She doesn't know why these kinds of things keep happening to her. All she wanted was a coffee before work. Sure, she should have known better than to cut in front of anyone in a town full of fairytale characters, but it was already nearing seven fifty and the line at Granny's was unusually long and slow-moving and she had already promised her Dad that she'd try to make it to work by eight, this time. And sure, cutting to the front of the line - right in front of a seemingly sweet old lady - was a bit callous. She knew it was the moment she did it.
But she still thinks this is a bit of an overreaction. Emma tries to say so, but she can't quite shape the words in her new mouth. All that comes out is an awful clwawk sound that ruffles the back of her feathers. Feathers-
The old lady sighs, picks up the coffee Emma dropped when all this had happened. They're in the alleyway behind Granny's, only a few feet from where her yellow Bug is parked. Emma had walked out with coffee-in-hand and her day back on-track, on its way to getting better since Regina had finally returned her text about having dinner that night, and with plans to look forward to she didn't even notice the magic swirl around her, not until she was already on the ground, helpless, with no hands to push herself up again.
The old lady tosses her coffee in the garbage. "Cutting in line is awfully rude, Sheriff," the old lady says, her voice still kind and mannerly. "I hope you take this as a lesson on patience."
Emma squawks again, her feathers going slick and flat against her body. There's a tiny voice inside her head that is more a part of this body than it is a part of her - it wants to shape itself around the sounds of words, wants to parrot them all right back, but she pushes the urge down, knowing it would only get her into more trouble.
The old woman smiles down at her. "Trust me, honey. It could be worse," she folds her hands patiently in front of her pale blue coat. "A few weeks ago, a man stole my parking spot. I turned him into a snake. You're at least a pretty bird."
The back of her tail flares restlessly, but the old woman only smiles, and turns away She steps daintily out onto the street, and out of the mess she's made of Emma's life. Wait, Emma thinks helplessly, but she can't get her voice around the delicate word. It comes out instead as a brassy squawk.
Fine. A little spell like this will be easy enough to break. Everything will be fine. Perfectly fine.
Right.
She ruffles her feathers nervously, glances around. The streetlights are still glowing a pale white-yellow, waiting for the early mist to burn off. But the morning is here, already starting to fill with people. Doors are opening, shoes are clambering down stairs, balls are being kicked in the street. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. It is a tiny sound, most likely from one of Marco's little terriers, but it still fills Emma's chest with a horrible flighty feeling, one she knew in her human-heart well enough, but this time her wings join in, flapping with feeling.
With a nervous squawk, Emma takes off quickly, lifting up, away from all dangerous sounds, aiming at the pale blue sky.
Above everything, circling restlessly over the top of her town, Emma tries to figure out her next plan. There has to be a way out of this mess. She can probably find a way to communicate. Doesn't her mom talk to birds? Isn't that what she's known for?
Swooping down towards her mother's apartment, she circles above the tall clipboard roof, looking for a way in. But window to window, everything is closed. As she circles around again, she catches the familiar sight of her mother in the kitchen, making tea. It makes her heart swerve down hard and fast, head-first, forgetting all about glass.
A pain flares hot-white and she crumbles, bees buzzing violently inside her head. But luckily, the window opens to her mother's gentle hands, lifting her up under the wings and pulling her inside.
"Oh, you poor thing." her mother coos. She carefully smooths her fingertips across Emma's feathery forehead, sighs again. Poor thing. Emma just closes her eyes, for once in quiet agreeance. It's barely eight o'clock in the morning, and she's exhausted.
Her mother puts her down on the kitchen counter, gently smoothes down the top of Emma's head. "Hello," she says, sweetly. For a single moment it seems that Snow recognizes her, knows exactly who she is talking to. But there is no recognition in her eyes, nothing behind the soft care her mother has for all animals, especially the ones in pain.
Fluffing up her feathers, Emma knows what she must do. She'll have to pick carefully over each sound in her head, to shape that tiny little voice of hers around the right word.
Then, with a click of her beak, Emma finally does it. "Hello." she parrots back.
Snow's eyes go wide. Her smile pins a thrashing love to Emma's heart, makes it go fast and urgent. "Hello," she repeats, hopping on her feet, hoping to better convey her meaning. I'm your daughter, she thinks. "Hello, hello," Help me, help me. "Poor thing." I just wanted a coffee.
"I know just want you need," Snow gasps, and turns around. Emma preens with pride, believing for a moment that she had actually been eloquent. That her words had conveyed their deeper meaning, and she had been heard. But then Snow goes on her tiptoes and reaches for the bag of bird seed she keeps on the top of the kitchen cabinets, and her heart falls. "You must be starving, you poor thing."
Emma ruffles her feathers in frustration, making herself about twice as big. Why don't you ever listen to me? Emma frets, and feels immediately remorseful. That's not fair. This is different. This time her mother has a good excuse. Her daughter is a bird.
