A/N: This is my entry into the 3x11 (Going Home) Post ep sweepstakes.
Warnings: Salty language, non-graphic sexual situations, general sadness and Hook.
I don't specify 100% exactly at to when the flashbacks occur (they're not memories), but it's hopefully clear within the actual scenes as to the timeline for each.
Enjoy!
Though neither one of them can remember the joke, they figure that they must be laughing so hard that they're actually crying, and for a moment, this weird almost ragged sound and the light scrape of fingers across their faces as they clear away stray tears that have fallen is all there is between mother son in tiny cabin of this old little Bug.
Until Henry says wistfully as he glances behind them towards rows and rows of open air and trees, "I'm going to miss this." He blinks a couple of times because he's not quite sure how they'd gotten so far down the road, and wasn't it just a few minutes ago that they were leaving that quaint little coastal town motel that they'd crashed in for the night? Still, time moves in strange ways when you're twelve years old, and he lets these thoughts slip away as he stares over at the bright happy unguarded face of his mother.
"Me, too, kid," Emma agrees. "But we've pretty much burned through all of our travel budget, and I suppose it's time that I act like a real adult and actually get us a place to stay again." She laughs loudly. "And a real job."
He shrugs his shoulders and glances back towards the road. "You don't have to, Mom. I kind of like getting to travel all over the place. I get to see everything. It's fun."
"Yeah, but has it been educational?" she replies with a knowing eyebrow and a wry chuckle. "Because I'm pretty sure a good parent makes sure their kid is learning something smart, right?"
"Sure it is," he protests before he launches into a relay of facts about all of the places that they've visited over the last several months. His mind is incredible, she thinks, because he remembers so many details almost like they came out of some kind of encyclopedia. It's a damn shame that they'd ended up leaving their camera crammed full of pictures a few stops back.
But she supposes they'll just have to remember this road trip in their heads.
No one can take those pictures away.
Still, it is time to go home and grow up.
So while Henry babbles on about famous statutes and notorious battlefields, she thinks about the savings account that she's been pouring money into since the day Henry was born. She hasn't touched it in over twelve years.
In the beginning, it'd been funded with just the pennies that she'd make working the job she'd had while she'd been incarcerated, but after she had gotten out and started working jobs catching actual bad guys who deserved to be behind bars, the numbers in her savings had gone up steadily and substantially. Now, there's enough to get them a nice place to live.
A really nice place.
Somewhere where they can settle down, and be happy.
She's not sure why she so desperately needs and wants that now – she and Henry have always been okay with something of a nomadic life – but now she needs that for him, and she's going to give it to him no matter what.
She smiles over at Henry and says, "Name a city."
"What? As in where to go next?"
"As in where to live."
He frowns for a moment, and his curious green eyes track back to the large rows of trees as if there's something about them which draws him towards them, but then he shrugs his shoulders and replies, "Big or small?"
"Big. Gives me a better chance for job prospects. And maybe love interest prospects, too," she grins when she says this, and he rolls his eyes in the exact way that she'd been expecting him to; kid is so damned predictable.
"Gross. How about New York or Boston."
"New York," she says immediately. When he looks at her like he can't quite understand her reaction, she mumbles out, "Had an ex in Boston. Bad."
He laughs, and she has this weird feeling like their relationship is not quite balanced like it should be – like she's not completely the adult and he's not totally the child here – but then she shrugs it off because she's a single mother and it's not at all unusual for a son to be protective of his mom.
"Figures," he says with an impish grin. "New York. Cool."
"Yeah, cool."
They stay in a double occupancy motel room that night, and it's three in the morning before she realizes that sleep just isn't going to come to her. Henry is dead out, snoring softly into his pillow (she thinks she shouldn't let him sleep like that because he could asphyxiate himself), but she's stuck staring at the popcorn ceiling of the fifty dollar a night room wondering why she is.
She sighs loudly and almost dramatically and then turns to her side, forcing her eyes closed as she does so. Instinctively her right arm sweeps outwards and it stops her because she knows that motion. It's the one someone uses when they're pulling a lover in close. She looks at her fingers as they claw against the cold sheets of the empty side next to her and she frowns.
Because it's been a very long time since anyone shared a bed with her for more than a night and she certainly hadn't missed them even a little bit.
So what the hell is this?
Exhaustion, Emma tells herself.
That's all.
"Dammit, sleep," she mutters to herself, and then rolls to the other side of the bed. Away from the cold emptiness that shouldn't be there anyway.
"What are you doing?" Regina sighs as she hears the unmistakable sound of Emma moving her body towards her in the bed. A moment later, a cold hand slides against the warm skin of her abdomen and settles lightly there.
"It's cold," Emma chuckles. "And you're not."
"Yes, well that's because I stole all the blankets," Regina mutters as her lover's strong arms once again sweep and tighten around her middle.
"True," Emma says as she nuzzles her face into her lover's neck, dropping repeated light kisses against the tanned heated skin she finds there.
"I never would have guessed you for a cuddler," Regina notes lazily.
"Liar."
Regina turns towards Emma, facing her in such a way that their naked bodies are rubbing against each other. Yes, it's enticing as all hell, but Emma does her best to not rise to what she's dead sure is bait. "What does that mean?" the former queen demands, her tone sharp and haughty.
It makes Emma laugh in a way that is sure to get her heart ripped out.
Because this is such a fucking show.
This is all about Regina proving that she's strong and being aloof and completely disinterested, but she seems to have – conveniently - forgotten that Emma's now seen her when she's been whispering and pleading.
She seems to have forgotten that Emma has been there during the many times when Regina has fallen apart completely.
For better and for worse.
"It means you know that I like being close, and you like me being close."
"Not always."
"Really."
"Like right now. When you're cold. And won't shut up."
"I can fix both of those things."
"I'm sure you can. And in a few hours? When you wake up and we have to once again pretend that there's nothing between us and never has been?"
