Okay! As promised, the continuation of my SQW drabble!
Just to clarify if anyone is confused, I'm NOT just reposting this story, but rather as I am continuing it, I wanted to put it on its own. Otherwise it'd get kinda confusing if I kept swerving 4 stories around in one document.
If you have read this previously, I just did some editing...it's incredible how many mistakes you find AFTER posting, even if you checked it beforehand.
Anyway, if this is your first time reading this, I hope you enjoy!
The car swerved.
Her heart raced
A hand gripped hers on the steering wheel.
They looked at each other.
"I-"
Emma felt a blinding pain on her head, making her groan as she came to. She felt like she had been hit by a truck, and then had a lawnmower pass over the wreck.
Before she could get her bearings, she was engulfed into a tight hug.
"Oh thank goodness Emma! You had us so worried and we begun to fear the worst-" Mary Margaret was rambling in her ear, and Emma hugged her back, albeit a tad bit awkwardly. She still wasn't completely used to having people care about her so much.
Once they broke apart, Emma did a double take. "Whoa, what happened?"
Her mother looked at her curiously. "You were in a car crash. There was a terrible thunderstorm and you hydroplaned onto a fallen tree."
Emma frowned. "How long was I out?"
"A couple of days."
Now Emma was truly confused. "And you grew your hair out in just a couple of days?"
Although her hair wasn't back to the glory of her Snow White days, Mary Margaret had let her hair grow a bit longer than her usual pixie-cut style. The older woman blanched, and let out a stammering, "What's the last thing you remember?"
Emma let out a sigh. "I don't know, I guess it was when Hook and I were coming back from the past. Zelena's time travel thingy came back to life and we brought Marian back to Storybrooke."
"Oh no, you too."
Emma was confused. "Me too? What too? What's wrong?"
"Emma, that was 3 years ago."
Regina was staring at her son. At least she hoped it was her son, even if he was now a lot taller and a teenager, voice deeper and trying to figure out his body.
"So, what happened in these three years? I see you've grown."
Henry grinned at the last comment, but it faltered as he saw his mom waiting for an actual answer. "Yeah, a lot of things have happened."
He was keeping something from her, that's for sure. She would find out what it was. "Has the town at least gotten some peace and quiet after Zelena?"
"Kinda not really," he smirked. "We had Elsa, some ogres, you know, just another day in Storybrooke. Never dull."
The brunette smiled at her son, and ran a hand through her hair. She felt something different on it, and took a good look at why it felt peculiar. She raised the left hand up to her son, preparing a glare should he not answer adequately. "What is this?"
"A ring." He was clearly her son, expertly dodging questions.
"What kind?"
"Silver?"
"Henry..." she had used the warning tone a lot in the past, and she didn't care if her son was already 15 and a little bit taller than her, she still knew how to intimidate.
"It's a wedding ring."
"And who is it that I'm supposedly married to?"
"Say what?!" Emma was sure her eyes would bug out at any second. This had to be a joke.
"A lot of time has passed, you two managed to get along, and eventually fall for one another."
"Is this Storybrooke's own version of Punk'd? Seriously what the hell?"
Mary Margaret sighed, sitting on the bed. "Look Emma, believe me when I say that this was my exact reaction when you told me about your secret relationship with her, but I've learnt to accept it."
Emma nodded slowly. She was married to none other than Regina Mills. Man she must've conked her head harder than she thought.
Speaking of the devil, the door burst open, and sporting a hospital gown identical to hers, Regina came in, fury in her eyes, a faint purple aura surrounding her. She barely registered Henry trailing behind her, or how different he looked.
She made a beeline to the bed, and practically growled at Mary Margaret, "I swear, if this is some kind of sick joke, I will tear-"
"Whoa there Regina." Emma gently placed a hand on Regina's arm, but the latter wrenched her arm free of the touch.
"You don't get to say anything either. I don't know what the hell kind of game this is but I refuse to play a part in this."
Mary Margaret refused to cower, and she replied, "Three years have passed Regina, doesn't a small part of you see this as being plausible?"
