Author's note: This is another of my Google drive bits. Emma becomes invisible. Timeline: Second season, tucked between "The Queen of Hearts" and "The Cricket Game."

.

I See You

"Regina, we have to talk about Cora."

Regina still felt her body humming with the magic from the death curse she had inhaled. Resentfully she wanted only for Emma to leave so she could dispel the magic overload in peace. "I want to see Henry."

"He's asleep already at the loft. I'll bring him by tomorrow. But your mother... this can't wait."

"The portal's closed." Regina lifted her hands so Emma could see the magic sparking, completely against her will, among her fingers.

"Regina, are you all right?" Emma's eyes were wide on her fingers.

"Don't sound like you care," Regina barked. "Henry begged me. I did it for him. Certainly not for you."

Emma nodded. She reached out toward Regina's still sparking hand, green eyes flitting between the hands and Regina's face. "Hey, hey, I know, but..." A spark tried to jump from Regina to Emma. They both jumped back in alarm.

"Regina," Emma pleaded. "Cora still has Hook with her, and if I am any gauge of people, that wily pirate already knows another way here."

"No!" and Regina couldn't decide if the more overriding emotion is fear of her mother, or fear that the death curse magic will rip apart her life before she can face her mother.

"Can we get this stuff out of you? Somehow bottle it, like the True Love potion Rumple had? Use it against her?"

Regina's teeth were chattering now, she could feel her riled emotions giving pulsing life to the death curse inside her and it felt like the damn thing was clawing its way through her veins trying to find her heart. She reached for her throat at the sense of constriction.

Emma grabbed for Regina's wrist. "Whoa, whoa! Hold on there!" She kept Regina's hand, still sparking with wicked lightning sparks of inky black magic, from touching her skin. "That's probably not a good idea."

"What's not a good idea is you touching me!" Regina growled. She forced her anger outward toward Emma, and blindly the magic threw Emma into the nearby wall.

Getting to her feet, Emma tried again to grab Regina's magic-raging hands. The brunette stumbled back from her with a yelp, falling and breaking a heel, turning her ankle in the process.

"Get out!" Regina pushed ineffectually up from the floor. "Miss Swan," she said. "I do not want to see you again until Henry is with you. I will not be kept from my son any longer."

"I'm not leaving you like this!"

Emma's hand landed on Regina's arm, but in the same space of trying to compose another set down to drive the blonde away, and Emma's attempt to say something else, Emma vanished right before her eyes. Regina jerked around, gaze darting this way and that. She shoved off the floor only to impact something with her head and shoulder simultaneously, knocking herself back to the ground with a seemingly skull-cracking thunk. "What was that?!"

She again tried to climb to her feet, only to feel her face impact something hard as a rock. Her hands flew to her nose as blood poured forth and she fell back to the floor.

"What the hell is going on?" And while she had been thinking exactly that, Regina froze. She hadn't said it.

"Emma?"

"Yeah?"

"Where are you?"

"Right here."

"Okay," Regina said. "This is a problem."

"I've already told you that."

"Not my mother," Regina replied tightly. "Somehow you've gone invisible."

"I've what?"

"Look, well... maybe not look... Okay. Putting it simply, apparently you are here, but I can't see you."

"You can't see me? What the hell?"

"Exactly what I thinking."

"I gotta siddown."

Regina watched for any signs of Emma's presence. She couldn't feel her or see her, and it was deeply unnerving, even for an experienced magic user like herself.

Rather than guess, she decided to give directions, hoping Emma would follow them. "Let's go to the sitting room," she said around her hands pressing on her swelling nose.

###

The quiet and calm lasted only a few moments. Apparently Emma was reaching the end of her rope. "This can't happen now. I have to protect Henry!" Emma sounded frantic now. "I have to protect you."

Exhaling, Regina snapped her fingers, materializing a cold compress from her freezer. She situated the compress on her face and lay back on the cushions in her sitting room. She directed her comments to the empty end of the couch.

"Miss Swan, only you could profess protecting me when you have instead bumbled your way into breaking the heels of both my shoes, twisted my knee, given me a black eye, and nearly broken my nose."

"I'm sorry," Emma reiterated. Regina snapped around toward her voice and fell off the cushions, hitting her head on the low table on the way to the floor.

"Miss Swan!" Regina shrugged off the touch of fingers on her arms and dragged herself back onto the cushions, this time rubbing the back of her head.