"I won't let them leave you behind. I won't leave you behind. I promise."
"You promise such big things, Emma. They're your family and –"
"And I love you. For all the reasons that you're giving me as to why I shouldn't love you and you shouldn't love me, I still do and you still do."
"Emma –"
With a loud grunt of frustration, Emma leans in then and kisses Regina soundly on the mouth. After a moment, she pulls back and says with a large grin on her face, "You hate it when I won't shut up. And it's still cold."
There's a moment when Regina is considering things – Emma can see it clear as day in the older woman's dark eyes – and wondering if maybe she should be sane and stop this before they simply can't. Before ending it will break them both in ways that they simply won't be able to find a way back from.
Finally, she says, "Come here." And then she reaches out, wraps her delicate hands around both of Emma's biceps and yanks the sheriff on top of her.
And when they're both exhausted and Emma's wrapped around her, the blonde's right arm slung across her waist, she says not a word in protest.
Emma buys an apartment in the middle of Manhattan, and it's absolutely grotesquely expensive, but she'd forgotten just how well some of her jobs had paid, and just how little money she's used over the years. She still drives the Bug that she'd met Henry's father in, and she's perfectly fine watching television on a forty-two inch screen instead of some kind of wall-hugger.
And Henry, well as long as she keeps him in books, he's the happiest kid.
Sometimes, she finds herself wondering where Henry had developed his incredible love for reading from because she thinks that she had never much cared for it herself growing up, but then suddenly she finds herself lounging in front of the gas fire reading something that was written three hundred years ago and she thinks that maybe she just never noticed how much she has grown to enjoy the written word. Still, there's always a moment when she finds herself holding a book and she thinks that there's something a bit odd about things. She feels a bit like she's wearing someone else's clothes, and they are comfortable as all hell, but they don't quite fit perfectly.
These thoughts never stay long, almost like they're not meant to. They sweep into her mind, and then out again within moment. Sometimes she tries to grab out them – she figures it's existentialism at play – but they never stay and inevitably, life simply goes on and she forgets the ill-fits.
Henry grows and grows and she thinks that it won't be long before he'll be taller than her, and she'll have to lean up to kiss him on the forehead.
Which he'll hate and she'll grin at.
And he'll remind her that he's getting too old for motherly affection.
He calls her mom, which is good. It's weird when he calls her momma and she has no idea why besides knowing that it isn't right, and he seems to realize that as well because he laughs awkwardly and changes the subject.
Life is good, though.
Comfortable.
It's just really strange at times, though, because there's an inexplicable emptiness to it. That comes, she tells herself, from not knowing anyone around New York. She hasn't really dated in awhile – doesn't really want to, either – and all of the old contacts that she calls to get bondswoman work from time to time – she's been looking into something more permanent, but she just has to finish getting her juvenile record completely expunged first - always end up making things even more strange because they act surprised when she tells them about Henry. Like they didn't know about him.
Like they'd thought that she'd been a lone wolf all her life.
She never calls those contacts back.
And those nights? They always end up with her drinking whiskey by herself on the balcony while Henry sleeps soundly in his comfortable bed, his legs already too long for the flannel pants that she'd bought him just last week.
These are the moments where she thinks her own legs are too long for the pants that she's wearing. It's that ill-fit thing again, and when she feels it, it hits her right in the middle of the chest because it's always so absurd.
She has everything she could and has ever wanted. She has Henry and he's the great love of her life, and always will be, and it absolutely galls her that she feels like something is missing or not quite right. But she does.
So she takes another sip. And then another.
"Thinking has never really been your best sport," Regina says softly as she drops herself down beside the sheriff on the broken log that overlooks the glittering blue pond. The bodies of water around Neverland are so very many different colors, but there's something malicious about all of them.
They belong to Peter Pan, and it's foolish to think that there's not evil lurking within each stream, pond or lake. Not that Regina actually fears this smugly obnoxious teenager in any way, but nor does she have a screaming desire to get eaten by some deformed kind of sea-life controlled by Pan.
"No," Emma agrees.
"Is that Hook's rum?" Regina queries coolly, her eyebrow lifting as she takes in the flask that's clutched tightly in Emma's right hand. "Have you two progressed to objects of affection now? How intolerably sweet and cloying, but I suppose that I should be congratulating you." The words are spit out with entirely too much anger and hurt to be properly sarcastic.
"It is," Emma acknowledges, refusing to rise to the bait about whether there is she and Hook. "And no, he didn't give it to me; I stole it. You know he has an enchantment on this flask? Bottomless rum. What happens if he one day decides that he no longer likes rum and wants maybe vodka."
"He's an alcoholic, Emma," Regina reminds her with a low chuckle. "I'm not all that sure that he actually cares what kind of liquor is in his flask. That said, I can't say that I see Hook trading rum for vodka anytime soon." Then, with unmistakable curiosity, "Why did you steal it from him, anyway?"
"I wanted a drink."
"Why?"
"Because we're on fucking Neverland looking for our son because Peter Pan who isn't a playful little guy kidnapped him, and we're hoping and praying that he's okay, but we both know that he might not be."
"I'm aware of all of this."
"And you're keeping it all together so damned well."
Regina slowly nods her head like she suddenly understands what's going on here. "I'm staying in control if that's what you mean."
"That would be a first."
"Ah."
"Ah?"
"I suppose this is the point where you try to make me hurt so that you're not the only one hurting. You really needn't bother, dear; I always hurt."
Emma sighs and drops the flask back to her lips. "I know."
"What are you angry about?"
"What aren't I angry about? This island is a goddamned nightmare and since the moment we set foot on it, everything that has happened here has been completely awful in every way," Emma grouses as she wipes at her mouth.
"I wouldn't necessarily say that," Regina replies dryly. "You got kissed by a filthy pirate who hasn't showered in probably months if not years. Actually, you kissed him if his story is to be believed. Is it to be believed, dear?"