"Not hungry, huh?" Snow asks, after several minutes of trying to feed her daughter bird seed. She frowns at her. "Well. I'm not exactly a bird expert, but I'll tell you what, I'll swing you by this little cute place on my way to work. They'll know exactly how to take care of you. Okay?"
Emma hesitates. She'd prefer to stay with her mother, of course. But maybe she'll be dropped off with her son or her dad. Maybe it'll even be Regina. Regina would know what to do. Willing herself to be okay with it, Emma bobs her head into a nod, feeling a little better when her mother laughs and smoothes down the top of her head again.
The day is warming up to be a bright spangly morning. The early light is slanting off the side of window-box flowers and hanging store signs. The sky is ice-blue and vast, almost welcoming, but she feels no stir of flight. Not now, as she's roosting on her mother's arm. On the street, everyone greets her with smiles. They coo, call her pretty bird.
So she's a little distracted, pleasantly soaking up all the positive attention, she doesn't notice her mother turning off from the street into a little store until the door is already closed.
Emma blinks, her pupils pinning with the new brighter light. "Good morning," the old woman - the old woman - says from behind a desk, smiling at them pleasantly.
A startled squawk leaves Emma. All around her are cages - cages! - full of animals, large and small, all sullen-eyed through their prisons.
Sensing her distress, her mother tightens her hold. "Don't fuss," Snow tries to reassure, petting her head. "It'll be alright, honey. They'll find your family. And if not, you're a pretty bird, you'll be adopted real quick."
Emma squawks even louder than before, more frantic, thrashing her wings against all restraint. Outside the pet shop, through the invisible glass, there's the wide open sky, waiting for her.
"I'm sorry," Her mother winces at all the noise. "She's a real sweetheart, I promise. Have you gotten any calls about a missing bird?"
The old woman shakes her head - the devil. "I'm afraid not," to her credit, she does offer something of an apologetic smile to Emma. "I'm sorry to see you, little one. I thought you'd have figured it out by now."
Her mother frowns. "Have you seen her before?"
The old woman shrugs, offers a slight smile. "I bumped into her this morning."
"Oh. Well," Snow hesitates, and Emma's desperately beating heart stalls, hoping with everything she's got that her mother has sensed that something must be wrong, that her daughter might not just be late for work, but is actually missing, needing help, and that this silly bird needs help, too. She wants more than just a cage, too - she wants family and the safety of the world outside. But after a moment, Emma can feel the slight shift of fingers, the careful exchanging of hands. "I hope you find your family, sweetie." Snow says, and smooths a fingertip down her bright yellow head.
Emma squawks weakly, one last time, before watching her mother walk out. The door closes with a short, pleasant trill of bells that falls on stunned silence.
"Well," The old woman says, after a beat, and lets out a soft sigh. Then she turns and gently opens up a cage, scraping Emma's pinching claws off her arm, scooting her further into the cage. Once the door closes, Emma rushes the cage, clacks her beak noisily over whatever bar she can grab, thrashing her head back and forth violently. The woman sighs. "Don't bother, dear. That'll just wear you out."
But Emma keeps it up. She keeps it up for a good solid hour, flapping her wings, pacing back and forth, squawking annoyingly, trying out every single insult she can remember the sounds to, ranging from Mushroom (she's still a little unsure whether that's an insult or not, her memory isn't as sharp as it used to be) to Shit. She fluffs up and throws seeds out of her cage and makes hell, occasionally attacking the little bird toy that hangs from the top of her cage.
But after an hour, the rage eventually goes out of her. She perches on one of the wooden roosts in her cage and looks sullenly over the pet shop, into the quiet dark of similar cages. Are they all like her? All humans, waiting for the right trick to break the spell? She supposes, in some way or another, they all are like her. In cages, have they given up hope? Or do they still perk up whenever someone enters the shop? How many families have they been sent out of? Have they been craving love all their life, too?
The old woman must sense the direction of her thoughts, because she sighs over her knitting, looks up at her finally, "You know, I'm not evil. Mean, maybe. A little bored. But not evil," she hums, picks at a knitting thread. "All of the people I've enchanted have managed to break the spell within twenty four hours. Even the snake." she snorts, amused.
"Snake." Emma parrots back, her brain plucking up the new insult.
The old woman glares at her moodily. "It's really not such a tough spell, girl. I'd have thought the Savior could have managed it."
There's a slight pause. Emma gathers into herself, feeling almost impossibly small. She watches a moth whirs dryly against the light.
Quietly, the woman sighs. "Okay," she says, and walks towards her cage. "How about this. If you apologize, I'll turn you back into a human," With a smile, she puts her finger through the bar, gently stroking down her beak. "Huh? Does that sound fair?"
It does. It really does. And Emma knows that. But she's never had much of a penchant for good decisions, and after such a sad, lonely morning, with the weight of abandonment in her heart, she snaps instead, clipping the woman's fingertip.
