Regina arrived ten minutes late for her appointment at Storybrooke Hospital because she had been called by a reporter from the Mirror to issue a statement regarding the trigger and the lasting damages that had been caused when the aftershock of her and Emma's dispelling magic had shaken the town.
It was meant to be a quick explanation. A quote or two. The details they could work out with the Sheriff herself who would no doubt conveniently forget to file an incident report about this, but the reporter had been old and long-winded. Several times Regina wondered if he had stopped breathing on the other end of the phone only to find that when she cleared her throat he would start up again.
Setting her phone to vibrate she marched up to the receptionists desk and, after signing in, was escorted into the small examination room and instructed to change into a gown.
A nurse, clothed in bright purple scrubs and sporting a white stethoscope, took her vitals and listened to her chest. Regina recounted the tightness she felt, the fact that nothing seemed to bring her relief, and explained that over the last day she seemed to be getting worse. Whatever this ballooned feeling inside her was, it needed to be fixed. Now.
"The doctor will be in soon," the nurse said with a smile. "Just try to relax."
"Wonderful," Regina deadpanned. She wasn't thrilled about dealing with Whale like this, but seeing as it was her curse that made him the resident doctor she didn't have much of a choice. There was animosity between them. Deep hatred. The kind that fueled midday strangling's, but things had settled somewhat since then. Regina hadn't fire balled anyone in quite a while, though she wouldn't be opposed to breaking that streak today.
With a sigh she settled back on the examination table, arm draped over her head to hide her eyes from the prying halogen lights above. The ache behind her eyes had started up again. A booming bass just building and building and . . .
"The hell is going on, Doc?" Emma asked in the next room. She too had her eyes cast away from the lights.
He listened as she inhaled deeply, then moved the stethoscope to her back.
"Is it my heart?" Emma asked. "Am I going to keel over?"
Whale shook his head.
"Words," Emma said. "Words would help."
"Ms. Swan ―"
"Emma," she said. "Just call me Emma and tell me what's wrong. I'll stop eating the grilled cheese at lunch, I swear. Just tell me you can fix whatever this is." She held her chest. "I can't even breathe sometimes."
"Emma," Whale began. "As far as I can tell, there is nothing physically wrong with you. Vitals are good. Tests all came back negative."
"So what, this is all in my head?"
"No," Whale said, scribbling a note onto her chart. "Not necessarily."
"Well it's necessary for me to be able to breathe to function and right now that has become kind of difficult; so you have to do something."
"I'm afraid I can't do anything," Whale said, removing his gloves and dumping them in the trash next to the bed.
"Then who?" Emma demanded, pulling her jeans on under the gown. "This can't be normal."
"Maybe try Gold," Whale said on his way out the door. "He usually has answers about this kind of thing."
"Thing?" Emma said. "What kind of thing are we talking about?"
But Whale was gone, already off to the next room. Emma swore and dug the keys for her car out of her back pocket. Guess she was going to Gold's.
Regina had also come to the conclusion that a visit to Gold was in order. When her test results all showed up negative and Whale declared her fit, she knew this was nothing that could be solved physically, which led her to the only other logical conclusion: magic.
And boy, did that worry her a whole lot more, because in her experience magical afflictions never ended well.
The ride to Gold's was quiet. The town was still subdued after the trigger debacle, still picking up the pieces of their shaken lives.
However, Regina was surprised to find the canary yellow Bug parked right outside the shop. Even more surprised to find Emma, clad in her red leather jacket, leaning across the counter attempting to throttle Gold.
Regina cleared her throat when the sound of the bell overhead didn't break Emma's hold. "I'd call the Sheriff," she said mockingly. "Though it appears she's already here."
"Not now," Emma said through gritted teeth, though she did release her grip on Gold.
"Just a misunderstanding, Madame Mayor," Gold said, smoothing down his tie. "Ms. Swan here was just telling me how difficult it's been adjusting to all the pressure lately." His lips quirked.
Regina stared. Gold's choice of words had to be a coincidence. Pressure. That's exactly what she was feeling. What she was drowning under. How could he know? Then again, this was Gold. How could he not know?
"Like I said," Emma began again, back still to Regina. "This isn't a joke. Whale said you could help, so get helping."
Gold tittered and Emma reached for him again, but Regina was faster and she caught Emma's hand first. "How do you expect him to―"
But as they connected, skin on skin, a jolt of incredible energy passed between them. Heavy and electric and completely unlike anything either of them had ever felt. Emma, sighing a little, felt a giant sense of relief as they connected, the weight leveled out, no longer crushing.
But Regina snapped her had away, as if a shock had traveled up her arm, and stumbled into the side of the counter. Her hands flew out to catch herself. Support herself. Though she did a poor job and ended up on the ground, moaning.
"Regina," Emma said quickly, dropping to her knees.
"Ah, ah, ah," Gold began, walking around the counter. "I wouldn't touch her right now."
"What do you mean?" Emma snapped, hands hovering over Regina's arm. Her fingers twitched mid-action.
"It appears you two are harbouring an excess of magic in your bodies, most likely a side effect from the trigger. All that magic had to dissipate somewhere and it looks like it chose you two."
"That's great," Emma said, noting that the pressure in her chest had subsided a little. "Just what I want to be: a magical . . . wait! Did we just . . . did I just send more of that magic into Regina?"
"It appears so," Gold said, bending down to rest a hand on the Mayor's head.
Normally the brunette would have taken a good swipe at him for this, but seeing as she couldn't keep the images in front of her face from blurring, she just focused her energy on not passing out completely. Everything was buzzing. Filling her ears. Her eyes. The hollow spaces in her bones. Just pressure, pressure, pressure.
"Magnets," Gold said suddenly.
"What?" Emma looked up at him, eyes wide. "You have to explain this crap, Gold. I'm not just gunna understand by osmosis."
"That, Ms. Swan, is exactly what this is. A magnetic osmosis. The magic doesn't seem to be free travelling. It doesn't pass to just anyone, which means it is attracted to itself. Half resides in you and half resides in Regina here, and because you both already possess extreme amounts of your own magic, there isn't quite enough room to harbour all this excess."
"So how do we get rid of it?" Emma asked. "Got a magical siphon in here somewhere?"
"Unfortunately no," Gold said. "It appears the most logical thing would be to simply wait it out, though that seems to be quite uncomfortable."
Emma cocked her head. "No shit."
"Though the alternative isn't quite so pleasant either," Gold mused. "It would seem that the magic can transfer between you two ― like your osmosis theory, Ms. Swan."
"It wasn't really a theory," she said.
Gold just continued. "Absorbing from one body to the next until the connection is broken." He took her hand then, guiding it towards Regina's.
Emma stiffened as he did so, afraid of sending Regina into a full scale attack. Whatever happened had obviously been enough to zap her system because the brunette had yet to utter one snarky thing to either of them. She closed one eye and turned away as Gold connected their hands again. Immediately the same feeling of leveling ease washed over Emma, clearing the weight in her chest again. She inhaled deeply. Free. And fucking confused.
Regina's eyes fluttered and her laboured breaths slowed. Calmed. "You have to be joking," she muttered.
Gold smirked: a wide, toothy thing, bringing his hands up to settle on the top of his cane. "Well," he said, followed by a trill little giggle. "This is quite the predicament, dearies."