AN: Hello! So I'm really unsure about this piece to be honest, but I needed to post it before I drove myself crazy over it. I hope you like it.
Let me know what you think, yes?
Enjoy!
'Till Morning
Night One.
Regina wakes with a jolt from an uneasy sleep, as though there are still thousands of volts of electricity coursing through her body. Greg's (Owen's) voice still rings in her ear, and the whirring of the machine that had ravaged her body still haunts her in the night. A chip from one of her molars has fallen out from gritting her teeth together so tightly while strapped to that cold, metal slab. The hole in her tooth causes her pain, but it's nothing compared to not knowing where Henry is. She'll fix her tooth with magic when she's strong enough to do so.
With a sigh she wonders how long the nightmares will last this time around.
Feeling suddenly claustrophobic, she crawls from the small bunk she's been sleeping fitfully in for the past few nights aboard the Jolly Roger. She doesn't mind traveling by boat, she loves the way the ship gently rocks to and fro with the waves. She loves the ocean and its vastness. But it's simply too slow. Though, no mode of transportation – modern, magical, or otherwise – would be fast enough to bring her to Henry.
She makes her way slowly to the deck, careful not to wake the others who are sleeping.
She wanders to the starboard side of the ship, wanting the pleasantly warm and light breeze to blow against her face. She stares out at the ocean, at the moon and its reflection on the water. It hardly feels like they're moving at all and impatience builds within her, causing her muscles to tense. She just wants her son back, safe in her arms. She's just managed to reconnect with him emotionally, and she'll be damned if she is going to lose him now.
She doesn't know how long she stands staring out at the ocean thinking about Henry, imagining each and every horrible scenario that may have befallen him by now.
Just when she thinks she might be sick with rage and worry, she hears a voice call out behind her.
"Couldn't sleep?" Emma comes to stand next to her, leaning her forearms on the railing and clasping her hands together.
Regina doesn't reply. Obviously, she thinks. And she'd be surprised if Emma were sleeping any better.
"I heard you calling out in your sleep," Emma remarks, her tone sympathetic.
Again, Regina doesn't give her an answer, but she has a feeling that Emma doesn't expect one. She's simply saying that, yes, I have my fair share of those, too.
She's simply exhausted, down to the very center of her bones. She hadn't recovered from her hours of torture at Greg's hand when she'd had to stop the curse's failsafe, and while she'd succeeded – and survived – with Emma's help, the ensuing chase to save Henry have left her fatigued like she's never been before.
And now, she can't sleep because her son is in the clutches of someone who'd had no qualms torturing her for hours, doing god knows what to him. He might not even be alive anymore, and the thought of that alone fills Regina with a dread that's like ice in her veins.
Suddenly, she's glad Emma is with her. Because like it or not, she's the person who most understands what she's feeling at the moment.
"We'll find him, you know," Emma assures her.
"I know." Because there simply is no other option. They either find Henry or die trying.
She must not sound very convinced though, because Emma insists. "We will. I know it," she says with a ferocity that reassures Regina more than any words possibly could.
Regina just nods.
"Besides," Emma says quietly, "we make an okay team, don't you think?"
For the first time since Emma joined her on deck Regina turns to look at her. She's smirking, though not unkindly.
"I mean, we saved Storybrooke together. We'll find Henry."
Regina senses immediately that there's something Emma wants to say to her, though she's not sure that she'll be able to assure Emma of anything when she herself feels so unsure of everything.
"Is there something in particular on your mind, dear?" She asks as neutrally as she can. She has no burning desire to talk about what happened in the mine, but she knows that freezing Emma out right now won't help her; not when she's treading on such thin ice with the Charmings, and not when they need to rely on each other the most.
"I just…" she trails off, and doesn't speak for a very long time.
Regina continues to stare at the ocean. She's a patient woman; she can wait for Emma to put her muddled thoughts in order.
"I wanted to tell you, but you'd started to slow the failsafe already…" Emma sucks in a deep breath. "I want to tell you that I'm sorry."
Regina doesn't react. She simply continues to stare overboard, her head tilted toward the moon.
"For?" She inquires after a moment, still neutral, unwilling to let slip to the savior that she's been waiting for some sort of apology for months.
