After their encounter with the Snow Queen, Emma had termed the magical choking they'd endured "the Darth Vader." Regina did not find that funny. Henry did when Emma told him later, Regina rolling her eyes in the background.
As they stood in the mayor's office a few days later, Regina was the only one laughing, and it wasn't her laugh. It was chilling and void of any sort of happiness.
"Let him go," Emma said as patiently as she could, as if this wasn't life or death. As if she wasn't watching her son slowly choke. Their son. The correction echoed in her chest, and Emma stared hopelessly at Henry's other mother.
She understood now what Regina had said to her before leaving to seal herself and Henry away from the world—not that the barriers had lasted when Regina could easily undo her own spells. When the curse was still a ways out, still just an ominous cloud on the horizon, Regina had taken Emma's hand like she'd done a year ago at the town line.
"I need to know that you can make the right decision," Regina said, and just like before her eyes were full of tears and she was trying to look brave. "I need to know that you'll protect Henry no matter what."
"Of course I'll protect him," Emma said, not crying like at the town line because she wasn't entirely sure if Regina was joking. She'd risked her life for Henry as many times as Regina had.
"No matter what," Regina repeated, squeezing Emma's hand, and then she abruptly let go and turned away.
Emma now wished that she'd said something, that she'd done something. If nothing more, she could have squeezed back. She could have hugged Regina, could have told her any of the million things she'd been meaning to say.
She realized as she reached for her gun that she would probably never see that kind, vulnerable Regina again.
"He deserves it," Regina—the Evil Queen, really—said as she tightened her Darth Vader choke hold on Henry. "Ungrateful brat. After all I've done for him. After all you've done for him." She turned her gaze on Emma, who shivered under it. "We've risked everything, given everything. He doesn't deserve one mother, let alone two."
Emma flinched, thinking of all of the awful things Henry had said to her when she'd first realized that there was something terribly wrong at Town Hall. Regina had said worse, but Emma was used to sparring with her. But Henry blaming her for giving him up, for not believing in him, for making a whole catalog of crap decisions? She had to keep reminding herself that it was just a curse.
Now he was silent, grasping at invisible hands around his neck and kicking his feet.
"If he doesn't deserve two mothers," Emma said slowly, inching closer to Regina, "take one of them away. Kill me." This was it, she thought, the hard decision. The right decision.
"You're an idiot, Emma Swan," Regina said. "If I kill you, what's to stop me from killing Henry? Do you really want the last thing our son sees to be you dying?"
"Let him go," Emma said again, pleading now. "I know you're in there somewhere, Regina. You don't want to do this."
Regina sneered at her, and both their eyes flickered to Henry. His hands dropped to his sides and his feet slowed from kicking to swaying and Emma knew that there wasn't time to break the curse, to talk Regina down.
No matter what.
She raised the gun in both hands to attempt to steady her shaking, and she pulled the trigger. Regina and Henry both crumpled to the ground, pained gasps coming from both.
"You're a terrible mother," Regina said as Emma rushed to her side. "Checking on me before your child."
Emma just fell to her knees, watching Regina bleed, helpless. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "Regina, I…" She finished it this time. "I love you."
"I hate you," Regina hissed through the obvious pain.
They were the last words Regina ever said to her, to anyone. Emma stayed beside her as the blood stained the black and white floor, as Henry got his wind back and left to do god knows what. "No matter what," she whispered, and she could have sworn she saw a flash of the Regina she knew in the other woman's eyes just before she lost her.