A/N: A wee post-ep that takes place after 5x02. Stays within the show "canon" so Robin and Hook are mentioned in the context of what happened within the episode. But this is all about the ladies and their issues. And no, it's not happy. But angsty!
"So you're alive," she says coldly from somewhere in the darkness behind Regina. That feels a bit on the nose to Regina, but somehow appropriate considering everything that's going on. Still, it's hard not to find some degree of sick amusement in the fact that she, the former Evil Queen and now the Savior of Storybrooke (a title which makes her skin itch in a way that she thinks she'll never quite get over) and Emma, the once Savior and now Dark One are having this conversation in a room devoid of illumination except for the moon.
"Surprised or disappointed?" Regina asks, lifting a mug of coffee to her lips. It's her third cup this evening, and she knows that she won't be sleeping at all tonight. She'd known that before she'd kissed her son goodnight, before she'd checked on Robin to ensure he was sleeping calmly, before she'd started up the coffee machine and before Emma had shown up here in in the kitchen. She'd known it the moment she'd understood what had happened out by the pond and what Emma had intended to happen to her out there.
She'd intended Regina to die.
And…well.
Still, even knowing that, Regina keeps her back to Emma as she hears the younger woman approaching, the rustling of her leather announcing her. It's madness to disrespect your enemy in this way (and gods does it hurt to think of Emma as her enemy again), but she also knows that the one thing the Dark One wants is to bring her to her knees. So now, more than ever perhaps, she has to force the idea of being strong and defiant. She has to be that.
Even if it's mostly just a lie.
Well or poorly told, well she supposes that depends on the point of view.
"A bit of both," Emma answers, an uncomfortable mocking lilt to her voice that's just a tick shy of Rumple's old weird way of speaking which had always managed to unnerve her. "I mean I should have guessed that you would find a way to survive when you shouldn't. How did you do it this time? Did you make a new deal with the devil? Trade another soul for your own once again?"
"Family," is all Regina replies, and thinks of how the family is both of theirs and this is so very wrong.
"Ah family," Emma notes, glancing around the kitchen. "Such a lovely word that means so little."
"You know that's not true."
"I know that family will always fail you. That's what I know, Regina."
"They didn't fail me tonight."
"Which means that they failed me," Emma answers.
Regina swallows hard at that, absorbing the hatred she feels flowing off of Emma towards. Her hand trembling slightly, she motions towards the coffee pot. It's a non-sequitur and makes no sense, but she needs to move away from the burning ache of all of Emma's anger. "I would have made you some hot chocolate, but something tells me that that's not the Dark One's favorite drink."
"Was that supposed to be a joke?" Emma asks, an eyebrow lifted. "Because it's a rather poor one. I wonder, does becoming a so-called reformed villain remove your ability to be witty? Because you're lacking now."
"Says the woman who's opening line to me was about failure to bring over a bottle of wine," Regina retorts. "And no, dear, it was simply an observation about the changes in your...preferences. Inclusive of your hair style and wardrobe."
"Can't really out-do the Evil Queen when it comes to audacious and absurd, now can I?"
Regina says nothing, her nostrils flaring as she reminds herself that she's being baited here. Coerced once again into a collision.
Finally, Emma speaks again, "Yes, well, regardless; whether you want to accept it or not, I am still me. This is who I am."
"If you say so."
There's another beat of tense silence between them, and for a split second, Regina forgets to breathe because she thinks that maybe she is managing to throw this Emma at least a little bit off-guard and that's…that's good. At least she thinks it's good; she knew Emma well enough to know how to manage unsettling situations but this woman behind her is a frightening mystery - a ball of rage and hate.
She thinks she should understand that better than anyone, and she does...but...still...everything is so off. So wrong.
"You knew that I would come?" Emma asks after a moment, shifting around and rustling again. Like she can't set comfortable within her own skin; she might think that this is her now, but her constant twitching and almost reptilian movements betray her.
"Over here tonight? Of course, I knew. I know you, Emma," Regina replies.
"Everyone thinks that they do." She moves to stand next to Regina. "Look at me," she says.
Regina's hands fold around the coffee mug. "I don't take orders from you."
"Funny considering that you were the one giving me orders in Camelot."
"You know I don't know what that means."
"And you know that you don't need to know that you did exactly what I said you did."
Regina looks away from the coffee cup, her eyes locked hard on the far wall.
"Exactly. Now look at me."
"No."
"Look. At. Me."
There's a sharp snap of fingers and then the chair is spinning and the two women are eye to eye.
"After everything you've done to me, you don't get to show me your back," Emma growls at her.
Regina laughs at that, her eyes now locked on Emma's cold ones. "You sent me to die tonight, Emma; you're lucky I didn't ward the hell out of this house. Once you leave tonight, I will."
"You think that will keep me out?"
"I think even the Dark One has limits."
