"So you're going to tell her you love her, right?"
"Come again, kid?"
Even the wind seemed to shush itself as Neal gaped and Henry smiled up expectantly at Emma.
"You said you have a lot of things to tell my mom. I'm guessing one of those things is that you love her. Why else would you have believed her when no one else did?"
He swayed to and fro on the balls of his feet innocently, his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes sparkling.
"Whoa, wait a second, Em. You love the Evil Queen?" Neal chimed in.
"Hey, whoa, I never said - Henry, you're - I didn't say I - "
"Oh my god, you do!" Neal ogled as Emma squirmed and tried to give her son her best glare. She failed.
"And why would you think something like that, kid?" she queried, desperately trying to sound nonchalant and rolling her eyes in Neal's direction.
"Why else would you have saved her so many times after the curse broke?" That smug little smirk reminded her too much of Regina's. It was... annoying.
"Uh, because you asked me to," she offered as though Henry had few comprehension skills.
Problem is, he has too damn many comprehension skills.
"Yeah, but I don't remember you objecting. I also don't remember asking you to save her from that fire."
"It just happened! Anyone would've done that! What was I gonna do, leave her to die?" She hoped they couldn't notice the rising note in her voice or the reddening of her cheeks. They noticed.
"She had just killed Graham and was threatening to take your only stable connections to Storybrooke away from you," he reminded her, that note of Regina-esque superiority ringing in his voice. It irritated her to no end that she found it achingly adorable in both of them. In Regina, though, it was adorable in the smoldering and infuriatingly sexy kind of way.
"Alright, whatever, kid." Flustered, she ambled over to the ship's edge.
"Whatever? Really, Em? That's the only response you've got left? The kid's right, you do love her!" Neal didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Neither did Emma.
They watched her fists tighten at her sides. She turned, composed. "Don't you have a ship to steer?" she asked scathingly.
Neal mocked-glared at her before exchanging a conspiratorial glance with Henry, who giggled. Emma groaned and stomped down below decks to check on Gold. Perhaps he'd be less irritating company, anyway.
"How's it feel?" she asked Gold, plopping down next to him and absentmindedly fluffing his pillow for him.
"How do you imagine it would feel, Ms. Swan?" His tone stung her, and she really wasn't in the mood.
"Look, do you want company, or - " She half rose, giving him the opportunity to stop her.
"My apologies, Ms. Swan. Your company is welcome." Rumpelstiltskin grimaced, as though it was harder for him to admit this than it was for him to feel poison coursing through him.
A not unpleasant silence arose between them as they simply experienced each others' company, Emma realizing - not for the first time - that the two had deep similarities.
"You realize, of course, that you may be required to use magic upon our return to Regina's little town," he said casually, after several minutes of unbroken quiet.
"I'm not planning on it, Gold, but I imagine I might have to, I guess, yeah." She thought of the confessions she wanted to make to Regina, and hoped they would be enough to avert a war. She found herself glad her companion couldn't read minds: at least, not outside of Storybrooke.
"Then you should know, Ms. Swan, that - "
"I know, I know." She held up her hands in a fair imitation of him. "All magic comes with a price!"
To her surprise, he grinned bitterly in grudging admiration of her childish impersonation.
"While this is true, Ms. Swan, I was in fact going to give you a more practical lesson. You must know that conjuring magic is not an intellectual endeavor. You must not think when using magic. Rather, you must feel."
She blinked. He shook his head and painfully tried to sit up further. She braced him by the shoulder and readjusted the pillows beneath him. He continued.
"Magic is about emotion. When you use it, you must think about who you are protecting. Think too much, and you will fail. But feel too much? Oh, Ms. Swan, there is no such thing as feeling too much when you use magic."
"That's why Regina's so powerful," Emma murmured. To her surprise, Rumpel nodded softly, closing his eyes and drifting into a fitful sleep.
"Indeed she is," he whispered, falling into his much needed rest and leaving Emma alone to her thoughts.
The rest of the trip back to Storybrooke was uneventful, save for Henry's fascination with sailing a pirate ship. It gave Emma the creeps, knowing the misogynist to whom it belonged. She was lost, anyway, in her own thoughts, her desperation to get back to Regina.
When they had safely deposited Gold in his shop and everyone was up in arms about "stopping Regina and Cora" - there we go again, not believing in her - Emma stopped at the partition that served as a door into Gold's back room. Mary Ma - Sn - her mother, was exchanging words with Gold and was clearly unhappy, Gold having revealed something in the cabinet that was something other than a blanket for warmth.
She accosted her mother soon after the brunette left the room, her face glazed and her entire body moving as those through molasses.
"What's this about a deadly candle, Sn - Mom?" She knew her use of the term of familial endearment would calm Mary Margaret and make her more likely to share with her and listen to her.
Snow looked stunned that Emma had overheard the conversation, just as she looked stunned at life in general, at the very air she was breathing.
"Emma, what did you hear? No, no, it doesn't matter, you wouldn't understand."
"Try me." The blonde's irritation at having been unable to contact Regina since coming back to Storybrooke was beginning to bleed through.
And her mother did try her.
Twenty minutes later, after her mom went dazedly home with Charming, Emma left - saying she was going to pick up Henry from Ruby's - and sought refuge at the Sheriff's station, leaning nervously on her desk. She dialed Regina's cell, determined to get through.
"You have reached the voicemail of Mayor Mills. Please leave a succinct message with pertinent contact information, and I will get back to you as soon as my duties allow." Somewhat immaturely, Emma mimed the voicemail message that she knew by heart, a mix between consternation and amusement coursing through her veins.
"Regina, it's Emma. I know you're getting this message. Listen, we're back in Storybrooke and Henry needs your help. I know Mary Margaret told you that earlier and it was just a ruse to get you to talk to her, but this isn't. Please Regina, call me. Or meet me at the Sheriff's station. Alone. It's important. This is our kid. Call me... Bye."
She stared at her phone idly for exactly three minutes. About two minutes in, she got antsy and fidgeted so much that at first she wasn't sure if her phone was vibrating or if she was just moving around so much that it seemed to be. But when the screen lit up with - for the first time in too long - Regina's name, simply listed as "Regina," on her caller ID, Emma grinned nervously.
"Regina," she answered, hoping her voice didn't sound as desperate as she felt.
"Are you alone, Ms. Swan?" Ever the voice of business.
"Yeah, I - "
And the silent Sheriff's station was suddenly illuminated by a purple haze, as the figure of Regina Mills appeared before her.