The sun was just cresting over the trees on what looked like it was going to be the perfect August morning when Emma pulled her yellow bug up to the town line. Maine's summer fog still lingered by the road, slowly dissipating into the misty air. It wasn't often that she had a chance to take a moment and truly enjoy how beautiful this small town of hers was, and it really was. She killed the engine but didn't budge, simply taking in the view through her windshield. The way the sun danced on the moist air made it glitter like magic, but so much better because it wasn't. Iridescent dragonflies swooped here and there, looking so much like tiny dragons that it had her wondering just how different this world was, in the end, from the Enchanted Forest. Standing in the middle of it all was the most stunning part of this woodland tableau, at least in Emma's opinion. Her back was to Emma, showing no signs that she'd heard, or cared, that a vehicle had approached, even as Emma finally pushed open her creaking driver's side door and stepped out.
"Henry called." Emma said by way of greeting. The slightest tensing of Regina's shoulders the only indication that she'd heard her. Emma approached slowly, out of respect for Regina's space rather than any kind of caution or fear. The time for being afraid of Regina had long since passed, there was simply too much between them for that.
"He heard you leave, he said you didn't take your car so he thought you'd be back, but, well it's been hours Regina." Still no reaction. "He was worried about you."
"Why was he awake? He should have been sleeping." Ever the mother, Regina's first instinct was to worry, then scold for perceived misbehavior.
"I think he was writing. Besides, it's summer. Let the kid live a little." She crossed the town line as she spoke, sucking in a breath as she felt her magic vanish. She came to stand next to Regina who was dressed, surprisingly, in a pair of grey cotton drawstring pajama pants with a fashionably oversized cashmere sweater.
"Are those my pants?"
"I'll wash them." As if that answered the question. Emma let it go, she wasn't going push Regina, not this morning, not today. They stood side by side in a neutral silence, the fog nearly gone now, the sunlight more yellow than orange.
"Do you think I could have been good?" Regina's voice was a husky whisper.
"You are good." Emma didn't hesitate, not even for a second. Regina was-is-good, and not just because she no longer housed the Evil Queen within her body, but because deep down her heart was so astoundingly good. Regina shook her head.
"No, Emma, I'm not, but thank you for saying that." Again, Emma stayed quiet. No pushing. More silence, the dragonflies were gone now.
"I just wonder, if I'd grown up here, would I-could I-have been a better person? Could I have made a good life out there or was being like this my fate no matter what world I called home?" Emma had never heard Regina sound quite so defeated and it broke her heart.
"Regina, your life was shit. Becoming who you were, it wasn't all your fault, you know that. Your mother, Rumple, the King, they are as much if not more to blame for the Evil Queen as you are. You were forced to survive hell, and you just did what you had to do to get through it." Perhaps it was an overly simplified version of history, and Emma knew that in the end Regina had gone beyond just surviving and over the line into murderous vengeful rage, but she absolutely believed that ultimately the Evil Queen was the product of her environment more than any inherent evil within Regina's heart. Regina wasn't buying it.
"Your life was shit too," 'because of me' went unsaid but implied, "you did what you had to in order to survive it, but you didn't become cruel. You didn't become a monster."
"I was a monster in my own way." Regina scoffed at that. "I hurt a lot of people. I hurt myself." Emma wouldn't go further, wouldn't try to compete with Regina.
"Why can't I ever be enough?" The words were raw, cracking with emotion.
"You are eno-" Emma was cut off by Regina's hand coming up to clasp itself around her forearm, squeezing, though she still refrained from looking in her direction.
"No." The certainty of that one word left no room for argument. "I was never driven enough for my mother, never kind enough for my father, never vicious enough for Rumple, never nurturing enough for Snow, never refined enough for Leopold, never loving enough for Henry," a humorless laugh interrupting the endless list of failings, "I was never even evil enough to achieve my vengeance. And now I'm not good enough for a happy ending."
Emma brought her hand to lay atop the one Regina was still holding her forearm with in a now bruising grip, turning her body to face Regina fully.