"He actually told you about it and you didn't rip out his heart?"
"He seems to be telling everyone. It apparently meant quite a bit to him."
"What about the second part?"
"We're not together," she answers simply. "Why did you kiss him."
"He saved my father's life."
Regina chuckles. "Yes. Kind of."
"Which will end up in me losing my parents all over again. Not that it matters because they want another child, anyway."
"It's not that simple."
"Don't you start cheerleading for them," Emma snaps. "The one thing that I'm supposed to be able to always count on from you is that you will always hate them when I need you to. Right now, it's okay to hate them."
"Right now, you're halfway to drunk, and that's the only reason it's okay."
"I'm not halfway to drunk."
"You are. On cheap bottomless rum that your father can't handle because he's a complete...well, nevermind that. I suppose my question for you, Emma, is, if our plans come together tonight and we're able to make a run at Pan, will you be sober enough to do what our son needs you to do or –"
"You can help me," Emma says, looking up at her. "Get me sober."
"Right. I can always be there when you need me to be."
"Hey, I didn't push you away," Emma reminds her.
"And this is hardly the time or the place for this discussion. Nothing that happened between us matters anymore, Emma. All that does is saving our son and bringing him home. The past – all of it – is irrelevant."
"So then why are you so jealous about me kissing Hook?"
"I didn't say that I was."
"You've let me blindfold you," Emma reminds her with a smirk.
"Once and I hated it."
Emma grows serious at the memory of that – not a pleasant one for either one of them and it had ended up with entirely too many tears, but it's still one that had assisted in helping them draw up boundary lines. "True, but you still let me so why don't you trust me enough for the truth now."
Regina sighs. "You deserve better, Emma. You deserved better than me, and you sure as hell deserve better than a pirate who is shifting one long-term obsession to the next. Hook isn't a bad man; he might even at his core be a better person than I am, but this thing he feels for you is desperation and there's nothing good that lies at the bottom of that well. I know that."
"Still doesn't explain your jealousy," Emma reminds her.
"Just because I was stupid enough to let you go doesn't mean I'm ready to see you gallivanting around with someone new. It's bad enough that the idiot whom you still harbor some feeling for didn't manage to conveniently die when he could have, but I'm not sure if I can handle you and Hook."
"Well, don't worry, that kiss is all he's getting. He's not who I want –"
"Stop."
"Why?"
"Because we ended this before I tried to kill everyone."
"Before you were tortured."
Regina waves her hand in the air as if to dismiss Emma's words; she's done much the same anytime anyone has dared to remind her of the hideous hours that she'd spent as an unwilling guest to Greg Mendell's electric vengeance. "Before you were willing to let me die to save Storybrooke."
"Are you kidding me? You're pissed off at me because I did exactly what you asked me to?" Emma asks in disbelief, eyes wide and angry.
"Part of me thinks that I should be, but I'm not because it's what I wanted at that time. I wanted to die a hero that my son could remember with pride instead of a villain that he thought of with disgust. No, if I am truly pissed off about any part of what happened that day, it's that you came back for me. If you hadn't, there's a very good chance Henry would be safe and happy right now somewhere in the middle of the Enchanted Forest." She smiles slightly at this. "Well, you'd only be a few days in so I'm sure safe wouldn't quite be accurate, but he'd be happy for sure. Instead, he's here."
"Because I chose to return for you?"
"Because you always lead with your emotions."
"You're one to talk."
"Yes, I am, because I know better than most people how badly that always end up. Here on Neverland, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm clear-headed about things. All I care about is finding Henry. That's it."
"It's a nice story to tell yourself."
"It's the truth."
"Okay, let's say that it is. What happens after we rescue our son?"
"We bring him home."
"Between us."
"We try to do right by Henry. So I presume that means we figure out custody arrangements and do everything we can to raise him right."
"So nothing changes between us?"
"No."
"Okay." She takes another sip from the flask. "It really is impressive."
Regina lifts an eyebrow and then whirls her hand. "Now it's not."
"That's just cruel," Emma laughs as she drains the last of the rum within it and then shakes the flask to confirm that it truly is empty
"Perhaps, but well, he shouldn't have gone after you. He knows."
"About us?"
She nods her head. "Because my mother knew."
"Oh."
"We should be getting back," Regina says as she rises. She's stopped by a strong hand circling around her delicate wrist, and pulling her back down.
"Henry is going to be okay, right?" Emma asks.
"I was going to ask the same thing of you. I need your confidence," Regina admits, seeming almost embarrassed to have admitted as much.
"And I need yours."
Regina nods her head and smiles. "He's going to be okay because we are going to bring our son home, Emma. That's the only way this ends."
"Okay," Emma says as she stands up. "You know that no matter what happens here or what has happened, I still love you. Nothing has changed."
"I know. Nothing has changed," Regina confirms, and it's her way of echoing the sentiment without saying words that could cause her focus to sway or her heart to break. She simply offers up a watery smile instead.
"Good," Emma says. "Now let's go kick Pan's ass."
Sending Henry back to school turns out to be a giant headache because she doesn't have a birth certificate for him, and when she calls to get a replacement, the idiot at the records desk tells her that she doesn't actually have legal custody of Henry. Apparently, she'd given him up for adoption.
She argues with him for two hours, even explains how she almost did give him up and then decided not to because she couldn't. She tells the poor disinterested guy who seems too lazy to figure out how to hang up on her about how she had held Henry in her arms, and then about his first steps and his first Christmas and his first fall of his bike and…
…and it's all so weird and mechanical. It kind of reminds her of how Henry had recited facts about all of the places that they'd visited on their summer trip through the middle of the country. Especially the ones about Maine.