The woman yelps, and jerks back her hand. Her face hardens, turning cool and still. "Fine," she says, and closes her fingers around a bleeding fingertip. "Have it your way."
She walks away, leaves Emma to the quiet, dull silence of bad decisions.
Two days is not a very long time. When she was a human, days would pass by quickly without her notice, only ever amounting up to anything at the end, when she had time to decide whether the week had been mostly good or not. But in a cage, with nothing but a bird-toy to distract Emma from the ever-passing time of her life, two days is almost agonizingly long.
Her family must know she's missing by now, right? They had to have started the search. Someone will of course be wasting their time trekking up and down the forest floor - probably her father - looking for footprints or broken twigs, but Regina would know to broaden the search. She'd have noticed Emma's car still parked in Granny's, and come to the conclusion that the Savior is somewhere still in town. Trapped, maybe. Like in a goddamn pet shop.
It is then, as she's wondering what step her missing case is in, that the door opens.
"Hello," Emma chirps immediately, stunned. Of course, what she really means is: Holy shit. It's you.
Who she's looking at, of course, is Regina. She is so beautiful, even scary as she is now, in a mood like this, when danger seems to thunder behind her dark eyes and pull with a gravity of its own. She's dressed as sleek and business-like as she had before the curse broke, with a white blouse tucked neatly into her slacks and something like poison poised at the corner of her mouth.
"Hello," Regina replies shortly, cursory and somehow a little irritated over a pleasantry, even from a bird. Emma's chest floods with warmth, and she hops along her wooden perch, watching Regina as she strides over to the front desk; she rings the bell impatiently, and glances at the back room where the old woman is probably fixing together all the food bowls. "Hello?" she calls, harshly.
"Be there in a minute, dear." The old woman's voice sighs from a distance, already sounding weary for whatever trouble this new customer has come for. Better buckle up, Emma thinks with preening pride.
Regina waits in cold silence. She taps her fingernails against the counter, watches the door. And though her back is facing Emma, even at this angle, Emma can see the new heaviness weighing down her shoulders. There is a new sadness in her, something immensely cold and heavy, and it pierces Emma's tiny, beating heart right through the middle, shrivels her up like a walnut within a shell.
"Hello, pretty bird." Emma chirps fondly, hoping the true meaning comes out, somehow. That Regina will hear, instead: You're so beautiful. I'm glad you're here.
Regina glances back at her, but there's no recognition in her eyes. Just the cold, curious appraisal of a woman who doesn't care all that much for birds. It's a pity Emma hadn't been turned into a dog or a cat. Did the old hag know?
Just then the old woman walks out. She takes one good look at Regina, and must know exactly the kind of mess she is in because her face seems to grow older, more patient, settling cleverly into her aging face, her natural disguise as a kind old woman.
"Hello, my dear," she says, her voice kindly and ancient. "How can I help you?"
"Snake!" Emma warns, but neither woman pays any attention to her.
Regina is focused back on her task. She pulls out an old square picture out of her wallet and slides it onto the counter, in front of the old woman. It takes a moment to recognizes herself without all the feathers - but she does eventually, connecting finally with all the complicated details of a human face: the short bony jut of her nose, the curve of her cheeks, the white line of teeth. This is her. Who she used to be. Hopefully it will be again.
"Have you seen this woman?" Regina asks. She taps a finger against the picture, between the eyes. "She's been missing for two days now. Any information you have would be greatly useful."
The old woman hums noncommittally. "I'm sorry, I can't say I have."
"Snake." Emma repeats darkly, fluffing her feathers.
Regina gives Emma a curt look - the kind of look she used to give her during Town Meetings, when she'd interrupt with something unnecessary or unhelpful, and just like then, Emma feels herself gathering into herself, feathers turning slick against her body, making herself small.
"Sorry about the bird," the old woman smiles. "She's a nuisance. And I'm sorry about your friend, too. The Sheriff, right? You don't think maybe she just ran off? Maybe she left to have a little 'me' time across the state."
"No," Regina answers flatly, unyielding. She knows Emma better than anyone - she likely discovered Emma's disappearance before anyone else, probably within the hour, and in that time, she would have gone through every single possibility before anyone else could, fussing out the ones that just wasn't possible.
It lifts Emma's little heart up with hope, makes it flutter.
"No, probably not," The old woman agrees with a faint smile. "But I'm afraid I am out of ideas. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help, dear."
She is so convincingly who she pretends to be, that even Regina (who has always been able to pluck out the smallest kernel of malice hidden beneath even the best intentions) falls for it, nodding in understanding.
"Very well," she says, and clears her throat. She lays a hand over the picture of Emma, face pinched with pain. "Well, I'll leave this behind, just in case - you know. If you see her, call me."
"Right." the woman says. She clears her throat, glances at Emma quickly. "How about you look around, dear? A pet can be a good comfort, you know. Who knows, you might find just what you're looking for in one of em."