"Regina." Firmly, her tone saying 'you need to listen to me'. "You are enough. For me. You are enough for me." A breath, two, five, ten, twenty. Finally turning to face her, the intensity in Regina's eyes nearly enough to burn (perhaps, were they five paces back on the other side of the line where magic flowed, it would have).
"Am I, Emma?" Incredulous. "Is this enough for you?" Pulling Emma by the arm, back across the red painted border. With a flourish she gestured to herself, from top to bottom, with her free hand. Emma took in the sight of her best friend, a woman she cared about with frightening depth, seeing her as she'd never seen her before. Regina was...bare, in more ways than one. She stood before Emma in nothing but her bra and underwear, though there was nothing sexual about the situation, and Emma was vaguely aware that she probably should not have felt a subtle warmth spark to life low in her belly at the sight of her friend like this. Along with her clothes, what must have been a glamour that Regina kept up at all times had vanished. Emma's eyes wandered over the petite figure before her, taking in every inch in absolute awe. Scars marred Regina's skin, all old and gnarled, a road map of the harm that had been inflicted over the years. A solid line of purple-ish brown two inches long lay just below her breast bone, disturbingly close to the place that her heart lay hidden within. The thick, lumpy flesh of healed burns ran all along Regina's arms, and a fine pale slice crossing one cheek. Most captivating of all was her face itself, with no make-up to dress it up, Emma found herself looking at the very soul of Regina painted across her skin in the form of gentle wrinkles around her eyes-proof of the way her smiles could like up her whole face if she let them, furrows between them told of too many years of worry, while the lines on her forehead illustrated just how brilliantly expressive her eyebrows were, able to say whole sentences without a single word. Though she still looked only a fraction of her true age, it was far clearer now the years that this body had lived.
Despite the questions swirling through her mind ('Why hadn't magic healed these scars?', 'How did she keep up that glamour all the time?', 'How long had she been hiding like this?', 'Why does she always wear so much make-up?', 'Where did these injuries come from?', 'How come I never saw the scars on her arms before the curse broke? I certainly saw her arms. God, those arms...') Emma managed to pull her focus to what really mattered. She fixed Regina with an unwavering stare, daring her to really look into her eyes, to see the truth of her words.
"Yes Regina, you are enough. All of this, it's just part of who you are, it doesn't take anything away from you. You are just Regina, and that's enough for me." A wave of her own hand found Regina not re-glamoured, she wouldn't dare, but redressed. Regina's eyes were teary, looking back at her in utter disbelief, such wonder in them that it made it nearly impossible for Emma to hold the gaze. She was never good at being anyone's rock, but for Regina she would try.
"Henry's waiting." The sun was well over the trees now, the air rapidly warming to the sort of humid summer day that begged for a trip to the beach.
"Yes, I suppose he is." Birds sang high above, the forest completely awake and alive.
"What do you say we go back to your place just us having breakfast with our son."
"Just us?"
"Yup. Just Regina and Just Emma having breakfast with Just Henry. Just a family," (because they were, weren't they? In their own way, just them, together) "I'll even let you cook for me." Finally, a smile, a rueful shake of her head.
"Oh you'll let me, will you?" Emma wrapped her arm around Regina's waist, pulling her to her side, a first that they both elected to simply let happen, and moved her back towards the bug. Right before sliding into the passenger seat Regina stilled, raising one eyebrow and staring Emma down, some of her usual confidence sliding back into place.
"Do drive safely dear. I may be 'Just Regina' but I will still kill you if I perish in this death trap of yours." Emma gave her a two fingered salute, a good natured mocking gesture.
"Yes m'am. You can trust me." The underlying meaning behind those words not lost on either of them. "Besides, you know I'd never let anything happen before I've eaten. I couldn't possibly die on an empty stomach." As if on cue, her stomach gave a loud grumble, resulting in her sheepish smile and a full out laugh from Regina as the little yellow car pulled away from the magical border keeping the world out and them in.
Today they would start trying to be Just Emma and Just Regina, and maybe, just maybe, that would be just enough.