"Shit, I'm sorry. Are you all right?" Unseen fingers circled on the back of her head, cupping her scalp. Regina sighed in relief, the pain fading. The fingertips continued circling. The pain leached away.

Regina leaned again into the touch and only jumped a little when Emma spoke once more. "You all right?"

She lifted up slowly to answer, sighed when she still saw nothing of the other woman and started to lay back down. Her head connected with a soft unseen warmth. She tried to ignore the thought it was probably Emma Swan's breast, but there was no denying the body heat made her sore head feel better.

"Now," Regina sighed. "I believe it is time for your folly to end, Miss Swan." She had tried for stern, but her voice came out breathy and tender instead. She pushed away and sat up.

"What?"

"Make yourself visible once more."

Emma took her hands from Regina's, who immediately missed their caress. "I don't know how I did it," Emma said.

Regina stared in the direction of Emma's voice. She could easily imagine the blond woman's sad eyes, matching the voice beneath the words that implored her to fix this.

She sighed and rubbed her head once again. "Oh for…" She trailed off, realizing it would be futile to get upset. She should have suspected; Emma was a Charming after all. She stood and wobbled. Suddenly there was a steadying grip on her shoulders. She inhaled sharply in surprise at the unseen support. Charming indeed. "I'll get the book."

Abandoning Emma's touch, Regina stepped away to the cabinet where she had locked her mother's spell book. Lifting her arms to unlock the door, Regina shivered at the sensation of a light pressure on her low back. She surmised Emma was leaning around her to get a look inside the cabinet as well. She stiffened.

Emma apparently got the message. The touch vanished and "Sorry," sounded directly off her right shoulder in Emma's voice.

"Go sit down."

"I can't. I fall right to the floor."

Regina frowned in confusion as she held the book to her chest and relocked the cabinet. "What?"

"I can't touch anything in the room. I just go right through it."

Regina shook her head. Such a thing had never happened to her. "But you tripped me. So obviously you can touch something."

"The first time I tripped you, I had tripped myself, trying to avoid a wall corner, but then I fell right through that anyway. D'you know how freaky it is to look down and see your waist disappearing into a wall?"

She'd never heard of an invisibility spell with such odd conditions. Sitting again on the sofa, Regina opened the book on her lap. Suddenly warm weight pressed on her shoulders and she felt an unnerving and unseen presence beside her left cheek. "Miss Swan."

"Sorry." Breath wafted across her cheek, sending a shiver down Regina's spine.

The weight left Regina's shoulders and the breaths vanished from her cheek. Regina inhaled and settled herself to reading. Page after page of potions, spells, incantations (yes, there was a difference), and warding marks (aka 'hexes') passed under Regina's fingertips and before her eyes, until they began to cross… and close. Her eyelids grew heavier.

###

"Regina." The voice against her ear was deep and soft, soothing. She rolled her head toward it and murmured with pleasure. Pressure on her arm increased, then fingertips were stroking her face. "Regina."

"Mmm hmm?" she murmured.

"You fell asleep."

Regina blinked and sat up. Her body impacted something both solid and soft. Still groggy, she jerked away. Arms wrapped around her, at least it felt like arms, though she couldn't see anything. The room was pitch dark. "How long was I out? Where's the light?"

"I can't turn anything on, remember?"

Regina blinked again. "All right. What time is it?"

"You were out for about twenty minutes. Fell asleep reading the book. How's your head?"

Feeling her temple, Regina winced. The pain was potent on contact, but reasonable if she avoided pressure. "Better, I think." She started to her feet. Her wobble was caught by a pair of arms. "Miss Swan," she said, her voice brittle. "Let me go."

"You aren't going to fall?" Emma's voice was right by her ear, and the damn thing made Regina shiver, briefly worsening the ache in her head.

"Let me go," she repeated carefully. The hands fell away. But she sensed Emma was still close.

Regina moved several steps away, to the safer distance of the fireplace, and leaned on the mantel for support. She lifted a photograph of Henry and concentrated. This is what she wanted. She felt a trickle of magic tingle in her fingers and arms. With a sharp twist of her wrist, she illuminated the room from the lamp on the wall.

She sighed, looking around. She had rather hoped to see Emma slouched somewhere. No such luck, and the invisibility was still total. The woman didn't even cast a shadow somewhere. "Miss Swan?" she ventured.

"Yeah?" Regina blinked. Emma was right in front of her again.