Emma exhales heavily, and Regina sneaks a look at her profile. Where do I begin? her face says, and Regina tries not to feel at least a little smug.
"I'm sorry about Archie… I'm sorry that I believed in you and then threw it all out the minute I examined the memories of a dog. God. You deserved better than that, even with all the things you've done," Emma says sincerely. "When I think about it now, it makes no sense that you'd kill him - he was practically the only friend you had. And you were trying, and….I was hurt, I guess, when I saw Pongo's memories and I reacted emotionally."
"Yes, well," Regina tilts her head to the side and bites the inside of her cheek. "My mother did put together quite the convincing frame job. I'm not surprised that you believed what you saw."
Emma smiles at her, thankful that she's not being made to grovel. They both turn back to the ocean.
Emma continues, "I'm even more sorry that I didn't come to you or look harder to find you the minute I knew Archie was alive. I mean, we knew Cora was in town and we knew she'd be looking for you. And we knew that you weren't in a good place."
"So why didn't you?" Regina wonders, frustrated when she sounds just the tiniest bit hurt.
Emma grips the railing of the ship tightly and swallows thickly. "I guess…I guess I didn't want to own up to the fact that I was a big part of why you decided to go back to your mother, why you threw all the progress that you'd made out the window. That was selfish, and I'm sorry."
Regina nods. It isn't the first time someone's let her down for their own selfish reasons. She hasn't come to expect anything different. And it hardly matters anymore, anyway. But secretly she's glad that Emma has at least acknowledged the real reasons behind what she'd done. Honesty is something she appreciates, even when it hurts her.
"And then Gold showed up, and, well, you know…"
"Indeed," Regina murmurs.
Emma's apologies ring hollow within her, though she doesn't doubt their sincerity. She's imagined for weeks what it would feel like to finally get a genuine apology, and now that she has them she finds that they're not what she wanted to hear at all.
They're silent for a while, and Regina revels in the sound of the ocean gently lapping against the sides of the ship. Along with Emma's presence she feels a sense of comfort that she hasn't felt in a while. But Emma breaks their silence, of course, and mild annoyance flits through Regina. Why did Emma always feel the need to speak?
"There's one other thing…" She says, and Regina doesn't turn to look at her but her voice sounds thicker, like there's something caught in her throat.
Regina tilts her head as permission for Emma to continue.
"I wanted to tell you in the mines, but I didn't know how to say it…" Several snarky comments about the blonde's ineloquence come to the tip of her tongue, but she refrains from saying anything and smirks to herself instead.
"I'm sorry that I ever said to you that Henry wasn't your son."
Regina freezes. This is one thing for which she didn't expect an apology. Finally, slowly, she turns to look at Emma and is truly surprised at the emotion shining her green eyes.
"What?" Regina breathes.
"I told him what you told me to say to him – that it wasn't too late for you to do the right thing – and he was the one that insisted that we go back for you. He wasn't going to leave without you."
Tears flood Regina's eyes, and she doesn't even bother to hide them. She's full of so many emotions that she doesn't know which to process first. Henry had wanted to save her.
"And then, when we thought it was over, Henry left us and went to hold on to you in what he thought were your last moments. Because you're his mother, Regina, and I really am sorry that I ever said otherwise. Even though Henry was really mad at you, and really hurt by what you'd done, deep down he never stopped believing that you were still his mom – never stopped hoping to see the good in you – and I shouldn't have either."
Tears slip down Regina's cheeks unchecked. Emma's words have left her utterly breathless, and she finds herself unable to speak.
For someone as ineloquent as Emma, she certainly knows what to say when it counts. Because these are the words that Regina has been waiting to hear.
"I was thinking about one of the first conversations that we ever had, you know, when you said that you'd 'changed every diaper, soothed every fever and endured every tantrum'. Remember that?"
Regina nods and smirks. Of course she remembers.
"I realized that I don't have any of that. I will never have any of that. You have pieces of Henry that I can never have, and that's because I made the decision to give him up at birth. And I'm sorry that I ever tried to negate the first ten years of his life that you spent raising him and loving him. I shouldn't have made you feel like that means nothing to me. Because it's everything, and I am more grateful than I can say.