"Doubtful." Regina answers, but she still turns to reach a few fingers through one of the cat cages below, smiling a little when some furry thing bumps their head against the back of her fingers. At the sound of Emma's devastated squawk, the old woman smiles, winks, and disappears out into the back.
As Regina walks around, peering through the cages, occasionally petting a furry nose, the back of a long-scaled spine, a furry paw, Emma tries to make herself presentable. She fluffs her feathers, reorders her wings, puffs out her chest. At least she's a pretty bird - she caught sight of herself a few times in the mirror, saw the sleek yellow feathers, the mighty looking red beak. She's been called a pretty bird a few times now, and Emma thinks she can trust a stranger that much at least. To be honest about that.
When Regina finally makes her way to Emma's cage, something happens to her chest. It's too small for the pounding of Emma's heart. It fills all the space in her head, the space she had for insults and greetings and compliments.
Regina tilts her head, appraisingly. Tentatively, she puts a finger through the bars, scratches the top of her head. Despite her dislike of birds, she seems to know something about them. She knows not to smooth down the feathers, knows to ruffle them up instead.
But she'd done that when Emma was a human too. She loved to ruffle Emma's feathers, tease her for just about anything, make her almost dizzy with affection.
Emma feels that now, with the way Regina is looking down at her. There's a slight smile in the corner of her mouth, a gentle pull of tenderness.
And then, suddenly, Regina asks. "How much for the bird?"
From the back room, the old woman laughs. She calls back. "Just take the damn thing."
So Emma ends up back at her home - a little different than before, sure, but still, home. And she has a big cage too, and with a few new bird-toys that she can't help but be a little excited about, despite everything. Emma squawks happily when Regina positions her cage in the living room, where Emma imagines the family in most; it's where Henry usually plays video games or watches television and Regina reads a book or does her paperwork or just talks to Emma - back when Emma was human and could respond back in full sentences.
Regina doesn't talk very much now - not today. She is too busy, making phone calls, pacing back and forth, scribbling through names of people on her notebook. At one point she slams the phone violently enough to startle a squawk from Emma, and leaves silently, disappearing out into the back door towards her apple tree. She keeps walking, too far for Emma to track through the window, but when she returns a half-hour later, she feels even farther from Emma than she had before.
So. It's not exactly the reunion she'd been craving. But she supposes a reunion only counts if the person that is missed is returned whole and, for the most part, unchanged.
But by the end of the day, when the light is dwindling into the tiny prick of pale stars, Regina returns to her. There is an new redness in her eyes, and an unsteady, raspiness to her breathing. But she still smiles at Emma when she approaches, and gently unhooks to door to her cage, reaching in to gently scratch the back of her neck.
Emma clucks happily, and nuzzles into the palm of Regina's hand. After a moment, Regina gently picks Emma up into her arms, and carries her over to the couch, where she sits down with her feet curled up beneath her. Having been given the chance to be closer, Emma runs with it as far as she possibly can, nuzzling up beneath Regina's chin and settling herself there like a solid block of cement.
A quiet, content moment passes. Regina goes through a cycle of motions, from smoothing her hand down sleek wings, down her tail, and then up again to scratch at the back of her neck before restarting. Emma is nearing a drowsy-kind of contentment when Regina breathing changes, the deeper, wet hitch of her breath breaking the cycle.
After a moment, with a thick voice, she asks. "Do you think she's okay?"
Emma's heart plucks with feeling. She had always been Regina's biggest confident, the one Regina always relayed her biggest fears to - the ones she thought might be unforgivable to anyone else. And here she is, wanting to confide in her again, but all Emma knows are a select pick of words, from "Goodnight" to "Hello", and neither one of them conveys the right meaning at all.
So she doesn't say anything. But words have never been Emma's strong suit anyway, so she closes her eyes and presses her little head closer, until she feels the quiet beating of Regina's heart against her bones and something wet fall down onto her feathers, something like rain, but-is-not-rain, something that trembles deep from within Regina's chest and rushes out in watery, ragged breaths.
Regina lays her cheek down, holds her closer.
In the morning, Henry catches sight of her for the first time. He is wiping his cheek with the palm of his hand, his eyes looking red and unclear from a night before, but as he is stepping off the last of the stairs, he looks in her direction and stops. He blinks.
"Hello," she says, hardly daring to hope.
But his brow crinkles, and he straightens with a surprising snap, as if hit with electricity; his spine moves from an question mark into an exclamation mark. He stares at her with puzzled amazement.
"Ma?" he asks, tentatively.
It's so startling, she almost doesn't react at all. She almost just stares at him, dumb as a bird.
And then, just as doubt begins to crowd his forehead, she squawks in the loudest, most inhuman way she has ever heard, flapping her wings gleefully.
"Hello!" she squawks, feeling like a helium balloon that's been squeezed enough to pop. "Hello! Hello! Hello!"