In the end, though, the dude had been just a sleepy underpaid desk monkey and she'd been forced to throw her phone through a wall. Okay, so perhaps she hadn't needed to do that – as Henry had gently scolded all the while wearing a shit-eating grin and a half – but it'd sure seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Now she has a broken phone and a hole in the wall.
"Going to the Home Depot," she grumbles at him as he watches.
"To get a new phone? Because that's not where you find those," he tells her as he holds up the four – no, five – different pieces of her cell. She narrows her eyes at him, and he just grins again. Sometimes she wonders where this weird sense of sass had come from because it sure as hell hadn't come from her, and Neal had been about as fast as a narcoleptic snail smoking weed.
"No, to get something to patch up that hole. And then a new cell phone."
"Cool. I'm going to play on your laptop," he says.
"Fine, but no porn."
He lifts an eyebrow – so haughty, and that hurts – and shakes his head.
"Whatever," she grunts. "Don't balance my checkbook, either."
"Wouldn't dream of it," he swears.
He's a goddamned liar and they both know it.
So she laughs and he laughs, and he says, "Bring home some noodles?"
"Sure," she says, and then she leans down to kiss him on the top of the head. She does this sometimes; she hugs him as close as possible and he doesn't understand why she has the urgent need to but he also doesn't pull away from her. Perhaps it's because he feels the same thing that she does in those weird moments. Perhaps he, too, feels the almost frantic desire to hold onto something as tight as possible. To never let go again. "I love you, my prince," she murmurs into his hair, and it's so not an Emma thing to say and it feels wrong to both of them but neither one of them moves away.
Until she finally does.
"Noodles," she says. "I have just the place."
"Cool," he says with a nod, and then he turns and steps over towards her computer, dropping his growing gangly body into her desk chair.
And they both sigh in relief.
Because the moment – and all of the weird feelings that it had stirred up within both of them - is over.
"Is the kid all right?" Emma asks, stepping over towards where Regina is staring out at the…clouds. Yeah, this is surreal in a way that she can't even begin to wrap her mind around. They're flying through the sky on a ship meant to sail through the water, and they're using a shadow as power.
Okay.
"He is," Regina nods.
"Are you?"
"Better now," she says. She shakes her head. "I held his heart in my hand."
"I know. It was…"
"Beautiful."
"If you say so."
Regina laughs. "You haven't seen many hearts, dear, so you probably don't know the difference between one that is ugly and one that isn't."
"I don't."
"Crash course, then. What's in me? Ugly. What's in you? Beautiful."
"That's pretty simplistic."
"It's the truth."
"Sometimes I think we have different truths."
"Sometimes?"
"Most of the time."
"Indeed," Regina allows. "But I think we both agree that Henry is beautiful."
"Yeah." There's a few moment of silence, and then, "Can I ask you about something that happened today? Back on the island with Pan?"
"You want to know about why I don't have regrets, I presume?" Regina asks, not yet turning, but her jaw tensing up noticeably in anticipation.
"A little," Emma admits with an uncomfortable shrug. "I mean I understand what you were saying. All roads lead to Henry, and I get that, but…"
"Regret and remorse are not the same things, Emma," Regina says softly, almost thoughtfully, her eyes still on the clouds. "I have a deep amount of remorse for many of the things that I have done. A little more every day, but I can't spend my life regretting what has permitted me the first bit of happiness that I've had since Daniel died. The things I've done – however horrible they have been - they brought me to Henry. And you." She turns to face Emma. "Tell me something, has regretting giving up Henry brought your relationship to a stronger place? Has it made you more honest with him or has it made you more careful? More fearful of screwing up again?"
"You have a point."
"Every now and again."
"You were impressive out there."
"I was the Evil Queen out there."
"I know who you are."
"Yes, the monster that you said I am."
"You pissed me off."
"I did," Regina smirks.
"You're an asshole," Emma laughs in response, because she realizes that despite the dark emotions that hover over Regina, she's not actually hurt by the monster insult. She'd been pushing for it, trying to get Emma to react.
And she'd been looking for a quick reaction instead one from the heart.
"Yes," Regina agrees with a slightly wistful smile. "But I'm an asshole who wanted you to find what's inside of you because you are something amazing, Emma. Something incredible. I hope you understand that."
"If you say so. I'm still not sure I want to use magic more than…at all."
"Believe me, I understand."
"And I don't want to be angry."
"I understand."
"So there has to be another way."
"When you have time to think and focus, there is. You can remember whom you want to protect and you can remember your first puppy and your first kiss and that will work then, but when you don't have time, you have to call up the easiest emotions you can, and sadly, dear, that's always anger."
"That kind of sucks."
"It kind of does."
"You'll still teach me?"
"If the need is there," Regina replies. "To be honest, I'm quite all right with you not using magic if you don't have to, either. Because even when the magic used is good and the intent is good and it saves live and does all the sweet rainbow happiness kinds of things, there is always a price paid."
"Right. I think we should make a drinking game for that phrase."
Regina lifts an eyebrow, an impish grin coming over her lips. "How is Hook handling his mysteriously empty flask? Tell me he swore a lot."
"He did."
"Very good," the former queen chuckles. "Perhaps I'll re-enchant it if he can manage not to hit on you for longer than twenty minutes. Or not."
"And Neal?"
Regina turns back to face the clouds, and Emma wonders what expression her lover is wearing right now. "I won't stand in the way of –"
"I don't want to get back together with him," Emma insists. "I'm okay with him in Henry's life as long as all of us are okay with it –"
"I'm not okay with it," Regina admits. "But Henry wants Neal in his life as his father, and I'm done taking things away from our son simply for my own selfish needs. I'm going to do right by him no matter what it takes."
She feels a hand slip into hers, fingers twining between her own.
"We're in this together."
"Oh, Emma."
"I know."
"You really don't. When we get back to Storybrooke, everything goes back to what it was. I'm still the hated Evil Queen, and you're still the loved Savior. Every reason why I walked away from us before is still there."