"We'll see," Emma replies, her lip curling into a weird half-smirk, half-sneer. "As for sending you to die…" she sighs dramatically. "Still blaming me for the bad choices that you make, I see."
"Oh no," Regina disputes. "I made that choice. But I do know that you helped me get there."
"That's what friends are for," Emma comments, her voice full of a seething unrestrained anger that makes Regina's stomach sink at the implications of what she hadn't been able to do – of all of the ways that she'd failed to be a friend to Emma. "To help each other to see the truth."
"I'm glad that you said that," Regina nods, standing up slowly. She dusts off her pants and then brings herself to stand at full height (she's a couple inches shorter than Emma now thanks to the usual small height disparity they have and the fact that she's in flats while Emma is in heels that would have made the Evil Queen salivate). "Because, Emma, one way or another, that's exactly what's going to happen. I'm not going to give up on you. Even if you want to kill me."
Emma lets out a sound that is something like a bemused disbelieving snort, but without any of the humor of it. "Flashback," she says with a malicious grin. "Big mistake of mine to chase after you like a needy puppy. But those days are long over, Regina. I don't need you. Any of you."
"Well then flashback number two, Emma: maybe I need you."
"You always have. But I'm done playing that game. I like this one…better."
"Why did you want me dead?" Regina asks. "Revenge? To get me out of the way so that you can do whatever...thing you're doing?"
"Nothing quite so diabolical, Regina; I just wanted you to finally price the pay for your…choices."
"Yes, I got that part. But somehow I don't think we're talking about the same price."
"Perhaps not."
"So many riddles, Emma. Why? Why the games? Why not just tell us what we did to you - what I did to you? Why wipe our memories and make it so that we can't do anything to make up for what we do? Why come after us like this?"
"Why else but to see you scramble like the rat that you are. Always chasing the elusive cheese that you think will make you so happy. But it won't, Regina. Because you're incapable of it."
"Happiness?"
"Anything."
Regina's eyes close for a moment, and she has to fight against the urge to back off, to turn around and look away from the intense hatred she sees save staring back at her from Emma.
This hurts. More than she'd ever expected it to; Emma is the first real friend that she's had since the days when she and Maleficent had been something more than just that. And that friendship had been based in a mutual kind of falling where as what she'd had with Emma had been about helping each other to find strength when there had been a dire deficit of such.
Emma had been a rock to her when she'd needed it the most, steady faith and support. She she likes to think that she'd been the same when Emma had been reeling thanks to finding out her parents' secret.
She likes to think that her presence had made a least a bit of a difference.
But now…
Now.
Now, there's Emma with pale skin and white hair and eyes so cold and empty that Regina almost wants to shiver. She wonders if this is what it had been like to look into the Evil Queen's eyes. Had people wanted to escape her just because she'd made them feel so very empty?
"Tell me," Emma pushes as she runs a hand across the smooth marble of the counter, an unreadable smirk on her lips. "Where is your precious Robin Hood now? Where is the man that you claim to love so much that would give up my soul and yours to keep from death."
"I don't know what you're talking about. What does Robin have to do with your soul?"
"I promised you a happy ending, didn't I?"
"I told you not to. But since we're talking so much about choices, let me remind you that that was your choice, Emma."
"My choice is why you're alive right now. Do try to remember that, Your Majesty."
"It's impossible to forget it," Regina tells her. "I'm aware of the debt that I owe you."
"Good. I want you to remember it every day for the rest of your life. Now, where is he? Where is your lover now?"
"Sleeping. What does it matter to you?"
"Is he upstairs? In your bed? Content and happy?"
"Is your plan to kill us all, Emma?" Regina asks, changing the subject away from Robin.
"Answer my question, and I'll consider answering yours."
"Yes, he's upstairs in my bed. Sleeping off almost having died tonight. Again, why do you care? He's done nothing to you."
Emma shrugs her shoulders, an odd thing considering the look of her. "Didn't say I did. I'm just...delighted...that you were able to keep your happy ending."
"Because of you."
"Yes. It's funny how exchanges have to work. How prices have to be paid."
"There's nothing keeping you out of your pirate's bed, Emma."
"Except he doesn't want this 'me', either." She huffs darkly at that. "Imagine that, will you? The pirate who pillaged and murdered his way across several realms is too good for me."
Regina licks her lips and thinks carefully about what she's going to say; the coolness Emma had come in with is gone now, replaced by boiling anger. "So is this punishment? Because he rejected you –"
"No. You and I…we're our own thing, Regina. We have our own scores to settle. So many of them."
"And you said I was the one with rage that could be bottled; seems you're projecting. Dark One Tell me, when it's Hook's turn to deal with your...punishment, will you send him to his death like you just did me?"
"You made your own choice to sacrifice your life for your precious soulmate," Emma replies, clear hatred bubbling beneath the quiet words, and again Regina wonders if this is hatred for Robin in specific or for the happiness that she assumes that Regina now has. "And look, it worked out for you, didn't it?"
