait." She's running after Regina, down the stairs from Granny's like they've done this a dozen times before, but Regina doesn't turn this time. "Regina, please."
She doesn't know what she's going to say, and when Regina hesitates, she charges forward and grabs her arm. Like they've done that a dozen times before, too.
And Regina yanks her arm from Emma's grasp and spits out, "Don't touch me," and it's all wrong, it's all a mess and it's Emma's fault. Because she couldn't let someone else die. She rails at the unfairness of it, at this new coincidence that puts her directly in her vaunted dynasty of Women Screwing Up Regina Mills's Life. She wants to complain, to deflect, to point out that she couldn't have known–
Regina turns around, her eyes very red, and a thousand excuses rattling through Emma's mind fall silent. "What the hell do you want now?"
"I wanted to…apologize?" she finishes, and she frowns, uncertain, because that's not nearly enough. Nothing is going to be enough this time. Regina had been happy. She'd seen her face, seen the way she'd been around Robin Hood and his kid. Henry remembers her again and Snow had mended that relationship and they'd all been happy.
Except Emma.
And now Emma's happy and Regina's crushed and how much longer can they keep riding this seesaw, bouncing up as the other sinks until the wood splinters and breaks apart beneath them? How can they both be so united by mutual love for the same little boy and still so doomed to never be at peace? She remembers the Evil Queen, the Regina who'd looked her up and down like she was a stranger, and that same discomfort crawling through her at the emptiness in another Regina's eyes.
She takes a breath and dares to meet this Regina's eyes. There's no emptiness there, just the ollow look of someone who's given up, and she's startled to see that there's no hatred, either. Only defeat. Only resignation. "There. You've apologized, Emma." She'd expected a scathing Miss Swan and somehow her name hurts even more. "You can go back to your pirate now, confident in your own goodness–"
Her voice cracks and she falters midway through what might have been a glancing insult but just sounds so very, very sad.
"I'm not going anywhere," Emma says quickly. "That's not– I'm going to walk you home, okay?" She thinks that they've never been all that good about defusing tension together but Regina shouldn't be alone right now. She thinks about the Evil Queen again, remembers her storming past villagers and into ballrooms and surrounded only by faceless guards. Regina shouldn't be alone.
The hoarse voice is barely a whisper. "I don't want you anywhere near me. Respect that, if you won't respect anything else."
She bites back a retort and a refusal and squeezes her hands together. Respect. She can do that. "Okay. Wait here, I'll get Henry."
"No!" She jumps back at the vehemence of it. "No," Regina repeats. "I won't have Henry see me like…like this." She waves at herself, at the rigid arch of her spine and her tearstained face and the way she can barely walk in the heels she usually dons like a soldier's armor.
"I don't want you to be alone," Emma mutters, feeling even more embarrassed about it when Regina quirks an eyebrow and says, "And what you want always comes first, doesn't it?" She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "Come along, dear."
They walk in silence for several blocks until they're nearing Mifflin Street and Emma finally blurts out, "I couldn't let her die."
Regina smiles a bitter smile. "No, you couldn't. Heroes rescue everyone, regardless of the consequences for the villains. They're only villains."
She shakes her head, disbelieving. "You're not a villain anymore." Regina's saved them time and again by now, rescued Henry in Neverland and tried to die to protect the people of Storybrooke and surrendered her happy ending to Emma and Henry. And now she's defeated Zelena and Emma has been helpless, useless, the savior name nothing but a burden behind Regina.
Regina laughs, low and sharp. "My sister is dead. I offered her a second chance and she killed herself. Or perhaps Rumplestiltskin killed her, and now he's off getting married to the love of his life." She breathes. "I lost a year of Henry's life and you tried to take him away from me again." Emma shifts guiltily. "And now you're running around, happy that you've found a place to belong, as though you'd never planned to take my last bit of family back with you."
"I was going to–" she starts, because she had had plans about Henry and Regina and how they'd work out custody. She hadn't meant to take him for good, had she? He's so unequivocally Regina's now that she'd be alone in that attempt. He's always been unequivocally Regina's, and she's been equally his.
Regina laughs again, low and rich and dark. "Did you know that Robin was meant to be my soulmate?"
"What?" She'd thought they'd just started dating recently. Robin is new to Storybrooke, she's sure of that, just as she's sure that Regina would never have been able to open up to anyone in the Enchanted Forest with Henry gone. "How do you know that?"
