(Since it's a fix it fic there are things -as in Robin Hood- that aren't going to be here as they happened over the show but well, wishHood can remain in that realm, yeah?)

Comments are always welcome!

Lost Words

The slowly cooling tea stared at Regina as she looked at it, refusing to look at Snow as the woman calmly stirred the liquid in her own cup, the sound of the teaspoon against the walls of the cup abnormally loud on the former queen's ears.

When Regina had opened the door and her eyes had fallen on Snow's concerned ones she had known that her alone time was over so she sighed inwardly, mentally preparing for whatever the other woman was probably about to say.

Which, of course, came as soon as Regina finally took a glance at Snow. The other brunette hummed before taking a sip of the tea, leaving it aside as soon as she realized that Regina was finally looking at her.

"About yesterday…." She said, tilting her head to one side, seemingly to be thinking on what to say next.

Regina, however, didn't want to play any games with the woman that had once been her enemy so she, refusing to drink her own tea, nodded, urging at her to keep going.

"You were trapped in the wish realm."

"We did." Confirmed the former queen remembering not only the world there but also the feeling of alienation she had felt over there.

"How… how was it?" Snow voice was gentle, timid almost, and for a moment Regina stared at her, trying to understand what the other woman was trying to see with those questions.

Even though Snow had probably been awake for less than a few hours now her face denoted extreme tiredness and for a moment Regina bite down her bottom lip, thinking on how exhausted David had seemed the night before. It had been strange to be with him after what she had needed to do in the wish realm and for a second her eyes fell to her hands in where the fake beating hearts still seemed to faintly be tapping against her fingertips. She shuddered.

"Is this what you want to ask?" She decided to counter question, looking back at Snow. The woman seemed to hum and smile softly for a moment before shaking her head.

"No but I need to know how it was."

Regina closed her eyes and nodded; it had been difficult seeing how everything around her seemed to be better without, well, her. She had seen something she had been afraid of ever since Henry had looked at her and had told her how she was evil, how she was not his mother; how without her everything would have been better. The fear hadn't quenched when she had found Robin Hood and, for a second, she smiled pityingly before opening her eyes again, looking straightly at Snow's, knowing she really didn't have any other option but to answer.

"Emma's wish was… interesting. She wasn't the savior but a princess…"

"And you?"

The question made Regina pause, she had been preparing herself for needing to explain Snow how both she and David had looked like. Perhaps even needed to ask for forgiveness for what she had been forced to do in order to wake Emma up. The question, however, was clear and didn't leave any room for any misconception so she went to grab her cup, feigning fixation on it as she tried to come up with an explanation.

"I wasn't there. " She finished quickly, as if ripping a band-aid. "Everyone feared me though since, for them, I was the Queen they condemned to the exile. I don't know if, if we would have needed to stay there, we would have encounter… her or she didn't even exist though."

Snow hummed at that and said nothing for a few seconds, the cooling tea between the two of them.

"You aren't that person anymore." She finally said after taking a sip of the tea, her face alight with the same hope Regina sometimes found revolting. She didn't want blind hope; she didn't want blind trust and she said that to the woman as tactful as possible. "It's true. You would prefer Emma's approach in all of this." Replied Snow and Regina, despite everything, flinched.

"She would probably invite me to shots." She said while trying to seem nonchalant even though her lips curved slightly upwards with fondness, remembering when the blonde had approached her back at Granny's. Even then everything had been complicated but she still felt herself longing for being able to return back to that moment. As selfish as she felt for that.

"She probably would." Agreed Snow, bringing Regina back from her thoughts.

Neither of them spoke after that until Regina, while playing absentmindedly with the pendant she had around her neck, looked at the other brunette, eyes narrowed and mind reeling. "What do you really want Snow?"

The woman sighed and shrugged, knowing that the charade was over.

"I can't know for sure since I wasn't there but for what David has told me through… notes." That word was whispered and Regina saw how Snow's eyes skimmed through the table's surface, unable momentarily to talk. "The battle between Emma and… Gideon, was horrible."

"She almost died." Regina confirmed, the sentence, the idea, strange on her mouth. They had spent so much time worried about how Emma's death seemed to be imminent that when the actual moment had happened she had only been able to feel powerlessness as she stood there, frozen in place, while the blonde rose her sword, blow after blow.

"I wouldn't have been able to stay there, unable to do something."

Regina hummed, sensing where the other woman intended to go but not really wanting to make it easier for her, not when she still felt terrified of the image of those moments before Emma had stood up and had grasped that shard of the now destroyed sword with fingers that soon enough started to get bloody. She had seen the magic that had circled Emma, sensed it even, but the second she had been catapulted a part of her had flinched inside of her, fearful of what she would be looking at as the magic disappeared.

"You've feelings for her."

The sentence brought her back to the present where Snow was now looking at with that very same expression than the one she had one given her back when Regina had simply plucked her heart out of her chest back when Pan's curse had hit the town.

"That's…" She started but left the words hanging in the silence that hovered over the two of them, the image of Emma about to get killed reappearing in front of her, preventing her from lying. "She is with the pirate." She, instead, offered, hating herself for sounding so meek.

"And you went to talk with WishRobin for what she has told me." Replied the other woman back and Regina sighed loudly this time, a part of her wondering where her days as evil were since she hadn't needed to have any heart to heart with anyone back then.

"I needed to see if it was true that without me everyone was happier." She finally answered. "That's why I needed…."

"To see him." Finished Snow with a nod. "I know that but you still went for him as much as Emma…"

She didn't finish the sentence and Regina looked at her with narrowed eyes, suddenly wondering if Snow's thoughts about Hook were as clear as she had found herself thinking they were. Or about Emma's relationship.

"You should speak to her." Snow finally said and the mere idea made Regina want to snort.

"I will not do such a thing."

"Why?"

"I think you need to leave."

"You would want her to be here."

"But she isn't! She is with him!"

Her outburst made the two of them stare at each other before looking at the table where magic was now visible, tight tendrils seeming to paint Regina's words in swirling lines.

"You spent a lot of time saying why you help each other." Snow started as she picked up her purse. "But you never say why you keep creating excuses for something that is obvious enough for everyone else."

With that the woman left Regina's house, closing the door as discreetly as possible as Regina remained there, frozen in the spot very much like she had done the night before.

She had screamed inside her head loudly enough for her throat to clench and her muscles to twist. She had wanted to free herself from Gideon's magic the second the spell had fallen on them but the moment, the millisecond, Emma had seemed to be about to be defeated a part of her had been twisted into the realization that she was going to be forced to watch and the impossibility to look away from it.

She thought on WishRobin, on how he had told her that he had been happy until she had started to ask questions. She wondered for how long she had been content with her decisions, mistakenly thinking that she was something more than just that, almost happy but never such.

She wondered as well about Emma, about how her magic had burnt so bright she had almost been able to feel its heat.

"You've feelings for her." Had said Snow and, truth was, that it was much more complicated than that.

Something as easy as feelings could be tamed.

This? Regina wondered as she picked up the sad remains of their undrunk tea, this couldn't be forgotten and there it laid her undoing. On Emma's eyes.