"Despite everything you've done, and the hurt you've caused my family Henry wouldn't exist without the curse, and you wouldn't have raised him without it, either. And since you didn't force my parents to stick me in a tree trunk at birth, I can't be mad at you like my parents are. So…yeah. I'm sorry, and thank you."
"I –" Regina begins, but she's grateful when Emma interrupts her because she still doesn't know what to say.
"AND, lastly, I'm sorry about your mother. Snow was trying to protect her family, but the way she went about it – what she did to you, I mean – was just wrong, Regina, and I'm sorry."
Emma falls silent, finally, and eyes Regina with a wary expression.
Regina remains silent for a long time, then turns once again to face the ocean. She takes a deep breath, not trusting herself to be able to say anything without utterly falling apart.
Once she feels stable, she says, simply, "Thank you," with as much sincerity and feeling as she can muster. But she doesn't think Emma will ever understand how deeply her words have settled themselves into Regina's tattered and abused heart.
They stand together at the railing as the sky slowly begins to change colors.
Emma clears her throat. "When this is done, after we find Henry and bring him back home, we'll sit down and work something out, okay? Some sort of schedule that allows us both to be his mothers."
Despite the stress they're under, and the worry they're both feeling, Emma's words place a certain lightness in Regina's chest. Emma has once again deemed her worthy of trust, and she vows that she won't lose it this time.
"That sounds good to me, Miss – " She stops and clears her throat. "Emma," she amends.
Emma smiles at her – about as brightly as she can, given the circumstances – and Regina can't help but return it, if only in a small upward curl of her lips.
Together, they watch the sun rise.
Night Two.
Regina wakes the following night to the sound of muffled sobs. It takes her a moment in her half-asleep state to place them, but eventually she recognizes them as Emma's.
She tries to ignore them at first, figuring that Emma would be embarrassed should she say anything. But Emma doesn't stop crying and it sets Regina's teeth on edge with an emotion that she's too afraid to examine.
Eventually, she hears Emma rise carefully from her bunk and tread across the room, slip into her shoes and a coat and head up to the deck.
Regina tries her hardest to fall back to sleep. She tries to forget about Emma and the sobs that she'd so desperately tried to hide in her pillow. She tries so hard to push Emma's kind words out of her mind, and tries to forget that Emma misses Henry, too.
In the end, she comes to terms with the fact that sleep has left her for the night and gently pulls herself from her bunk. She makes her way to the deck, and, after a brief survey finds Emma looking out at the sea in the same spot she'd occupied last night.
As Regina nears her, she can hear Emma sniffling, inhaling deep, gasping breaths. She's wants to draw Emma's attention to her somehow but she doesn't know what she should say. 'Are you okay?' seems stupid, because obviously she's not. And 'couldn't sleep?' sounds even worse. In the end, she just walks to stand next to Emma at the rail, their shoulders very nearly touching.
She doesn't say anything, simply because she doesn't know what to say. There's nothing she can say that will ever be enough. So she stands next to Emma, trying to return the company and comfort that the younger woman had given her last night.
Eventually, Emma's sobs die down to just the occasional sniffling breath.
"I think I get it," she says finally, her voice thick from crying.
"Get what, dear?" Regina murmurs, tilting her head to the side.
"I think I get…why you did what you did."
Regina bristles. Nobody could possibly empathize with her to the point of understanding, and she can't imagine why anyone would want to. Understanding her is something that few people have ever shown interest in doing.
"Doubtful, Ms. Swan," she bites out.
Emma frowns at her for a moment but then nods as though to say 'fair enough.'
"I just… I feel like I want to tear the entire world apart." Tears began running anew down her cheeks. "Because I couldn't save him. I wasn't strong enough. And he died because of me..." The words come out on an absolutely guttural, hopeless sob and this is something that Regina understands.
A wave of empathy rises within her. She understands feeling so lost and hopeless and hurt that she'd tear the world asunder just to feel some sort of fleeting relief from the storm of rage in her heart.
"You mean Henry's father? What happened to him?" She asks as gently as she can.
"Tamara shot him," Emma whispers, wiping tears from her cheeks. "She smashed the magic bean and opened a portal and he fell in. I tried to hold on but…I couldn't. I couldn't - " She sucks in a breath, fighting to hold back sobs.