"Would you please not do that," she asked, rubbing her head where it had reflexively jerked back against the bookshelves.

"Sorry. You have to believe me, Regina. Cora is on her way here, and we have to be ready."

"You don't have to convince me about my mother."

"She knows about Henry."

Regina felt her heart race. "She knows what about Henry?" she demanded.

"We ... Snow and I were talking. She overheard, asked what we were discussing. I swear I didn't know how dangerous she really was to anyone at the time.."

"Emma!" Regina detested the higher pitch of panic in her voice. "What did you tell Cora?"

"I told her Henry was my son. And we share him." There was a note of deep reluctance in the revelation. Regina grappled with herself but the inclination could not be overcome. She slapped at the air and magically threw Emma away from her.

Stalking forward and following the air disruption wave, she growled, "She knows he's my son?"

"Uh, yeah," Emma's voice came from the floor. Regina bent over but, in stepping forward, her feet tangled with Emma's and she went crashing to the floor. "Ow! Hey!"

"I swear I will rip you apart, Emma!" Regina rolled until she felt the invisible body beneath her.

"Um," Emma grabbed hold of Regina's hands. "We can continue this later. There's someone at the door."

"How the hell can you tell?"

"Doorbell."

Regina lifted her head. The distant sound of knocking came at the front door. Dusting her fingers through her hair to reassemble her coiffure, Regina gathered herself a little more with each step closer to the door. She was reaching for the knob when the knocking resounded again, followed this time by a screamed, "Regina! Open up!"

She pulled the door inward. Snow White, with David at her shoulder, stood on the mansion's front steps. "Snow?"

"Where is she?" Snow demanded.

"Where is who?"

"Emma. She said she was coming over to discuss something with you about Henry. Henry came to our house and said he hadn't seen her."

"Emma's here," Regina said. "We were discussing-"

"Emma!" Interrupting, Snow pushed past Regina and shouted into the house.

"Snow!" Regina jumped as Emma's voice sounded loudly off her right shoulder.

Snow saw Regina jump, and her eyes narrowed with familiar suspicion. "Regina, where's Emma?"

"She's right here," Regina gestured. The back of her hand impacted Emma's stomach and she heard a grunt.

"Here in the house?" Snow asked. "What happened to your face?"

"Your brilliant progeny," Regina said dryly. "Hit me."

"I told you it was an accident," Emma hissed.

Snow made no reaction to Emma's voice. It dawned on Regina that Snow couldn't hear Emma. "Miss Swan," she spoke to the air. "Please alert your mother to your presence."

"Regina, tell her I'm attempting to grab her hand," Emma said. Her voice indeed seemed to come from right next to Snow.

"She says she's attempting to grab your hand," Regina reported. "There was a mishap and Emma is currently invisible."

"What did you do?"

"I did nothing," Regina countered. "Your child is as accident prone with her magic as she is with the rest of her life."

"Hey!" Emma sounded indignant.

"Miss Swan," Regina sighed, and stopped. There really was no point in scolding her, and asking her to be silent was more likely to result in someone - probably herself - running into Emma and getting hurt.

Snow was looking bewildered at Regina. "Emma? Is invisible?"

"Yes."

"When did this happen?"

"About two hours ago."

"Why didn't you contact Blue?"

"Since Emma is capable of the magic, she is capable of undoing it."

"Emma," Snow addressed the air. "Come with your father and me and we'll go see Blue."

Emma's voice next came from near the front door. "Shit!"

"What happened?" Regina spun in alarm toward the sound.

"There was some sort of… reaction when I touched the knob."

Regina spoke to the air. "A reaction?"

"You know how when you shuffle across a carpet in winter and then touch a knob? That's sort of what it felt like."

David stared at Regina. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Emma tried to go out the door and it shocked her."

"What did you do, Regina?"

"I told you I didn't do anything." She rolled her eyes.

"So why can't Emma leave the house?"

"I don't know." She lifted her chin belligerently toward David who lowered his brow at her.

Suddenly there was an invisible but solid form between her and David. And hands on her arms. "Hey, hey. Relax. David," Emma said, "It isn't Regina's fault."

"He can't hear you," Regina groused.

"You tell him I said so."

"I don't need you to defend me," Regina retorted to the air between herself and David. Emma repeated her statement. Regina sighed. "Emma said to tell you she says it's not my fault."