In truth, Regina wanted to say yes. She wanted to believe she had found love, and heck, she did think of Emma as attractive, and wouldn't have found it so unlikely the two wound up together, despite their various spats in the past. However, Regina attacked first and asked questions later. It was a tried and proven method to give herself time to breathe and figure things out, not to mention it allowed her to build the solid wall to protect her from sadness.
So, looking at Mary Margaret, she ground out a simple "No", and left the room.
Emma twirled the ring on her finger, her lie detector still ringing from Regina's answer.
If Regina had hoped her house would offer answers, she was sorely mistaken.
Well, there were answers, just not the ones she was looking for or expecting. In her state of denial, she had hoped she'd see that she still lived by herself with Henry, not that her house now had signs of one more inhabitant living within it, joining family pictures with gusto. Regina picked up one frame, seeing that it had to have been recent, Henry not looking much younger than how he was now, and she saw with a pang how happy she looked beside Emma, Henry between them.
She put down the picture before the tears she'd been keeping at bay actually spilled. This was too much for her.
She heard the door open, and got ready to attack the intruder, a fireball appearing on her hand.
"Whoa mom. It's just me." Henry had his arms up, eyes wide.
"Sorry Henry, I'm just- this is too much to take in."
"I know, but you asked."
Regina smiled, chuckling softly, "Yes, I suppose I did."
"Why did you lie?"
She looked at her son confused. What was he talking about?
When his mother didn't say anything, Henry elaborated, "After you left, Ma said that you were lying, when you answered grandma's question. So if you do find it plausible, why did you lie?"
How could Regina explain to her son that this was her survival mechanism? This had been how she had survived heartbreak after heartbreak in her life.
"Why do you keep lying to yourself Regina?"
"You don't know me, Ms. Swan."
Emma scoffed, letting out a mirthless chuckle. "I know you very well Regina Mills. I know that when you're nervous or scared, you take a step back from anything personal, including calling people by their first names. Also if you forgot, I have-"
"A built-in lie detector. Yes we've established that at least a dozen times Ms. Swan, but I would have that lie detector checked out for faults after so many years in use. You can't put your inability to take a no for an answer as an excuse to break out the lie detector line. I'm sure it's a great party trick, but I will continue to insist, I do not like you."
"Okay Regina, whatever makes you sleep at night."
She probably should've left it at that, but she had a need to have the final word. "Why do you care anyway? You're with the pirate."
"Didn't work out." Emma didn't explain any more, but Regina could see there was a story behind it, and not a pleasant one. She had the sudden urge to find the pirate and inflict pain on him. Why, she didn't know. She could hazard a guess, but she didn't like the implications from that reason.
But Regina had to put her foot in her mouth with a snide remark. "That's too bad, you two seemed perfect for each other."
Emma didn't even bother to answer the jab, instead she just threw her hands in the air and left with a huff.
Regina's eyes shot open. She knew for a fact that that hadn't been just any old dream. This was a memory.
She let out a sigh. At least this memory made sense. She didn't like Emma, and how could she have gone to marry the daughter of her arch-nemesis? The thought baffled her. But this? This made sense. This was the dynamic she was used to with the blonde. Not the lovey-dovey still images she saw around the house.
Looking over at her clock, she saw that it was only 4am. She sat up and looked around the room. The room she and Emma supposedly shared. Thankfully the blonde wasn't here tonight, Henry told her that his other mother was staying over with the Charmings, giving both of them the space they needed.
Regina fell back onto her bed with a groan. Why did this have to be so complicated? Why couldn't she will her mind to just remember everything so she could make sense of the situation?
Emma let out a hiss of pain, clutching her stomach. The gravel beneath her rumbled as the ogre walked away from her, thinking her dead.
She might as well be, with the pain she was feeling; she couldn't even reach her phone, and there was no one around her. It was the middle of the night, and she was the sole person on tonight's graveyard shift.
