Author's note: I will admit to you right now: I struggled with the title for this piece. There isn't a one word that means what I needed it to mean. So in the end, I chose Desencontro. It is a Portuguese word for when you are walking in the same direction as someone else but you miss each other, when you reach the target at a different time. It is a sad word.
Let me warn you: here there be character death. Proceed at your own peril.
Much love
Jane
"I always collect, deary. Your mother made a valiant attempt at hiding you from me. But no one hides from me. Now drink it."
She could not comprehend it. She knew everyone. She knew Gold. She and him had had many encounters of over the years, many mutually devastating games. She did not comprehend what he was saying. He pulled a book very similar to Henry's from a plume of smoke.
"Once upon a time there lived a poor miller with a pretty young daughter. The miller promised his king a daughter that could spin straw into gold. It was a lie, of course, but he man wanted to marry off his daughter to a suitor that would reward her beauty with wealth and titles.
The king was no fool and he asked for proof. He locked the girl in the highest room of the highest town only with a bale of straw. Because he was a cruel man, he told the girl that if the straw had not become gold in the morning, he would have her killed. The girl cried herself to sleep. In the morning, a little green man…" Now, why would they call me little green man? Honestly! Anyway. "…a little green man appeared and told her he would save her life and he spun the straw into gold. The king was pleased in the morning, but greedy as he was, he once again locked the girl in the tower and gave her two bales of straw to spun. The girl cried again and again the green man appeared to spin the straw with the same results. The king was pleased as punch but his greed new no limits. He gave her more straw, renewed his threat but this time told her that he would marry her if she completed her task.
The little green man again appeared. I will spin your straw into gold, deary, but I too have a price. "Anything" she said. "Anything?" She was desperate. She agreed. Well, then, nothing but a small trinket. I want your first born child." You know where this is going, don't you deary? Blah, blah, blah, he spun the straw, she married the king and had herself a pretty child. But when it came time to pay, she too had become greedy. She refused to pay the price. She refused to hand in the babe. Now, I don' forget a debt. A debt is a debt, deary. And your mother ran better than most. She married the man you know as a father. She uttered my name out loud, which, you know, has a magic of its own, but you see, I always knew that, no matter how long it took, I would get my trinket as payment. Now drink, because the day is wasting. I still need to inform you mother."
"She won't care."
"Of course not, deary. But you miss the point. The point is that I have won. It took years and a considerable amount of effort, but I have won. Now, I am not going to tell you again. Drink or the White Knight will drink on your behalf."
Regina could not help it but think that it was really quite ironic. She had made Snow eat that apple laced with poison, threatening her precious Charming. And now she would drink a lethal poison to save Snow's child. To spare Emma. My Emma.
Though that might not be strictly accurate. Not for some time now.
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Emma drank the potion unknowingly. Even after fighting a dragon, even after bringing her son back from death with a kiss, she still refused to believe in magic. Henry had been told that her lack of faith in magic would not be a problem. Just because she did not believe in magic, it did not mean that magic did not believe in her. She would forget all about the Evil Queen. She would forget her love, she would forget the woman altogether. She would be happy. The queen was a bad habit for Emma. Her one weakness. And the saviour should be strong. "You're doing the right thing, young Henry. You are making you true mother strong." So he gave her the potion to forget about Regina. And Emma drank it because did not believe magic. "It's ok", Gold had said. "In the end, you'll see, it will all work out."
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To Emma it had been a seamless transition. One moment her heart was full to the brim with love and hurt. The other, it was empty. And she could not remember it ever having been any other way. It felt like the time she'd had a cast on her leg for a month and then had removed. It was still her leg, but it was missing the weight (though it had never really belonged there).
She could not quite remember why it felt like she was used to carrying a weight around. She could not remember why her heart felt bruised or as if it had been amputated from her. It was a freedom that felt more like a prison than an horizon.
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Snow had a few bones to pick with Regina which was the same as saying that she wanted her dead and buried. She could recognise the effects of the forgetting potion as if it had come with a posology leaflet listing all the side effects (even if Emma had not become viciously cruel as she had, just an empty shell of herself). Regina with her issues of trust and ghosts and neuroses had driven her precious daughter to commit emotional suicide and she was dam well going to take it out of the Queen's skin. When she made it to the white house, though, the door was ajar and the once gleaming furniture was dim with dust. The air one of general abandon.
She called but she knew, the moment she did, that she would get no answer. There was a chill of dread that shook every single one of her bones. Regina better be alright because Emma would want her to be OK when she woke up from that damned potion. When she made it to the bedroom, Regina was on her side with her back to the door. "If you're alive, I'll kill you myself, Regina, so help god. You are done hurting my child" She would have, really she would. "Do your worst, dear."
It was the tone of the answer- as if Regina was done with the world- almost as much as the breathlessness of the answer that made Snow move to face her nemesis. In the pale light of dusk, Regina was pale as the sheet she laid on, though that was the one hint that all was not alright because for anything else, she was simply resting. Her hand lay relaxed next to her body, her face without a hint of the tension Snow had come to know (as if Regina was always carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders). Her hand instinctively reached for Regina's forehead, all of Snow's maternal instincts coming to life which was ironic really because Regina had been the mother figure in their relationship. What she touched was inhumanly cold, as if she had touched marble instead of flesh. It felt a lot like what her dead father had felt to her touch when he had been dead for two days. It felt a lot like death.