Henry's face crinkles joyfully. "Ma!" he laughs, and plants his hands down onto his knees. He stares at her in disbelief. "How the hell did this even happen?"
"Snake!" she says, and ruffles her feathers, because there are so little words she can chose from to make sense of everything. But it doesn't seem to matter anyway. Henry just laughs and pushes a hand up over his forehead in disbelief before walking over and taking her out of her cage.
He hugs her carefully, tucking her head gently beneath his chin. In his growing hands, Emma closes her eyes, for a moment completely happily. Her hope fully restored. Everything will be fine. Everything will work out.
"How in the world are we going to change you back?" He asks later, having harassed her into a Scrabble game. They are already half-way through, and Emma is losing hope quickly that she might come out of the other side as a winner. Henry figured it might help her learn some new words. Emma secretly thinks he's just taking this as an opportunity to finally beat her at Scrabble.
Emma just squawks weakly, her beak busy with trying to clip around the letter N. Henry finally takes pity and helps her pick it up, puts it behind her biggest word yet: B-A-R-G-A-I-N. Still, she's losing by a long shot, and can't quite figure out how to shape her tiny voice around the word cheater just yet, though her son clearly deserves it.
Just then, as Henry is sorting through his remaining letters, the front door opens. Emma lifts her head just in time to see Regina close the front door again, walking distractedly towards the living room.
At the entrance of the hallway, Regina stops abruptly, still holding her briefcase. She looks down at the nearly complete Scrabble board, then to her son, and then to Emma. The letter in Emma's beak drops with a quiet plink against the coffee table.
"What is happening here?" Regina asks, at last.
Emma looks at their son. Henry looks at Emma. They both blink owlishly back at Regina.
"We're playing Scrabble." Henry says.
Regina opens her mouth, clearly intending to pursue the subject, but as she puts the words together inside her head, she must realize that there will be no answer that will ever make sense to her. She clams up again.
"Alright," she says, slowly, and fiddles nervously with an earring. "Well, I...hope you remembered to put the lasagna in the oven for dinner tonight."
"Yep."
"Well. Okay." Regina clears her throat, and nods, pitching one last puzzled look at Emma before leaving the room.
Henry watches her leave, waits for the door to close completely before affectionately ruffling up Emma's feathers. "It's okay, Ma," he says, and offers her a warm smile. "Mom will know how to fix this. She's just gotta figure it out, first."
Emma fluffs her feathers nervously. She's never been much of a believer, but with her son beaming at her so steadily, she agrees to try.
Regina makes it pretty damn difficult though. She's been in a sulk since Archie called the other day to tip-toe around the subject of grief counseling. Since then, she's barely even looked at Emma, much less listened to the clatter of noises that are Emma's attempts to speak to her, to reconnect. And though she tries to shape her voice into the memory of what she had said when she was human, she can't quite get any of it in one piece - none of it that matters at least. She can't say, "I believe in you" or "I know you" or fit her voice around any of the other odd little phrases that had filled their life together. Her name "Emma" is not too difficult on its own, but there's no context to it, nothing to fill it with meaning.
But no matter what she says, Regina doesn't seem to hear her. If she makes too much noise, sometimes she'll get a brief, distracted glare, but nothing more. Emma knows why. If the roles were reversed, if it was Regina who was lost, Emma would be beyond all comfort. She wouldn't want to waste one second on a silly, loud bird.
But still. Emma's never been all that great at being ignored - especially by Regina. The feeling gets cramped in her chest, makes her heart feel heavy like cement. When Regina passes by her cage that morning without even a single glance, the back of Emma's tail thrashes with frustration. Bird or not, how can Regina just ignore her? After all they've been through?
That evening, Emma decides to plot her revenge. When Regina sets down the dinner plates that evening, Emma waits for her to disappear back into the kitchen before she climbs starts to climb beak and foot, beak and foot, along the bars to the cage door. Henry had taught her how to pop open the hatch door pretty early on, and by now she's got it down to a fineness.
By shifting sideways, she could pop her head through the bars and lift the metal lock to the side and then up again, pushing until the cage door sways open.
With a victorious squawk, Emma dives down onto the floor, hobbling over to the living room table. Henry catches sight of her as he's walking down the stairs.
"Hey," he smiles, "Ma. What are you up to?"
She doesn't say anything, just flaps up onto one of the seats, and then jumps up onto the table. In the other room, she can hear Regina's bare feet passing along hardwood floors, slowly making her way back. Emma has to act quickly.
Turning her head, Emma carefully clips her beak around the little porcelain salt container resting in the middle of the table as decoration. When she'd been human, Emma had learned that rather quickly - once she had salted one of Regina's carefully balanced meals, and was banned from even entering her house for an entire month. Emma had to grovel, cry, and beg her way back in.