Regina smiles blankly, and they're walking up the stairs to her house and she pushes open the door and talks as though Emma's supposed to follow. "Pixie dust. A lion tattoo. This all happened years ago and I'd only gotten my chance now. And now he's back with his family. Where he belongs. And I'm…"
She leans against a doorway and says, "A little over a year ago, I stood on the deck of the Jolly Roger and told Hook that villains don't get happy endings. But he got his, didn't he? I saw you two nauseatingly close in the diner." And that's a thing Emma doesn't really want to talk about, because it's just been so exhausting to fight Hook on this and it feels easier to give in now. She's tired of fighting against what other people want. "He got what he wanted and Rumple has what he wanted and my sister is dead and I'm alone."
She stares at the wall opposite her, where a series of photos of Henry at different ages hang. There aren't any of Regina with him, which has always struck Emma as sad. She'd wanted…she hasn't wanted Regina to hurt in a very long time. "And now the man I was destined to be with, who'd never seen me at my worst, is with a woman who'd only known me as that. Thank you for your meddling, Emma Swan. You've freed me from those tiny bits of my destiny that actually made me happy." She says it sardonically and Emma surges forward to stand in front of her, to meet her eyes though she still doesn't dare touch her.
"No," she says desperately, piecing it all together and suddenly miserable. If Regina's right, if this was supposed to be a second, lasting chance at love that she'd always been meant for…She really has fucked it up, worse even than her mother ever had. "No, that's ridiculous. You can't have a predestined soulmate. You've lived, what, sixty years? Who's to say that your soulmate had even been born yet when you found him? Who's to say he was even in your old land?"
"So I'll find someone else who hadn't been alive then?" It's soft and Emma braces herself for the other shoe to drop and nods. Regina smiles with absolutely no mirth, and suddenly she's leaning forward toward Emma. "What, someone like you?" she mocks, and her lips are on Emma's at once, harsh and unforgiving as an attack. "Someone good and light and self-centered?" she hisses as her teeth grasp at Emma's lip, yank it down, and Emma's tongue is suddenly in Regina's mouth.
She doesn't know how this is happening, why it's happening, but she's kissing Regina back and wrapping her arms around her tightly as she pushes them forward toward the doorjamb. Kissing Regina is nothing like kissing Hook, which had been long and slow and felt like a concession that she could have gotten used to. Like a reward for him every time.
But Regina's lips are punishing and unforgiving, pressing forward with passion and fury and want and need, and Emma's breathing hard and returning the kiss, equally needy, until they're both panting and Emma's breath is ragged but she can't pull away, won't let Regina go for as long as Regina is kissing her. Her arms are so tight against Regina's back that she's surprised that Regina can still breathe, and she's clutching her closer and closer to her until Regina sags and she's supporting both of them.
And new warmth floods her even though Regina is still angry, new acceptance and new thoughts of home and family and a future where she belongs. Where they both belong. And oh, god, what is she doing with Regina right now, as though things haven't been tense and awkward between them since Emma had guiltily made the decision to take Henry back to New York.
Fuck, she's taken out so much of her stress and guilt and fears on Regina these past few weeks.
She doesn't realize that she's whispering I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry against Regina's lips until Regina hisses, "Shut up," and drags her upstairs.
And then there's magic and sparks and fireworks, and if Regina's fingers crashing inside of her again and again and again is her punishment for screwing up the other woman's happy ending, she'll take it as many times as Regina wants to inflict it. I could have loved him, Regina whispers. I could have had Roland. Kept him, with no birth mother to– To–
"I wish she was still dead," she whispers aloud, slapping Emma's hands away from where they're trying to creep between Regina's legs to return the favor. "I wish you were dead. What kind of a hero am I supposed to be?" She slides down Emma's body, sweat-slicked skin rubbing against skin and leaving a shiver of magic in its wake, and buries her tongue within Emma. "Why can't I be happy?"
She thinks she says I can make you happy and I want you to be happy but it's hard to tell amidst all the babbling and moaning escaping from her mouth. But then Regina is pulling her hands away from where her fingers are pressing bruises into Emma's side to slide them into herself, and she sighs once and finds a release while Emma takes advantage of her distraction to pull her up to the pillows on her bed.
She wraps her arms around Regina's waist and the once-evil queen is so tiny, so much smaller than she'd ever imagined. She fits into Emma's arms and lays her head against Emma's collarbone and says drowsily, "I hate you. I really do."
Emma's lie detector pings and she's going to make this right. She has to, for Regina and for Henry and for herself and for whatever they can all be together. She's going to do whatever she can and she kisses the top of Regina's head and holds her close.
She stays awake until morning, her fingers tangled in Regina's hair and bruises dotting both of their bodies, and Emma thinks that this– Storybrooke, yes, her parents and Henry too, but this– this might just be home. Battered and bruised and cracking at its seams, but home all the same.
She suddenly wants so desperately to be the same for Regina, and she shakes with silent tears for the woman- not hero or villain or evil at all- curled up and sleeping in her arms.