This is a little something that popped into my head the other day and demanded to be written. I'm hoping it will be a three parter, but each section will be able to stand on its own.
The night is cool and quiet. There is a breeze rustling through the trees and bugs chirping and buzzing in the night. It's soothing, really, and sleeping should be no problem.
And yet Regina lies awake staring at the sky that is peppered with stars. Sleep evades her. Her son is somewhere on the island, possibly looking at the exact same view. And yet she can't find him. They can't find him. The little group has so much hope, and yet Regina can't help but feel hopeless. She tries to combat the feeling, knowing that if she falls into it that she will never get out. But she can't. She doesn't have the blind faith of Snow, or the charmingly gullible good naturedness of David. They are qualities that she finds so irritating in the two people and yet qualities that would make this mission so much more bearable. But she finds that she simply can't force herself to be optimistic about something when she feels so frightened of what the outcome will truly be.
She sits up and lets her head fall into her hands. It's the middle of the night and already she has a headache from worry. She peers through her fingers at the dark shapes of her companions, all sleeping soundly, riding on their blind faith. She counts the shapes. One, two, three...
Someone is missing. Emma.
She looks around, surprised to feel her pulse quickening. Where is the infuriating blonde? Surely if she had been snatched they would have heard a ruckus? If she has to give the woman credit at all it would be for not giving up easily. And she definitely would not have gone down without a fight.
Quietly, so as not to rouse the others, she gets up from her makeshift bed. She glances around the little clearing, telling herself that she is only concerned because she knows Henry would never get over the loss of the mother he so recently rediscovered. She pointedly ignores the fact that using to word 'mother' to describe the other woman does not taste as bad as it used to.
She is about to give into the panic she can feel rising in her chest when she hears muttering coming from the right of the campground. Carefully, she creeps over to where the voice is the loudest and allows herself a silent sigh of relief.
"My name is Emma Swan. I live in Storybrooke, Maine. I am the sheriff of Storybrooke. I am the Savior. I am a mother. My parents are Snow White and Prince Charming..."
"Haven't we been through all this before?" Regina says, putting on her best Mayor voice in the hopes of disguising the fear she is still recovering from. Emma jumps a little, glancing up at the brunette before sighing and cracking her neck. Regina winces at the sound but refrains from telling the other woman off. "You should get some sleep."
"I could say the same of you," Emma replies, not taking her eyes off the blank piece of parchment clutched in her hands. Regina moves to sit by her and Emma slides over to give her room. "Couldn't sleep?"
"No," Regina replies. She leans back against the tree Emma is sitting against and allows her eyes to slip closed. She isn't sure when she got so comfortable in the company of the Savior, but she isn't about to begin questioning that at this ungodly hour. Those dilemmas are better addressed in the bright light of day when one's senses are not as clouded with exhaustion. Or never. She opens her eyes to see Emma looking at her intently.
Never. Never sounds good.
"I can't sleep not knowing where he is," Regina says, not quite sure why she is telling the blonde this. "Knowing that my—our—son is out there somewhere—" she sighs, not sure how to finish the statement. "I can't sleep." She leans her head back again, missing the small smile that spreads briefly across Emma's face at hearing Regina call Henry 'our son.'
"Me either," Emma replies, letting her gaze drift back to the map. There is silence between the two of them for a moment before Emma groans and lets her head fall back against the tree, mimicking Regina's posture. "This isn't working. We're not getting anywhere this way."
Regina opens her eyes again, startled. She stares for a moment before realizing that Emma is talking about the map and not...other things. "Yes, well. It's not like Pan is the most trustworthy of characters."
Emma meets her eye. "You're one to talk," she says. She immediately regrets the statement when she sees the dark look that crosses Regina's face. The mayor pushes herself off the tree trunk and makes to get up.
"Wait," Emma says, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back down. She catches the other woman off balance and she sits back down harder than Emma intended her to. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I'm just—I'm frustrated," she sighs and lets her head fall into her hands. "I've been through everything and nothing is working. I've told all my dirty little secrets to this thing and if it really is a trap Pan has more than enough to go on by this point."