"Ma?" Henry asks questioningly as Emma lifts the salt up into her beak, and waddles over to Regina's plate. "Ma," he gasps, "Don't!" But Emma doesn't let herself be dissuaded.
She shakes that damn salt shaker like it's one of the bird-toys in her cage. Gets all her frustration out. The salt spills out all over Regina's plate, scattering all over the pretty oak table like a fine white sand. It feels pretty good too, even as Henry groans and sinks into his chair, covering his face with his hands.
When she hears the door creaking open, Emma quickly puts the salt shaker down and waddles back toward her cage. With a few quick flaps, she's up through the open door, sitting herself innocently behind metal bars.
Henry gives Emma one last baleful look before his mother enters again with napkins and silverware.
"Here you are, honey," Regina says, and hands the fork and knife off to Henry. She sighs, and sits down in her seat, absentmindedly setting her fork against her plate. "How was your day?"
Henry winces. "Oh. Interesting, I guess?"
Regina's brow crinkles. "Hm?" she questions, and idly brings a forkful of food to her mouth. "Why -" she starts to ask before suddenly, she stops, going rigid. She blinks, and then with snake-like quickness, she snatches up a napkin and spits out her food. "Oh my god." she gasps, revolted. "This is disgusting. What happened? Yours doesn't taste like this does it?"
"No." Henry mumbled miserably.
Regina looks at him with a slight frown, and then finally looks down at her plate. She takes a moment, but after a beat her eyes narrow, noticing at last the white dust of salt everywhere.
"This wasn't you, was it?" Regina asks. But her voice doesn't follow the incline of a question - it's even and flat. She already knows it's not Henry.
After a slight pause, Regina looks up again. There, she sees Emma sitting proud on her roost, right in front of her open cage door. For the first time in what feels like forever, Regina is actually looking at her. Sure, she looks a little murderous, but Emma will take what she can get.
"Please don't kill her." Henry pleads.
It's almost amazing that Regina manages to smile with her jaw so tight. "Of course not, darling," she says, and forces out a stiff little laugh. "That'd be ridiculous. She's just a bird." But when she stands up to replace her plate, she glares at Emma with daggers.
Though Emma's fairly sure she's just barely escaped death, she thinks maybe she found a way to reconnect with Regina. It's not so far off how she began to matter to Regina in the first place - back when being friends was impossible, and her tentative hope of becoming family had been thrown back in her face like gravel, and the only thing she could do to have a place in their life was by finding each little, irrelevant thing that annoyed her. It's a wonder it took her so long to think of it.
That morning, Emma steals Regina's car keys, picks them up from her purse and puts them somewhere new. Regina had been hesitant to blame her, at first - forgetfulness seemed like the most likely explaination - that is, until a slight metallic jingle from above has her looking up to find her keys dangling on the chandelier. Since then, the moment anything is lost in the house - from lost socks to a missing remote - Regina's rage immediately falls onto her. And for good reason - it's always Emma's doing.
For a week, Regina does not get a moment of peace. Not in the house, and especially not outside of it. When Regina is at the office, Emma sits outside her window to fill her days with annoyances, repeating every word she knows until Regina finally slips and resorts to violence, shoving open the window to shoo her away.
When Regina works from the study at home, Emma is ruthless. Nothing can keep her away, not a cage, or magic or shooing hands. Regina has given up trying, and merely lifts her paperwork out of Emma's range whenever she's in the mood to wreak chaos; she throws Regina's pens all over the floor, flaps her wings in Regina's face when she's on the phone, rolls over Regina's keyboard just as she's typing, knocks Regina's phone off the desk whenever it buzzes with a text.
But still, after all this, there's no recognition in Regina's eyes. All these annoyances seem to do is prick like a needle before Regina sighs, and lets it go, and Emma is forgotten again. Nothing seems to make her visible in a lasting way - not even when Emma learns to pick up "Your Majesty", which she remembers had made Regina's eyes spark and simmer when she'd been a human, but now only seems to stir up a sort of sad weariness that only seems to deepen as the days go by.
There'd only been one incident that actually seemed to reach Regina. She had finally made an impact - quite literally.
Emma had been staring out the great big sliding glass doors to the large apple tree sitting outside. She was thinking of ways she could reenact her first act of war when she'd gotten a little lost in the wall of sky outside. It was a pretty pale blue color, as blue as the chevrolet one of her her foster fathers used to have, and about just as wide, shining blue and bright. Emma had been staring at it, and then suddenly she'd been flying off without a single thought. She'd forgotten all about glass, and only remembered again when the pain flared through her head and sent the room spinning. She knew she'd been lucky; for the fragile-boned skull she does all her thinking in now, it could have been devastating.
Regina had held her, then. Emma doesn't remember how much time had passed, or where Regina had been coming from, but she does remember the noise Regina had made when she picked her up. She cradled Emma close to her chest, and wept.