"Okay," Emma says, her voice thick with resignation because she's so damned tired. She doesn't pull her hand away, however, and instead just stares out at the clouds with Regina. Boxes and crates hide them so if someone were to look over, all they would see was the two of them side by side. After a few long moments, Emma finally murmurs, "My prince?"
"What?"
"I went downstairs to see Henry, but you were still tucking him in, and I didn't want to interrupt you two. I heard you call him 'my prince'."
"He is."
"Yeah," Emma nods, and tightens her grip.
Though she knows that she should, Regina doesn't pull away from Emma's hold until it is time to help descend the ship into Storybrooke. Until it's time to return to a reality where they don't exist and she's the reason why.
It's while she's cleaning out the Bug – for the first time since she and Henry had gotten home from their trip many long months earlier (Emma's never been much for cleaning) that she finds the packet of paperwork stuffed in one of the pockets behind the passenger seat. In it is a birth certificate as well as other school documentation. Exactly the kind of stuff she'd been looking for. And it all shows that she is, in fact, Henry's legal mother.
There'd never been adoption, and this paperwork proves that.
Which is weird because it all feels so very convenient.
The weirdest part, though, is that she finds herself staring at Henry's name.
Henry Daniel Swan.
She tries to remember exactly why she would have given him either of those names because neither one is a name that she's overly fond of. It's not like she actively dislikes them, but she thinks she would have chosen something more modern and new-fangled. Henry is almost sophisticated and Daniel is simple. In the end, she assumes she was just drugged up or terribly young.
Neither answer settles well, but then there's that need to just let it go.
So she does exactly that because Henry is asking her to cook up some lasagna for him, and she's thinking that yeah, that sounds like a hell of a plan for tonight. Maybe she'll add in something to give it some…kick?
Later that night, her stomach revolts on her even though Emma's fairly certain that she's not actually sick, and she spends an hour on the cold bathroom floor staring at the toilet thinking about red pepper flakes.
When she wakes up in the morning, Henry notices her exhaustion, and he teases her because he thinks she was brooding on the balcony again, and he tells her that rum will do that to you. She immediately replies that it was whiskey even though she hadn't had a sip of liquor besides red wine with the lasagna. Some days, she feels like she's not even herself. This is one of those, and she has to force herself to not show Henry how scattered she is, but he sees it, anyway. He thinks she's just sick, and he orders her to bed, and tells her that she's been working too hard – and she has; this month alone she's already returned four bounties just in the New York area – and she just needs to start taking better care of herself. He's right, of course.
It's late when she finally pads out of her room again, and makes her way out to the balcony. She looks out over the city and sighs. And almost immediately misses the cool coastal air. Which makes no sense at all.
"Hey," she hears as he comes out and stands next to her, a tall glace of orange juice in his hand. He offers it to her, and she takes it without protest because he's giving her that look that tells it'd be wasted, anyway.
"Hey. Sorry about earlier," she says.
"Why?"
"Because you're not supposed to take care of me."
"We're in this together," he says.
She stares at him for a long moment – because these words sound so terribly painfully familiar – but then she just nods her head. "Yeah."
She puts her hands out on the rail, and his eyes flicker to the brown shoelace that she has wound around her wrist. "You never did tell me why you wear that," he says, and it's a lazy disinterest question meant simply to keep her talking because she knows that he's worried about her mindset.
He thinks she's exhausted, and that's all this is. He's probably right, but never has exhaustion felt so much like trying to wear someone else's clothes, and doing it all wrong. Never has it felt so damned heartbreaking.
Which is absolutely absurd, of course because she looks in the mirror and sees herself, and this weird thought about clothes just makes no sense.
She slowly follows his eyes to the shoelace, and shrugs her shoulders awkwardly. "Old boyfriend," she says after a long moment.
"Do you keep something from all of your old boyfriends? Like my dad?" he seems almost hopeful about this, and that hurts, too.
She reaches down towards her neck as if to feel for the little medal that Neal had given her so many years ago, but then her fingers scrape against nothing besides the other necklace that she's always worn. "No," she says softly. "Not anymore." She frowns, though, because hadn't it been there?
"Oh," he says. "Okay. So why did you keep that one? I mean a shoelace."
She thinks and she thinks and she thinks, and it's almost like a chunk of something on a wall falls off and she sighs, "He died," she tells him, and she tries to remember how and from what, but she just knows that it was bad.
And it hurt.
And that's enough for her.
"And I wanted to honor him," she concludes, using a tone – soft, though it is – that she hopes relays to Henry that this conversation needs to be over.
It works.
Or at least it does until he remembers that his dad was supposed to have died a hero – a firefighter – and he frowns. "But nothing from dad?"
"There was something," she tells him, her hand touching her neck again. "But it's…I must have lost it along the way." She touches her chest. "He's in here, though, kid. And that's…that's enough for both of us, okay?"
"Okay."
Then he reaches his hand out and takes hers.
And she thinks maybe she really does need to take better care of herself because right now what she'd really like to do is break down and cry.
"You're not supposed to be here," Regina says, but before the words are even out of her mouth, Emma is on the bed, and she's pressing Regina back into the mattress and kissing her as hard as she can. Because they're home, and Henry is sound asleep down the hall and everything is finally okay.
"Not supposed to be or shouldn't be," Emma murmurs as she starts working on the buttons of the blue pajama top that Regina is wearing. Her green eyes track over towards a gray bathrobe folded up on the dresser, and she smirks because she's seen Regina wearing that a few times. Just that.
It's a lovely visual.
"Both," Regina groans out as Emma tosses the shirt away, and quickly drops her mouth down to press against flesh which quickly responds to her.
"Then tell me to leave," Emma breathes, having no intention of doing so.
"I should."
That stops Emma cold and she sits up. "Why?"
"Because you were surprised that Henry wanted to come home with me."