"I'm alive if that's what you mean," Regina replies, aware of how often she says these words, and how often it feels like she's just going through the motions.
"For now," she says simply. "Just know that there will be a day when you won't be. And that day is coming sooner than you might imagine."
"I assume that's a promise and not a threat?"
Their eyes meet and once again, it takes everything Regina has to not show how affected she is by this version of her friend. "Everyone has to pay the price eventually. Even you, Regina."
"Moving aside the fact that you know that I don't take well to threats, am I who you're ultimately after?" Regina asks, stepping away from Emma and moving over to refill her coffee cup. Not because she needs more caffeine (gods knows that she doesn't after all she's consumed), but rather because she needs something else to do besides stare at Emma and see the damage done to her.
Body and soul.
"Well that's a thought, isn't it?" Emma muses, watching her disturbingly closely.
Regina turns back to face her. "And if you were to get your revenge on me, would that stop all of this? Would your rage be sated? Because if that's what you need, I'm right here, Emma. If you want to kill me, then take your best shot and let's see where we end up. But you know that I don't go down easily."
Emma smirks. "How's your head, Regina? Still spinning? That was quite the hit you took. I wonder how many more of those you could take before -"
"I'm not afraid of you. So if this is what you want -"
"So your plan is to destroy your entire family." A statement, not a question.
"Family doesn't mean much when they let you fall. When they fail you."
"Didn't you just say we all have to make our own choices?"
"I did," Emma tells her. "And here we are."
"Don't do this. If we failed you, give us a chance to –"
"Things are going to get busy for you, Savior," Emma tells her, the smirk growing into something cruel and hard. "I'd make sure to get some sleep; you're going to need it."
She turns to walk away, her heels clicking sharply on the floor.
"I'm sorry," Regina says softly.
"I know you are. But it's too late for that."
"It's never too late. You helped show me to understand that. You –"
"It is. I'm the Dark One now, Regina. And you helped me get there."
"Please."
"Begging already, are we?" Emma asks, her eyes lighting up with something mean; Regina recognizes that particular look, used to see it facing back at her from a Queen's mirror.
"Pleading with a friend," Regina says. "Pleading with someone I know who is better than this."
Emma shakes her head. "Stop. Just…stop. We're not friends. We're enemies, and I think you're going to wish that you had died tonight; before this is all over, I'm going to destroy you."
"You can try," Regina answers, lifting up her chin in defiance.
Emma laughs at that, but the sound lacks all of her usual mirth. "Good," she says. "A game."
"Not a game –"
"Oh, yes, this is exactly a game. But what you don't realize yet is that the game is already over. I've already won, Regina. Eventually, you'll realize that and then you'll just…fall down."
"Emma –"
She snaps her fingers then, a cloud of darkness (how fitting, Regina muses) overtaking her.
The half-filled mug of coffee hits the wall a few seconds later, brown dripping down the wall, shattered glass on the floor.
That's fitting, too.
"Mom?" she hears. He's standing in the doorway, his flannel pants over his feet, his hair a mess.
So young, so innocent - why couldn't he have ended up with someone more worthy? Someone less lost?
He steps towards her, says, "Mom" again, and she just turns into his arms.
She knows that she really shouldn't.
Her son needs her more than she needs him.
She's just missing a friend; he's missing a mother.
But then his arms are around her and he's hugging her.
Telling her he'd heard everything (he hadn't, but he'd heard) enough; heard that she had been the Savior he knew she could be.
He tells her that he's proud of her, always knew that she could do, knows that she can keep doing it.
Still, she apologizes to him, tells him that she's sorry – so very very sorry.
He tells her that they will win. Tells her that he believes in her and always will.
He tells her that they will bring Emma back to them, and that everything will be okay.
Her little boy – her little prince who has his first crush – is holding her up as he always has.
On this dark evening, she accepts his unwavering faith.
Tonight, she accepts the hope that she doesn't quite have within her own heart.
And when he says again - with the confidence that only her and Emma's son could have in the face of all this madness and pain – that they'll bring Emma home, she promises him they will.
Even as her eyes flick out the window and into the darkness. Searching for Emma.
Wondering what could have possibly gone so wrong, and how she could have failed Emma so horribly that it had allowed this kind of evil to overtake the once Savior's heart and soul.
Henry's hand slips into hers and she lets out a breath and smiles at her.
He doesn't know what had happened between she and Emma tonight – doesn't know that Emma had essentially urged her to sacrifice herself – and never will. That, Regina vows, will be her gift to Emma. Her penance. She will move heaven and earth to protect Emma in his eyes.
And then yes, she will bring Emma home, she thinks to herself, her lip curling into a defiant half-smile as she continues to stare out into the darkness which Emma might be watching from.
Bring her home.
Or die trying.
-Fin