Regina leans over and gently tugs the map from Emma's hands. She waves a hand over it and the parchment glows violet for a moment.
"It's not a trap," she says, handing it back to Emma. She takes it, looking at Regina with wide eyes.
"Thanks," she says with a soft smile. She turns the parchment over in her hands a few times, her smile fading. "I don't think I can do this."
"Of course you can," Regina replies softly. She rolls her eyes at what she is about to say, but continues anyway, assuming that the blonde simply needs a little encouragement, which is something she isn't very good at. "You're the—"
"What, the Savior?" Emma replies, and Regina jumps slightly at her unexpectedly loud tone. Emma shakes her head. "If I really were the Savior then we would have a map by now. We would have Henry by now. We would be home instead of sitting here in this godforsaken forest!" She slams the still blank parchment to the ground between herself and Regina. She shakes her head and takes a shuddering breath. "I'm no Savior. Not here."
Regina looks at the ground between her feet, listening to the breath of the woman beside her hitch. She doesn't know what to say. She's unsure of why she has even put herself in this position to begin with. She is just deciding to get up and give Emma in privacy when the woman speaks up again.
"All I can think about besides Henry are the faces of those boys." Regina looks up at Emma again and finds herself a little surprised at her defeated posture. In the short time she has known the other woman she has never seen her look anything but strong and sturdy.
"What do you mean?" she finds herself asking before she can stop herself. Her curiosity has gotten the better of her. It's a quality that she thought she had squelched when she was a mere child, but here in the presence of this exhausted looking woman she finds it rising to the surface again. What could possibly put the Savior, the one who broke her curse, into such a defeated stance?
"When I looked into their eyes I—I saw myself."
Regina remains silent, still not quite following but not wanting to put herself out there again by asking more questions. She listens to Emma take a few deep breaths before she continues.
"I saw despair," Emma says, so quietly that Regina finds herself leaning in a little to catch everything she is saying. She puts her hand down for balance, not registering how close to Emma's it now is, both resting on top of the still blank piece of parchment. "The same despair I used to wear back when—back when I was in the foster system. I was just...lost. A lost little girl who didn't matter. And never thought she would. A little girl who cried herself to sleep every night because she wanted her parents so bad and couldn't understand why they gave her up." The words come out in a rush, almost as though she is purging herself of something vile that has been eating her up inside. Regina finds herself uncomfortable at the sudden display of emotion, but also finds herself unable to leave. "I'm no Savior. Not here," she repeats, and Regina watches a tear trail a path down her cheek. "I just feel like what I've always been. An orphan."
Regina inches closer, not taking her eyes away from the tear that now falls from Emma's chin into her lap. Their fingers touch but neither pulls away. "I understand how you feel," she says, her voice no more than a whisper. Emma turns her head and their faces are much closer than either of them expected. Her eyes unintentionally flicker down to the brunette's lips, to the scar that she has always wondered about. She inches closer until her hand is covering Regina's, and when neither of them pulls away Regina flips her hand over and grasps Emma's tightly. "I'm lost too. I have been, for a very long time."
Emma smiles slightly at the statement. "What is Henry going to do with us?" she asks. Regina laughs lightly at the statement, her breath warm against Emma's nose. Emma feels her eyes slip shut as she begins to close the space between their faces. She doesn't know what she is doing, or why, just that somehow here in the dark under the trees it feels right. Like it's meant to happen. But just as their noses brush Regina gasps.
"What?" Emma asks, pulling back fast, her eyes wide and looking around for trouble. But Regina is looking down at their clasped hands. Underneath, the image of a map has begun to draw itself on the parchment. She looks up, her eyes just as surprised as Emma's.
"You did it," she says, eyes wide in a way Emma would think of as cute if that were a word she would use to describe the mayor.
"We did it," Emma corrects, and her heart skips a beat when she sees the stricken expression on the mayor's face. Before her brain has the chance to kick in and tell her what a bad idea it is, she leans in and steals a quick kiss. Even in the dark she can see the flush that spreads across Regina's cheeks. She grabs the map with one hand and pulls Regina to her feet with the other.
"Let's get some sleep," she says. "We have our son to rescue tomorrow."