"I'm jealous, too," Emma admits with a sheepish sigh. "And I didn't want him out of my sight, either. It was…I don't know. Kid had been acting strange all night, and I let my spidey senses override…am I babbling?"
"You are."
"Is it endearing at least?"
"Not particularly."
"I'm sorry, okay? I'm just still on edge."
"I know, but there's no reason to be. Everything is for once…it's okay."
"Wow, I never thought I'd hear you say that," Emma chirps.
"I meant superhero wise," Regina retorts. "I'm still who I was six hours ago, Emma, and everything I said on Hook's stupid ship is still true."
"Right."
"Which means that you shouldn't be here."
Emma nods her head as if to suggest that she's actually turning all of this over in her head, but then she says simply, "Sure, but I'd like to be."
"Because sex is easy."
"It is," Emma agrees, and then leans in and kisses Regina again. There's some resistance, but not enough to feel genuine, and then there's a hand tapping lightly against her spine, and she feels Regina pulling her down.
Until Regina grunts and pushes her away.
"You should go," she says. And then she blinks and does it again.
Like she's trying to blink something back.
"If you want me to, but for it's worth, I'm not just here for sex."
"I know and…I don't."
"Then –"
"But I am trying so hard to be strong and do the right thing. Henry doesn't need us tangled up in ourselves. He needs us to be there for him. Because right now he's scared that something could still come after him, and I tried to reassure him, but I think it's going to take awhile until he's not scared."
"So we focus on our son."
"Yes."
"I can do that. I'm okay with that."
"Good."
"But when he's not scared, when he's better and himself again, and when everything really is okay again, we're going to have this talk whether you want to or not. I can be just as goddamned stubborn as you can be."
"I don't think you came here for a talk," Regina notes wryly.
"No," Emma admits because she refuses to be dismissed so easily. "I came here because I miss holding you, Regina. I want to hold you right now."
"You miss cuddling with me," Regina fires back, smirking slightly.
"That, too. So, if you don't want to do anything tonight, I'm okay with that, but if it's all right with you, I'd like to stay because our kid is sleeping down the hallway, and I really do just want to be…right here," Emma states.
Regina sighs, like she's being asked to cut off her hand. Like she doesn't actually care what happens her. They both know better. "Very well."
Which is enough to make Emma grin. "That said –"
"You're not opposed to sex?"
Emma shrugs. "I could lie."
"Always the truth from you, Emma," Regina replies almost desperately, her dark eyes so full of emotion and need and yes, even hope. "Please."
"Okay, then the truth is that I love you and right now what I'd like to do is make love to you. If you'll let me. And if you don't want, that's okay, too."
She lowers her hand, slips her fingers between Regina's, and then waits.
Until she feels soft lips against her own.
"I love you, too," she hears, the words vibrating against her.
She exhales and falls into Regina.
She takes a job as a consultant for the local police department; now that her file has been cleared, and she can provide her credentials, they're happy to have someone with her track record of retrieving dirt bags. Her only stipulation is that she won't go out of town because she has a thirteen year old son, and even though he thinks he's old enough to stay alone, he isn't.
They're okay with that because New York is a fuck of a city, and there really are a lot of terrible people walking the streets with evil in their minds. Or so she tells herself because never before has the word EVIL seemed so simple.
She brings in a man named Frankie Wilson, and he's a bad guy who has stolen from a lot of people, and hurt everyone around him. And then she listens as the detectives go through his past, and she sees Frankie break down, and she thinks, "you poor son of a bitch, you never had a chance."
She almost quits that day.
Instead, she just doesn't pick up any assignments for two weeks. She tells Henry it's because she misses time with him, and he sees right through her (even though he doesn't know what it is bothering her) but he humors her because his mother is complicated and complex and she's still his mom.
There's a night in the first week of December when they've been living in New York for almost a year now, and he comes out into the kitchen and sits down next to her with a book. He frowns and says, "Do you believe in fairytales?" She almost laughs, but he looks so very serious so she doesn't.
"Why?" she asks, and then turns around the book to see that he's reading Grimm's, and in particular, he's reading the story of Snow White.
"School reading," he says. "It's kind of…awful. They make the Evil Queen wear iron shoes and dance until she's dead. Makes me feel…sick?" He shrugs. "That's stupid, though, right? Because she's evil and deserves it."
She picks up the book and looks at it, her eyes skimming over the passages of a very old story about vanity and envy. It seemed so inconsequential and there's this sudden voice in the back of her head telling her that no, this isn't really how things had gone down. But that's utter craziness because it's not like these are real people, anyway; these are just overly simple made-up stories meant to frighten children into behaving and eating their pees.
"I think it's complicated," Emma finally says, closing the book. "And I think this is probably the most simple telling of this story that there is. There are others that are better if you're looking for something more…nuanced?"
"You've read up on Snow White and the Evil Queen?"
Emma blinks because no, she doesn't think she has. And yet she knows she has. She knows for a fact that she's read almost every book she could get her hands on about the rivalry between these two terribly strong women.
Weird.
"Yeah," she says. "Guess so."
He gives her a look like he thinks that's a strange answer, but then lets it pass like always. "You have any of them?" he asks. "I'd like to read them."
"I don't think so, but we can order them online if you find one you like."
"Okay." He stands up and starts away from the table before turning back and saying, "These stories all make it sound like people are just good or bad. Is that true? Is there just one way to be and you're one of them?"
"No, kid. No one is completely good or completely bad. Those stories never tell the entire…life is complex and people do really fu- awful things, but that doesn't mean that deep down, they're bad inside. Sometimes life just screwed them, and they reacted and then keep reacting until they lose the way back to who they always wanted to be." The words spill from her mouth, and for a moment she almost looks surprised but then she meets Henry's eyes, and he seems to understand so she doesn't pull them back.
"Thanks for being honest," he says.