Emma thought maybe something would change. But by night Regina returned to being cool and unaffected. She scooped Emma off her briefcase, tugged the keys out of her beak, and put them on that new key ring that Emma couldn't wiggle it out of.
Emma has to do better. She had to do more than just slight annoyances.
One morning, sidestepping out of her cage, she gets Henry's attention with a faint whistle and hobbles over to the front door.
Blinking, Henry opens the door for her. "Off to torment Mom?" He asks with a smile.
Emma merely fluffs her feathers and sets off, flying out into the bright blue sky. She has a plan - probably a dumb one, but there are things she needs to do as a human, things she's afraid she'll forget; like how it feels to wrap your arms around another person, to say exactly what you mean all the time, and be understood.
Swooping down to her mother's apartment she's careful to aim for the railing outside, remembering just in time the invisible barrier between outside and inside.
Her mother is sitting on a kitchen chair, facing away from her. She doesn't seem to notice Emma right away, but after pecking the glass a few times, her mother gives a little start and turns around.
Emma blinks in surprise at her mother's face. She always had such calm, firm features, but now they look puckered and scrunched together, red from crying. For a moment, Snow just stares back at Emma, unwilling to stand up, to help.
But her kindness for animals seems to win her over eventually, because with a soft sigh her mother hoists herself up and opens the window.
"Hello, again." Her mother says. Her voice is thick, and raspy with tears, but she musters up a smile. "You sure are a stubborn one, aren't you?"
Emma hesitates. Her mother's grief plucks at her heart, makes her weak, but she can't get distracted. She has a plan - one that has to work. She'll hug her mother when she has arms again, she decides, and hops off the window sill onto the counter.
"Oh," her mother says, and frowns. "I'm sorry, darling. I really don't have the means right now to take care of a bird of my own."
Boy, has she heard that before. Flapping her wings, Emma hops up onto the first step of the stairwell. She can hear her mother sighs behind her and start to follow, probably with the plan to trap her again, set her up with the pet shop lady again. She's gotta act quick.
With the help of her wings, and beak, she manages to climb all the way up the stairs, and round the corner to her old room.
The door is thankfully already open. There, on the back of an old wicker chair, is her old red leather jacket. The cloudy light outside gives it a dull shine, and with a happy squawk, Emma hops up onto the chair and clips the collar with her beak.
"Hey," her mother says, starting to get frustrated. Emma tries to make a quick escape, but the jacket gets caught on the chair. She ends up only flapping her wings in short, rapid bursts, before falling hard onto the ground again.
"Shit." Emma says, ruffling her feathers in frustration. She tries to pull it off by one of the sleeves, pulling with all her might, but her feet only scrabble against the hardwood flooring.
When all else fails, she glares helplessly at her red jacket, humiliated.
A silence passes. And then, tentatively, a hand falls down onto jacket, lifting it up again. Emma blinks up at her mother's face. A teary look of tenderness has warmed up her dark eyes, brightened up the bones in her face.
With careful, shaky hands, Snow gently pops the collar, smoothing down all of its little wrinkles. Snow pulls in a shaky, wet breath, lets out an even shakier laugh, and kneels down beside her daughter.
"You sure have a habit of getting yourself into the strangest trouble, don't you, sweetheart?" her mother whispers, smiling tremulously.
The tiny heart in Emma's chest trembles against her bones, full of love. With a weak squawk, she hops up onto her mother's lap, suddenly wanting a hug more than anything.
She gets it, snuggled beneath her mother's chin.
Her mother squeezes her gently, still shaking. "Oh Emma," she sighs, her voice a gently fading laugh. "I really hope you have a plan."
Emma cringes, for once a little grateful for her inability to speak more than handful of words.
Her plan will probably work out. Probably.
It's just...not all that clever. She's never really been all that expressive as a human - she always ended up relying on Regina's ability to read her, to decipher her hurried speeches and recklessness, give it larger meaning. It was one of her best skills. She could read Emma better than anyone.
She hopes Regina still does.
Because in hindsight, this plan of hers isn't all that great!
She had planned at first to wear the jacket. But upon an almost irredeemably embarrassing few minutes, she had to scrap it, start from scratch.
Now, tentatively, she's setting a scene. Maybe if it looks like she's returned - if it looks like Emma had just walked in, dropped her jacket on the hanger, and stumbled out of her boots - maybe the loss that has been haunting this place will be forgotten enough for Regina to actually see her. All she'd need is a moment. For their eyes to meet, reconnect like they used to, cut through to the truth.
By the time she hears Regina's car pull up into the driveway, Emma's managed to hang her leather jacket properly on the coat rack, drag her boots out of the closet, and drop them in a disorderly pile beside the couch like she used to.
Emma positions herself on the couch, fluffing herself up, until she's twice as big. She waits patiently, watching through the window as the car door opens and reveals a distracted Regina, her face distant and unclear through the foggy window. She'll notice the jacket. She has to. She's been waiting to see it for weeks.