Regina carefully considers Emma's story. "He might still be alive. It's unlikely, but possible. I don't want to give you false hope, but –" she clears her throat and pauses, knowing that she's taking a risk with her next words, "Henry wouldn't want you to give up just yet, because there's still a possibility that he might be alive. And possibilities have always been enough for him." She sees Henry's desperate face outside the well in Storybrooke, begging her to believe in the possibility that Emma and Snow would be the ones to come through the well.
She meets Emma's gaze, and the look on her face might be comical were the situation not so dire. Gratitude, surprise and affection (whether for her or Henry she's not entirely sure) are among the emotions Regina can decipher.
"Thank you," she says, and the shock in Emma's voice hurts her more than it should. It shouldn't surprise her at all, and she hates that it does.
Regina nods in acknowledgement. It's not safe to be without hope in such a state of mind, she knows. And for Henry, she can't let Emma feel how she'd felt all those years ago as a frightened, heartbroken young woman.
"For what it's worth," Regina offers, "I'm sorry about Mr. Cassidy." And she is, in a way, if only because Henry is upset over his loss. Whether she'd liked him or not, she's no stranger to losing loved ones and she's sorry that Emma's going through it right now.
They fall silent and stare out at the sea together. The weather doesn't change here, so neither does the temperament of the sea. This sea is too calm, too placid. It doesn't suit her here, whereas the whitecaps and crashing waves of the ocean in Storybrooke had matched her well.
"This is what happened to you, right?" Emma wonders after a while. "Someone you loved died, right?"
Regina's whole body stiffens. In no way were their situations similar. In no way is Neal anything like her Daniel. Her immediate instinct is to revert to her Evil Queen façade – pull back to a place where it doesn't hurt and demolish this tentative alliance she's built with Emma over the past few days.
But it's when she looks at Emma, whose wide green eyes show such hurt and a longing to know what exactly made Regina feel as though she'd had no other choice than to cast a curse that would leave her with a gaping chasm in her heart that she realizes: this is not a contest.
It's not some competition to see who's been hurt the most. It's not a matter of understanding exactly what the other has been through, or why they've made the decisions they've made. It's about helping each other in the present, even though the past can never be forgotten. It's about learning to trust again, and it's about doing what's best for Henry.
So she puts some trust in Emma and tells the Savior the story of her stable boy and how his only crime had been loving a girl who wanted to be free, but was destined to be evil from birth.
"I'm sorry," Emma whispers, and Regina wonders if Emma weren't grieving for her own first love whether she'd be as sympathetic. It didn't excuse the things she'd done, after all.
Regina shakes her head silently, brushing the condolences off, unable to bear the mixture of horror and compassion on Emma's face.
"David mentioned in passing once that he came back while we were gone. What happened?" Emma asks timidly.
Regina wants to tell Emma not to push her luck. The wound that was her resurrected fiancé was still open and raw, but she supposes that it won't hurt any more than telling the story of how Daniel came to be dead. After all, losing him had been a wound that had never healed, hadn't it?
"Whale resurrected him but it didn't work. He wasn't himself and he was in a lot of pain, so I had to –" She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, hoping to control the burn of tears behind her eyelids. "I had to end it for him."
Emma is silent for a long time.
"I'm sorry," Emma whispers again, and it sounds like she's apologizing for so much more than her loss. There's an understanding on her face and more forgiveness than anyone has shown her in the past, even with her efforts to change. Part of her wishes Emma wouldn't forgive her until she felt she'd earned it and not just because she'd told Emma a story. But then, forgiveness might already be hers after these past couple of days – she's family now after all.
She'll see how long it lasts once they get Henry back and go back to Storybrooke. She's learned not to expect anything that might make her happy to last long at all.
Regina smiles sadly at Emma and they return to their companionable silence.
Eventually, Emma sniffles. "I met Neal when I was trying to steal his car. Well, it wasn't really his car, he'd actually stolen it from someone else."
Regina turns her torso to face Emma and raises an eyebrow. "You were stealing a stolen car?"
Emma chuckles tearfully. "Yeah. My yellow bug."
Regina rolls her eyes. "Please tell me my son wasn't conceived in the back of that wretched car."
Emma shrugs and Regina scoffs in disgust.