As she rested her head back on the pavement, she let out another wince of pain. The spiked club he had hit her with was coated with some kind of poison. Emma didn't even know what kind it was, but the sickly green color was enough of an indicator to know it wasn't good. And that green mixed with her blood didn't make her feel any better about the matter.
Her ears perked up as she heard heels clacking on the pavement. She didn't even have the strength to look up to see who it was.
"Emma!" All of a sudden, her head and shoulders were being gently lifted, and someone sat beneath her. She opened her eyes and saw Regina Mills above her, eyes filled with worry.
She wanted to say something snarky, something like how her caring was showing, but the pain in her abdomen was way too much for her to even try to think about coming up with a complex sentence, so instead she settled for a simple, "Hey."
Regina smiled a pained smile. "Hey."
"Man these ogres pack a punch huh?"
The brunette's smile faltered. She remembered their situation, and quickly started to look at Emma's chest, the shirt bloodied and torn. She started trying to lift the mess up to clear the blonde's chest to heal it.
"Careful, I think there's poison in there."
"Yes, it's a power-drainer."
"Should I even ask how you-" Emma paused to catch her breath, flinching slightly. She took a deep breath and continued, "how you know that?"
Regina smirked, "Comes with being an Evil Queen, dear." She then finished lifting away Emma's shirt so that her chest was unconstrained.
"Right, of course." Emma rolled her eyes. "So, what does a power-drainer do?"
Regina's hands glowed purple as she set to work in healing the younger woman. "It does what it says. Life force, energy, magical powers. All drained. Ogres were never fair fighters, and just one whack of this can send even the strongest warriors packing."
"But-" she inhaled sharply. "But you touched it."
"Immunity. Ogres aren't the only ones that would know about the potion, and well, I wasn't exactly the most well-liked person in the Enchanted Forest. Suffice it to say that I was to be the victim of plenty of assassination plots in the past."
Emma saw the pain in Regina's eyes, and felt that one day, she'd ask about it. For now, she just had to focus on not dying, and with the little strength she had, she lifted her hand to give Regina's arm a comforting squeeze.
Suddenly Regina's ministrations doubled in power, Emma gasped at how quickly the pain seemed to be vanishing, purple light glowing brightly.
As the light died, Emma felt her breathing return to normal, and her hand dropped from where it previously rested on Regina's arm. She still felt weak, but managed to get out a faint "Thanks" to Regina, with a lopsided smile and everything.
Regina, however, didn't respond. Instead, she lowered her head towards Emma's, until their lips met.
Although Emma didn't really have much remaining strength, she returned the kiss back with as much force as she could muster. They broke apart once they heard an ambulance coming, and Emma blacked out just as she saw Regina trying to lift her towards where the ambulance had stopped.
Emma went down to the kitchen, carefully passing by her little brother's room. The little toddler had been ecstatic to see her when she arrived at the house. Emma could barely wrap her head around the fact that her missing memories meant that the newborn she remembered was now 3 from one day to the next.
But now, what currently occupied her mind was the crazy dream she'd just woken up from. Was that how they had fallen in love? With Regina healing her from an ogre attack? It seemed like the kind of thing that would happen to them. She glanced at the clock, noting it was just past 4, and wondered how Regina was feeling. They'd both been released from the hospital, though from what she heard, Regina had left after their little scene in the hospital room.
Whale had told her that this kind of amnesia probably went away with time. Memories would come back from time to time, usually in dreams or the like. They just needed to arm themselves with patience, and to see him in a week to check for progress.
So far Emma just had the one memory where she'd nearly died. It was weird to see everything like this, rather than having the memories of that time for context.
She drank her cup of water and placed it in the sink, before making her way back to her room. Once inside, she glanced once again at the bag with her clothes sitting on the chair. Mary Margaret had insisted that David had brought some clothes over from Regina's house — she still had trouble seeing it as both hers and Regina's — but Emma knew it was a lie. She didn't press, and figured that she'd eventually find what it was.
Were they having an argument? Was that why they were out driving in the middle of the night through Storybrooke's forests? She fidgeted with the ring on her finger as she thought, she had been unable to find the strength to take it off. Just because she couldn't remember it, didn't mean they weren't still married, right?