"Always," she promises. "Now go get ready for bed."
"Sure."
"Hey. Leave the book."
"You've read better."
"I know, but I'm curious."
"Okay." He tosses it down on the table and leaves, his long lanky frame moving quickly and easily. Yeah, it really won't be long until he's taller.
She smiles to herself and then picks up the book.
And starts reading Snow White.
That night, she orders almost every book she can about that particular story that she can; she says that she does it for Henry, but when they arrive, she reads through each one of them like can't not. Like she's obsessed.
She is.
This is the end of things, and they both know it. They're readying the Bug for a drive out of Storybrooke that Emma doesn't want to take. She doesn't want to do this, but everyone is so calmly insistent that she must.
That this is the only way to save everyone once again.
If she stays and Regina destroys the curse, she'll be swept back to the Enchanted Forest and Henry will be left behind all alone. If Regina doesn't destroy the original curse, they will all end up absent their memories serving out Pan's twisted vision even though he's no longer around to control it.
Which means she has to leave.
So she stands next to the curb, her hand on the door of her Bug and she looks around Storybrooke because she intends to remember everything.
Especially the woman walking towards her.
The one that's going to tell her that it's time to walk away.
The others have already headed to the town line so it's just she and Regina; they'd both agreed to allow Neal a few minutes alone with Henry since it will likely be the last time he ever sees the son that just a few months ago he didn't even know he had. That should be funny, but it's just sad.
All of this is just so fucking sad.
"Are you ready?" Regina asks, and her voice is cool and her eyes are cool, and it's like none of this is affecting her like Emma knows that it is.
So Emma – and God, she's so just done with all of this and all of the pretending and all of the acting like none of this hurts or matters even a little bit - turns around and she kisses Regina. Hard and passionate like this might be the last time they ever do this. It probably will be, and Emma feels tears on both of their faces, and knows that they're both crying.
"You were gone this morning," Regina whispers. "You left me."
It triggers in Emma's mind, then, why Regina had been so icy and so dismissive about her concerns about Henry acting weird near the convent. It hadn't just been about jealousy; it'd been about hurt and anger.
She'd felt abandoned. She'd felt like a promise had been broken.
"Oh," she says softly. And then, because this moment right here and now is about more than this morning, she whispers, "I didn't want to. I don't want to now. I want to stay right here. I don't want to…ever leave."
"I know," Regina says, and then kisses her back with as much force.
Because this is all over, and there's just no more time for dancing around and wondering if she's good enough for Emma or ever will be. It simply just doesn't matter, anymore. Even less so because she knows the last bit of the curse – the part that she hasn't yet told Emma.
The horrible little clause that explains how an hour from now, Emma won't remember anyone in this town. Not her ex-boyfriend, not her pirate suitor, not all of her friends, not her beloved parents and certainly not the woman who she is at the moment clinging to like she's her last lifeline.
So this is for all the marbles.
Because Regina will remember.
Everything.
That's her curse, apparently.
"I love you," she whispers. And then does it again.
And fills her mind and her memories with Emma repeating the words back to her. And kissing her like she wants to burn this into her brain.
That's not possible for Emma, but it is for Regina.
"It's time," she finally says, because there's thick green smoke in the air, and she won't ever allow Henry to be alone. He will be loved and he will be remembered, and Emma will carry all of their pasts with her even if she doesn't remember it as such. There's a way to do this, Regina knows.
It's the magic of the curse, and it's going to do something right for her for once. It's going to allow her to give Emma a good life, and good memories.
Emma doesn't need to know the specifics of how – or where the memories necessary to fully flesh her own out are coming from (absent the curse to act as a fogging agent, the Savior will need a far thicker foundation in order to actually believe the things in her head without wondering if they're just images from television shows that she'd watched long ago) and she doesn't need to know that Regina plans to implant a few suggestions in there (don't think too hard on what you don't understand, there are bank accounts available to you, make sure Henry gets lots of sleep and please limit his sugar intake, and above all else, be happy). All she needs to know is that she'll be with Henry, and together, the two of them will always be okay.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts so unbelievably badly, but then Emma is holding her and she thinks that at least they will be loved and God how much she's changed because that really is enough for her to let them both Henry and Emma go for go. It's enough for her to finally do what must be done.
To do what will break her heart into a thousand sharp shards of glass.
So she kisses Emma once more and waits for Emma to agree.
Because she's the Savior, she finally does.
And together, they head towards the town line.
Towards goodbye.
He's waiting for outside of the police department when she comes out, and the weird looking bastard in the filthy leather trench is lucky as hell that she doesn't deck him for stalking her, but there's something familiar about him.
So she just glares at him.
Which makes him smile. "Familiar," he notes.
"Fantastic. What the hell do you want?"
"As I told you, love, your family needs you." He seems so honest and sincere, and it's so very weird on him that it almost makes her stop. Almost.
"And as I told you – love – my only family is the boy I'm about to go pick up from school so if we're done here –"
"We're not," he says forcefully. "I need you to listen, Swan, because if you don't, people that you care about – people that you love – will die."
"All right, fine, I'll play along. People like?"
"Your mother."
"Don't have one. Orphan. Long story. Not the best. Next?"
"Your lover."
"Definitely don't have one of those. Haven't – not that it's any of your business considering you introduced yourself to me with your lips – had one in over two months." She wrinkles her nose. "You don't mean you, do you?"
"Alas, no. Turns out you don't quite go for my type anymore."
"Ren-Fairish?"
He cocks his head like he doesn't understand so she waves the comment away, though there's no way he couldn't understand. Unless he's just crazy.
"Male," she says with a vaguely lecherous smirk.
"Look," she starts again.
"No, you look," the man (she realizes that she still doesn't know his name) replies, with as much force as before and a sudden weird amount of almost wild-eyed desperation that makes her jaw snap shut in surprise. "I came a terribly long way to find you, Swan, and your father and I had to make a lot of deals that will cost us a very lot. Your mother and your former lover disappeared three weeks ago, and we need your help to find them."