"I was young and stupid, cliché as that sounds, but I loved him."
Emma looks up at the clouds for so long that Regina doesn't think she'll say anything else.
"And then what happened?" She asks before she can think better of it.
Emma looks at her for a long moment, her face so sorrowful that Regina just about to tells her to forget about it. But then Emma sighs and begins to speak.
As they clouds began to part, Emma recounts the story of the man who both broke her heart and gave her the gift that would heal her so many years after the fact.
For the second night in a row, they watch the sun come up over the horizon.
Night Three.
Hook told them that morning that they'd reach shore by the following afternoon.
Regina's surprised that she'd slept at all.
But when she does wake up, she sees Emma is sitting up in her bunk, looking across the room at her in the dark. She doesn't even have to say anything before Regina is on her feet and reaching for her coat. They leave together, careful not to wake the others.
Tonight, as she and Emma look out onto the water, she knows that they're both thinking about the same things.
Is tomorrow the day that they'll finally have their son back, or will they fail him? What are Greg and Tamara planning and is it something they can face? Have they hurt him? Is he even still…?
She can't even finish the thought. She refuses to believe that Henry might be dead. It's not likely anyway. Greg Mendel might want to see her suffer, but he's not foolish enough to kill her son and risk facing his mothers' wrath.
But she worries that he's not above subjecting an eleven year old boy to torture the likes of which she herself had endured at his hands.
Emma is standing closer to her tonight than before. She feels the tension rolling off Emma in waves, and she imagines that Emma can feel the same restlessness radiating from her.
"We'll find him," Emma declares, nodding at the ocean as though it might answer her back. To Regina she sounds less confident than two nights ago. More unsure of herself now that Henry's so close. "We'll find him," she repeats, and it's obvious she's reassuring herself more than anyone else.
"Yes, dear, we will," Regina confirms, and Emma shifts so that their shoulders touch. They'll find him because there simply is no other option for either of them.
She finds that she much prefers sharing common goals with Emma over constantly fighting against her. It's exhausting and she's glad she doesn't have to do this alone.
Words between them now are superfluous, so they watch the morning come in silence.
Night Four.
Henry is safe. He's covered in bruises and scrapes that make Regina want to rage when she sees them, and he's exhausted and traumatized. But he's whole and he's back with she and Emma and it's all that matters for now. They'll deal with everything else as it comes.
With nothing more than a raised voice and a few choice words, Emma has managed to wrangle the captain's quarters from Hook so that Henry can have some privacy. The quarters aren't anywhere near Regina's standards of cleanliness, but with a quick spell she's able to at least clean the bed sheets.
Emma enters, holding an unconscious Henry in her arms. Emma has been absolutely unshakable today, and Regina hates to admit it – even to herself – that she had drawn some of her own strength and confidence from Emma.
In the end – together- they'd rescued their son and Greg and Tamara were no longer a threat. And now the adrenaline was wearing off and they were both buckling under the weight of their emotional and physical fatigue.
Emma lays Henry down on the bed as gently as she can, but as soon as she removes her arms from around him he wakes with a jolt and a frightened cry that tears painfully through Regina's heart. At Henry's yelp Emma jumps back, startled. Regina watches as Emma locks up, and the panic on her face tells Regina immediately that she's useless for the moment.
Regina, however, doesn't hesitate and is by his side in an instant. She sits him up and pulls him close to her, drawing his head to rest on her shoulder. His breathing is heavy and his posture is tense.
"Hush, Henry," Regina murmurs softly, stroking his hair. "It's alright. You're safe."
Henry exhales heavily into her shoulder and relaxes when he realizes that he is, indeed, back with his family.
"You're safe," she repeats. She holds him like that until his breathing calms while Emma watches them stupidly to the side.
She pulls back from Henry when he's calmed. "Do you think you can sleep now?" She asks, brushing his hair from his eyes.
Mutely, he nods and lies back down on the bed. Regina stands and pulls the blankets up to his chest.
"Close your eyes sweetheart. Emma and I are right here." She bends at the waist and kisses him lovingly on the forehead.
He reaches up and grabs her wrist. "Will you sit with me until I fall asleep?" They're the first words he's spoken since they rescued him.