Regina looked up as she heard a loud yawn, looking up to see her teenaged son dragging his feet towards the kitchen, hair standing up on all ends.
"Morning Henry."
She only received a grunt in response.
"Nice to see some things don't change, like your conversational habits in the morning."
Now she got a glare, and Regina just laughed. She went over to the garbage can to throw away the apple peel, and was met with a strange sight.
"Henry? Why is there a broken vase in the garbage?" She looked over at her son and saw that he woke up instantly.
"It broke."
"I can see that. But why would it be thrown away?" She was sure that she would have repaired with magic it if it had been broken. What had happened? Was there an argument behind its broken state?
"No reason. You guys just decided that it was an ugly vase anyway and just threw it out." Henry was lying, but it was clear she wasn't going to get the answer from him now.
A while later, she left the house and headed to her office. Just because she had amnesia didn't mean that she wasn't going to keep doing her job. As she got nearer to the building, she saw someone heading her way, and a familiar voice calling her name.
Emma stopped right beside her, catching her breath.
"Yes, Ms. Swan?" She didn't have all day to stand here while her supposed wife was trying to come up with how to word her question.
"How are you?"
Regina was sure that hadn't been the blonde's original question, but still decided to entertain the other woman. "I'm fine, yourself?"
"Good, good." Emma nodded distractedly, and then, as if having a mental discussion with herself, decided on continuing, "Did you get any 'weird' dreams?"
The brunette didn't even think of the answer to that question, she merely noticed how, when the blonde brought up her hands to make air quotes, the glint of a ring caught her eye, and when she opened her mouth to speak, she said, "I see you're still wearing your ring."
Emma blushed, but her face fell as she saw that Regina wasn't. The indentation of the ring, after years of use, was still there, but Regina refused to wear it while she didn't know how she wound up where she was. "Y-yeah, figured that I'd lose it otherwise, so why not."
Regina didn't believe that for a second, and she didn't have time to be psychoanalyzing her pseudo-wife, so she just sighed and kept walking, leaving Emma standing there confused and hurt.
"It's part of my job!"
"Your job is to protect people, not become target practice!"
"Come on, I'm not hurt!"
"But you could've been!"
Emma and Regina were glaring at each other, personal space long forgotten. The blonde huffed, stepping back, pacing around the room. "Look Regina, the bad guy's caught, and it's over, can't we just let it go? If we keep having spats every time I get hurt-"
"Maybe it'll convince you to stop trying to be the hero all the damn time," Regina spat, crossing her arms.
"What would you have me do? Twiddle my thumbs around doing nothing, having other people get hurt because my wife doesn't think I can handle myself?"
Regina's eyes flashed a dangerous purple. "Is that what you think? That I'm holding you back? Keeping you from being the big hero?"
"No!-"
"Well it sounds like you're very much saying that!" Regina uncrossed her arms, a purple aura beginning to form. "So tell me, what were you saying?"
"Regina calm down, you know the stress isn't good for you!" Emma put up her hands in a placating gesture, inching her way closer to her wife.
"Because my magic is 'dangerous'?" Regina sneered. "So you can play the big hero risking your life and nearly get killed by a wayward ax, but I'm supposed to keep a lid on my magic? If being a hero is such a big part of you, Emma Swan, so is my magic."
"This is different Regina..."
"No, it's not!" A loud clink was heard as large shards of ceramic flew out. Regina, having noticed what happened, shielded herself, but Emma got the brunt of it, shards scratching at her face and arms.
"Emma-" Regina saw the blood forming at the scratches by her wife, and tried to approach her, but Emma backed away.
Without another word, the blonde went upstairs, and after a few minutes, came back down carrying a bag. Regina barely heard her wife say, "Call if you need anything," before the door slammed closed.
Neither noticed the other was crying.
Okay! So that was the first chapter, next one will be up in a couple of days!
More memories coming back, more drama right here!
Feedback is always appreciated!