"Why me?" She sighs, and then she wonders why she's even humoring this guy enough to ask follow-up questions. This is pure delusion here.
"Because you find people," he replies, seeming almost affectionate.
"Usually for money."
He considers this for a moment. "If you help me, I will pay you."
"I'm very expensive."
"I will make it worthy your while."
Her lie detector is pinging like a bitch, and everything is telling her that if this man has two shiny nickels on him, that would be a surprise indeed. But there's something on his face that make her so very curious. And she finds herself almost wanting to understand the crazy that this is weird man.
"Why did you kiss me if you knew I had another lover?"
He chuckles. "I had my own hopes."
"You're in love with me?" she asks in clear disbelief.
"You are…you are a special woman, Swan."
"Yeah, got that. I attract weirdos like stale bread attracts pigeons."
He gives her another one of those looks, like he just doesn't understand, but then he smiles and it's so full and cheesy and she almost laughs.
"So do we have a deal?" he asks, seeming impatient.
"You'll make it worth my while?"
"Well…"
"Stop whatever you're about to say right there," she suggests, an eyebrow lifted up. "Because I will kick you in the balls again. Understood?"
He sighs. "Right. Yes. If you find the people I'm looking for, it will be made worth your while. I promise." This time, her lie detector doesn't ping.
"Fine. Okay. But if you try anything creepy…"
"You have my word."
"That's supposed to mean something to me?"
"I hope it will eventually." He reaches into his jacket and extracts a flask. "Shall we drink on our agreement, then?" He holds it up to her. "Rum."
"Seriously?"
"I'm an old-fashioned man."
"You're something. Why would I ever take a drink from a strange man who keeps hitting on me? I really don't have a desire to wake up drugged and naked in a dirty alley. Which reminds me, what's your name, anyway?"
"Cap-" he stops, smiles brightly, all teeth. "Would you believe Hook?"
"No."
He shrugs, and then tilts the flask back to his lips, as if he's taking a heavy swig from it. She sees his throat move, and yeah, he's definitely drinking.
"So," he says. "Not poisoned, and not full of anything that will make you vulnerable. Not how I prefer my women. It's just rum. To seal the deal."
"I'm going crazy," she laughs. "Absolutely crazy. I'm about to take a drink – which probably still does have some kind of date rape drug that immune ton it - from a flask of a guy who apparently thinks he's Captain Hook and is asking me to go save my mother and my lover. Who are they exactly?"
"Seal the deal and I will tell you everything," Hook promises before taking another hefty swig. He then offers her the flask again.
She really does know better.
God she does.
She thinks this has to be because this man is so familiar to her.
Or because…maybe she's tired?
Yeah, she probably won't tell Henry about this; he'd flip the fuck out.
She takes the flask, looks at the rusted metal, and is about to laugh and decline – because yes, yes yes, she knows better and this is silly - until she sees the name engraved into the bottom edge of it: K. Jones.
She looks up at him. He smiles. She doesn't recognize him, doesn't remember him at all, but he's familiar and he makes her think of clothes that don't fit, memories that aren't right, and paperwork that's too right.
She sighs and brings the flask to her lips.
It doesn't taste like rum.
But she barely notices beneath all of the memories flooding her brain.
She gasps and falls and he's got his arms around her to keep her from crashing to the dirty cement, but he might as well not even be there.
Because she's seeing Regina holding her hands and promising her a happy life. She sees Regina gazing at her with so much love as she gives Emma her own memories – her own fucking life – in order to make Emma's better.
She opens her eyes – so full of tears now – and looks up at Hook.
"Welcome back, love," he says.
"Regina," she whispers.
He nods. "Needs your help. She and your mother disappeared three weeks ago. Thanks to a deal with Theodora, we have obtained magical proof that they both live, but are both badly injured. We need you, Emma."
"Theodora?" she asks weakly, wracking her brain and coming up empty.
"The Wicked Witch of the West," he chuckles because maybe it's just a little bit absurd to even Captain Hook. "Old friend of Regina's. Not a good one."
"Of course not," Emma drawls, her head still pounding beneath the force of all of the memories and emotions that she's now feeling and understanding. "And I presume you have a way to get us back to the Enchanted Forest?"
"I do."
"Then I guess it's time to go pick up my son and bring him back to his mother," she says. "And then she blinks. "I really did forget everything."
"But now you remember," Hook assures her. "And she never forget you."
"You kissed me," she says accusingly.
"Can't blame a lad for trying."
"I will kick you again." Then she smiles. "I guess it's time to go save everyone all over again, huh?"
"Indeed, Swan," he replies with a cheeky grin.
And she returns it because never before has she been so happy to be the Savior.
She gets in the car, and for a moment, she just sits there. She can't move, can't even think to touch the steering wheel because once she does, then it really will all be over. Once she crosses the line and Regina destroys the curse, so much will be taken from her. She looks in the rearview mirror, and she can see all of those who love and who are loved staring back at her.
She thinks of Neal, who allowed the weakness of his own character to destroy his chance at happiness. Who never deserved any of this pain.
She thinks of Hook, who so desperately wants to love again that he will grab on with both hands to even the chance of a perfect happy ending.
She thinks of her parents. Well, at least they'll be together. She hopes that they get a second chance at everything they've always wanted, and finds that the hurt she felt before is less because she just wants them happy.
Then she thinks of Regina.
And tears just start to fall.
Because it wasn't supposed to happen like this, and there's nothing she can do besides find Regina's eyes in the mirror and see the loss there.
It's Henry who puts the Bug into drive. Henry, whose hand settles over her, and he tells her over and over again that they won't forget, they won't.
They'll never forget.
They're both crying when their memories fade.
-Fin