Tears spring to her eyes. It'd been so long since Henry had openly asked her for comfort that she didn't think he'd ever need her that way again.
"Of course, dear." Henry gives her a small smile and turns around, facing the wall. Regina sits on the edge of the bunk behind him. Emma doesn't move.
Regina rubs wide, gentle circles on his back like she would when he was a small child and couldn't sleep after a nightmare.
Eventually, his breathing evens out and Regina turns and looks at Emma.
"I-I'm sorry," the blonde stutters, putting her head in her hands. "I just froze…I guess I panicked."
She looks so lost and frustrated that Regina takes pity on her.
"Understandable, dear. It took me a while at first, too."
Hurt and guilt flash across Emma's face.
"That wasn't a dig, I mean it. I had to learn, too, at first."
Emma sighs. She doesn't know the little things about Henry. She doesn't know how to soothe him after a nightmare, so she panics instead. The feeling of being in over her head creeps though her slowly, leaving her feeling icy inside.
"Yeah…" Emma says half-heartedly.
"I'm going to go get the blankets from our bunks. I'll only be a minute."
Emma nods at her and moves to stand by Henry's head. Regina turns to go but before she can make it through the door she hears a stifled sob coming from Emma.
She turns and can see Emma's shoulder's shaking with each breath she takes. Though it's still disconcerting for her to see Emma cry, it's not altogether surprising. She's been unwavering all day, and now that the adrenaline has worn off everything has taken its toll, well…she had to break at some point.
Regina turns around and walks with caution back toward the other woman. "Emma?" She questions, not quite sure of what else to do. Comforting Henry was one thing but she's at a loss here. Emma probably doesn't want comfort from her anyway. She waits with baited breath, sure that she'll be dismissed.
"I'm just so relieved," Emma gasps after a moment, covering her mouth with her hand. "I'm so relieved he's back."
She smiles sympathetically from behind Emma's back and before she thinks about what she's doing she's reaching out. She hesitates for a moment but then gently places her hand on Emma's shoulder.
Emma stiffens almost violently at her touch and Regina moves to pull away. Stupid, Regina, she chides herself. But Emma reaches up and covers her fingers before she can pull away completely. "Thank you," is all she says, but the heartfelt emotion behind the statement fills Regina with warmth before she has a chance to quell it. She wishes she knew what else to say.
She squeezes Emma's shoulder and then pulls back. "I'll be back in a minute with blankets."
Emma nods shakily and wipes her eyes. "Okay," she croaks.
When Regina returns, her arms laden with blankets for them both, Emma is nearly dozing in the chair at the foot of Henry's bed.
Quietly, she walks to her and gently covers her with the blanket. Emma stares up at her sleepily. "Thank you," she murmurs, as she curls in on herself and closes her eyes once more.
Regina settles herself in the chair near Henry's head, pulling her own blanket over herself. She makes herself as comfortable as she can and watches her son sleep, the rise and fall of his chest eventually lulling her into her own restless slumber.
She wakes as the sun begins to stream through the small windows in Hook's cabin. Henry is still sleeping – in fact he'd slept through the night for which Regina is extremely thankful. Across the room, Emma is also still sleeping, invisible beneath her blanket except for a mess of blonde hair.
Regina smiles to herself. She's happy that they've slept through the sunrise for the first time since they'd stepped foot on this awful ship. They've certainly earned it, she thinks.
Emma stirs and peeks out from beneath her blanket, looking thoroughly disoriented. When their gazes meet Regina smiles softly at her and Emma smiles back briefly before she turns her attention to Henry.
They've come a long way, she and Emma. They've built bridges and found common ground. There is, after all, one thing that will never fail to unite them - their love for Henry.
She's ready, she thinks, to move on. To be the person that Henry wants her to be. She might even be able to call Emma her friend some day in the future.
But there's still a large part of her full of doubt. Their journey in Neverland is done. Henry is home safe. She's not naïve enough to think that a couple of heart-to-hearts with her son's birth mother will change much, even with the good she knows she's done recently. It's never been enough before…she can't afford to hope that this time will be any different.
Emma catches her staring, and smiles at her so sweetly that Regina can't help but wish – in spite of every cell in her body telling her not to get her hopes up - that this tentative harmony with Emma will last.
End.
Thanks for reading. Review please?