"Regina..." Snow did things. When the going got tough, her default was action. She could not stand inaction. She wanted to sort, resolve, save. That was the way she was hardwired, the way she survived. "What can I do? Can I call Dr Whale?" Regina smiled a tiny little smile maybe, Snow thought, as if she didn't have strength for more. "I thought you wanted me dead." So did I, Snow thought, as she pulled the covers over Regina and tried to warm her frozen stiff hands, then her back until she had to give up because clearly there was nothing she could do. Nothing but get Regina's true love here and let true love do what could be done. "I'm going to get Emma."
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If there been space in Regina's hear for hope this would have filled it. But her heart was nothing but an overflowing well of regret. "No. Snow… I understand, now." Torn between getting to Emma and the possibility of peace between them, Snow stilled her movements. "Why you bit into the apple." Snow froze then. The reminder of things past was a bad move on Regina's part because now she only wanted to let her die. But the voice was slowly fading. Snow got closer because maybe what Regina wanted to say could absolve them both of their many sins against each other. "I only wanted to prove to you that you did not love him. That you would let him die to save yourself." There was a soft exhale and Snow thought that this was it and she would still hate her stepmother. "I hadn't realised until now how much I learned from you that day." Snow wanted to take Regina's hands in hers and make good on the affection that had once bound them. She wanted to erase the years and go back to that moment of naïve gullibility and do things over. Instead, she got up. "I'm going to get Emma"
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Emma did not question. She simply followed her mother because she was her mother. "You have to come, Emma. You don't know it now, but she is your true love and you will remember, but you need to come now, because she is out of time. We are out of time. Please, Emma, hurry. Remember that true love's kiss can break any curse. Please Emma, you must remember." Emma could not feel urgency in anything. She could not feel calm either. Or hate. In fact, she could not feel anything at all. Not when she walked in through doors that had been her home, nor when she mounted the steps to what had been had bedroom, nor when she walked in a saw a woman that was supposed to be her true love. She could not feel a thing. There was a numbness that made her movements uncoordinated and sluggish.
The woman that was supposedly her one true love lay covered by a comforter in a bed that was far too big for her, far too wide and long for a someone that looked so little and helpless. It was that tug at a heart Emma had not felt beating since the potion that made her walk to the bed and go around to face the woman.
It was a remarkable face, set with eyes that looked far too big for it, far too old for the unlined face. Far too sad to be alive. From the corner of her eyes, Emma saw Snow pulling Henry to her, walking out of the room, as if privacy was something that they would need. Maybe in a different life. In this one, Emma simply wanted to do what she came for: kiss the woman better and go back to trying to figure out what was missing. There was no need for privacy. It would be just a kiss. Just a kiss to indulge her mother. "Hi" she said, because even in a confused state, you don't simply kiss a stranger. "I'm Emma".
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She would have liked to keep some dignity in this. She would have liked to wear a mocking smile and utter a scathing remark. But "Hi Emma" and cold tears were the only things her rebellious body managed to do. She wanted to touch Emma but the same potion she had used to put Snow to sleep for a thousand years was the same that had paralysed and was slowly killing her. "What happened to you?" Wasn't that the question? She wanted to say poison. But in then end she said "Love". And either was accurate.
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It was supposed to be just a kiss, but when Emma leaned into the woman everything slowed down: the movements, the breathing- hers and Regina's- the thoughts, the heartbeats. When she touched her lips to Regina's it was already something else, an emotion, a desire, a need, a want. It was beyond a kiss.
Regina felt the shift. But in keeping with her life, it was not enough to save her. When Emma's lips touched hers, and even if love was the only thing she could feel, it was not enough. She did not exhale her last breath.
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Rumplestilskin cackled with glee. He always won. Maybe not in the way that he had hoped for (he hated waste and this was a waste of talent) but a victory all the same. And a double one too, because he could feel the moment that Emma Swan awoke from the potion and realised that her true love was dead. She was pretty when she cried, that one, with tears running down her rosy complexion. She should have looked ugly in grief. Most people do, but that is because they groan and scream and shout as if they could negotiate their loss. The thing about Miss Swan (at that moment) was that she was fully aware of how useless it was, which left her only serene with grief.
She pulled Regina to her, the woman's body finally released of the paralysis of the poison and held her in arms. He should become a painter to immortalise such moments of victory.
"Now, deary, no use flogging a dead horse!" Oh, we so enjoyed his own sense of humour. Emma deposited Regina's body on the white sheets and in less than a breath she was on him, pummelling him with her fists. It amused him so much he let her get a few blows in. And then he turned them both, Emma under him, his hands around her neck, squeezing the life out of her. It amazed him when she surrendered, as if she was welcoming death. Well, well, well, yet one more surprise. The businessman in him rejoiced: two for the price of one.
Rumplestilskin was never unprepared he didn't usually underestimate threats. But that was the day he learned a lesson of his own: the smallest thing can and will kill you.
Henry simply opened the little vial filled with back dust and emptied it on Mr Gold, slowly, so deliberately, that the dust had not yet finished falling on the man and he was already a bug. A bug that Henry had no hesitation in crushing.
His mother was still dead.
Emma was still broken.
And Henry had become a man.