And she does. The moment Regina enters the house, she sighs, slides out of her coat, and turns to the rack.
Her coat drops.
Regina goes rigid, her face slackening. With a quick heart thrumming in her chest, Emma waits patiently, with unblinking eyes as Regina's expression gradually shifts. Her face brightens with a tragic happiness. Here we go. This is it, this is it, this is it.
"Oh my god," Regina breathes, and looks quickly around the house. Her eyes turn from the kitchen to the living room, and then to the hallway, sweeping right past Emma. The hurt stings like ice water, but then Regina is walking towards her quickly - she's spotted the boots beside the couch, her eyes wide and frantic.
"Emma?" she calls loudly, unevenly.
"Hello," Emma answers quickly. But her voice sounds hollow to her ears, wrong - she sounds just like a bird.
Regina pays her no mind, her voice shaking with a barely contained happiness as she calls for her again. "Emma?" she is smiling, moving first for the kitchen, pausing only long enough to confirm the absence before moving again, starting for the stairs, calling up into the empty rooms above. "Emma?" She calls. "Darling, are you here?"
"Hello." Emma says again, more desperately, but it's met with utter silence as Regina hurries up the stairs, carrying her hope up with her. Emma slinks down, feeling her heart shrivel up inside her chest.
It takes a few minutes. That's the worst part - hearing the gradual transition, the doubt, the ragged realization.
When Regina finally walks down the stairs again, she looks hollowed out. Devastated. She trails her hand along the stair railing, as if to keep her grounded.
Weakly, Emma tries again. "Hello."
But it sounds all wrong. It settles in the air like ice. Regina blinks, and straightens her shoulders. Her expression settles into something into cold and hard. Standing there with a hand on a railing, almost completely motionless, she looks as if she'd been carved from hard, relentless marble. She stares down at Emma with sharp, unyielding eyes.
"You did this," she says, quietly. She's always been able to read Emma - just not always with the kindest results. Her expression settles, hard and uncaring. "You're going back. Right now."
Emma's heart plummets. Immediately, her feathers slick down against her body, as if to become so small she can't be seen, but Regina seems to have no trouble getting a hold of her anyway, wrestling her right out of the cage, and tucking her beneath her arm. She moves straight for the door, ignoring the wild squawking, drops her on the passenger side of the car door.
Pulling out of the driveway, Regina drives fast enough for Emma to fumble on the leather seat. The familiar streets and buildings slide by her window in a blurry rush. Emma watches it all go with a quivering heart.
This is how it ends. She's gonna be a parrot for the rest of her life, stuck in that dumb pet shop. Fuck.
The pet shop gradually comes into view, and though Regina parks the car, she does not immediately turns the engine off or step outside. Emma blinks, and tilts her head, turning back to Regina.
Regina is sitting motionless, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. But something about her expression is changing, shifting, struggling to make sense of something. She stares out the windshield at the passing cars, watching their flushed yellow headlights gradually disappear with a lost look on her face.
After a while, Regina sighs. Her face trembles, turns soft and then hard, and then soft again. She glances down at Emma, and Emma stares helplessly back.
Something like a laugh leaves Regina, though it's small and a little choked. "Alright," she says, and unbuckles her seat belt, shifting towards Emma. "Well. If I'm right about this - which I'm not, because this is ridiculous - but if I'm right, and you turn to be who I think you might be, then you better have a really good fucking explaination for this."
Emma's feathers slick down. Fuck.
Regina gives a startled little laugh, and then shakes her head. "Oh, Emma," she groans, but still bends down a little to press a kiss against the top of Emma's head.
The reaction is immediate, just like it had been in the alleyway - if she blinked, if she were just a moment distracted, she would have missed it all again - the magic, the pull of her muscles, the pleasant stretch and burn of her body filling itself out again.
Regina lets out a strangled little laugh, her face cheerfully haggard. "You idiot," she chokes, voice teary and emotional. But she is reaching over, grabbing the back of Emma's neck and pulling her across the space between them for their mouths to meet. "You idiot." she breathes again, between them, the words rushing hot and breathy against Emma's mouth.
"Sorry," Emma says, breathless. A shiver runs up her back when Regina scratches the back of her neck, goosebumps scattering across her bare skin - is she naked? Fuck she's naked. "Oh, whatever," she mumbles, leans back into Regina's waiting mouth.
They have a few frantic, joyful minutes together before suddenly, knuckles rap against their car window. Emma jolts and turns back to see the scowling old woman in front of their car.
"Either get some clothes on or move to a different spot, Sheriff." she calls through the window. "Or next time I'm turning you into a frog."
"What?" Regina asks, bewildered.
But Emma's learned her lesson. And she's pretty sure Regina hates frogs more than parrots. With a deep sigh, she nods to the street. "We should go. We can make out at home."
"Well," Regina blinks, baffled, and pulls off the street. "Alright."