"Emma," David talked to the air. Regina decided that was progress. "We'll get Blue and come back. Don't let Regina do anything."

David was already ushering Snow back toward the front door and Regina couldn't help the relief in her voice as she shut the door behind them firmly. "I didn't do anything, you idiot," Regina muttered.

"I'm sorry, Regina."

"I'd rather you were visible before the Blue Fairy arrived," Regina replied. Purposefully she strode back to the living room and retrieved her book. She glanced at the page she last recalled reading. "Now, please stand here." She gestured to the space before her. She lifted the book and blew across the page, lifting the magic ink from its surface. "Inhale," she ordered.

Warm hands cupped the backs of her own against the bottom of the book, steadying it. The magic swirled in the air before her. Regina watched the whorls dancing, her stomach tightening when she saw nothing change for several seconds.

The warm hands slipped away. She thought she saw an outline form briefly, before it faded out of sight. "Emma?" she ventured.

"Still here." Emma's voiced sounded directly in front of Regina and hands folded over her own again.

"And still invisible."

"Yeah."

"It has to be something simple," Regina ruminated, pulling her hands away from the disconcerting touch of nothing that was so definitely something. "What were you thinking about when it happened?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. You had just asked me to leave."

Regina recalled it now, too:

"Miss Swan," she said. "I do not want to see you again until Henry is with you. I will not be kept from my son any longer."

"But I couldn't go until you understood I'm not against you."

Regina lifted her head, surprised by the strong sense of Emma standing directly in front of her and feeling a hand on her arm. "You're the Savior, of course you're against the Evil Queen."

"That may be true, but Emma Swan has been looking at Regina Mills." Emma's voice was surprisingly gentle, even with the emphasis. Regina tried to shake the weakness stealing into her limbs from the unexpected words. A form started to shimmer into existence before her.

"Emma?" The form shimmered again, more definitively.

"Something's happening."

Regina inhaled, beginning to understand. "Emma, you… You are not invisible to me."

"You can see me?" The form became a thick shadow, strengthened by the lifting hope in the woman's voice.

"Not yet, but I believe that's the answer. Emma, tell me again."

"Tell you what?"

"Who do you see when you look at me?"

"You are Henry's mother, Regina Mills, and I wish everyone could see that."

Emma appeared, her body rippling into view like a reflection in a pond and then becoming solid. She stood directly in front of Regina. The earnest expression of Emma's green eyes made Regina gasp. "Emma."

Pale pink lips tipped up into a genuine smile. "Yeah. So, that's all it took? You believing me, as much as I believe in you."

"You made yourself invisible because I said I didn't want to see you again." Regina was filled with awe.

"It was still an accident but, yeah, I guess so."

"You are as sappy as your father," Regina scoffed. "It sounds like something he'd do for your mother."

Emma's smile was incandescent. "I'll take the comparison as a compliment."

"Idiot," she muttered, but she could hear the lightness that laced the word because of the smile that would not leave her face.

There was a knock on the door. Emma let Regina go. "I'll get it."

"It's undoubtedly your parents with the Blue Fairy."

"Yep. You go upstairs and get Henry's room ready. I'll take care of this."

Emma strode to the door and grabbed the knob. Regina saw briefly registered surprise. "Emma?" She worried the door had still somehow blocked Emma's attempt to open it.

Pulling the door inward, Emma turned back to smile at Regina. "No problem. Go on up."

Regina looked through the doorway and smirked at the gaping surprise on both Snow and David's faces. Then Emma was swarmed, wrapped up in her mother's arms, and then David's, thrown around both his wife and daughter; his big hand cupped the back of Emma's head. Snow's cry of her daughter's name was muffled in Emma's shoulder.

The Blue Fairy stepped across Regina's threshold. "Regina," she acknowledged with a nod of her head. "It seems my services are not needed." Without moving from the steps, Regina dipped her head in tacit acknowledgement of the fairy's words.

"Are you all right?" Snow asked, pulling back and patting Emma's cheeks.

"I'm fine. Regina and I needed to talk, and I needed to make sure she knew where I stood." Emma looked back over her shoulder at Regina standing at the foot of her staircase.

"Of course," Regina replied. "I will see you - and Henry - back here in, say, half an hour, Miss Swan?"

Emma nodded and grinned. "Yeah."

"Henry's moving back in here?" David asked.

"He never should have left," Emma responded. Regina bore David and Snow's bewildered looks before they, and Blue, followed their daughter.

###