Disclaimer: I own nothing no matter how much I wish I did. I just took them out of the cupboard to play.

A/N: As always, many thanks to Jo for making sure my writing is decent enough to see the light of day :)

Sorry for the delay - I would have had it out with the Intro, but wanted to make sure I didn't fail somewhere in the continuity since I'm only picking this story up again after staring at it for 4 months :)

o

Emma awoke to the sound of voices far away, their owners nowhere in sight. The pounding in her head had been reduced to a dull ache and gravity seemed to be behaving itself, not shifting every few seconds in an attempt to throw her sideways. Carefully she stood up, not wanting to test this new found truce with gravity by making any sudden movements. She'd seen enough movies to equate her current living quarters with that of a dungeon cell, the hope that it had all been a dream dashed the moment her eyes had opened. She made a cursory examination of the room she found herself in – a wooden cot against the wall, a pot in the opposite corner, no light but for the single torch burning on the opposite wall and not a guard in sight.

What did seem out of place was the cup just outside her cell, less than a foot from the bars. A simple wooden cup with just the faintest flicker of light rebounding from the surface of the liquid it contained. She was almost certain it had not been there when previously she had looked and could only assume someone had come by whilst she was unconscious. Cautiously she reached through the bars and picked it up, sniffing at the fluid therein. No discernable smell she told herself mentally. A sip of it brought her to the conclusion it was merely water and let's face it she thought, if whoever took me wanted me dead, I would be by now. Thirstily she drank the water, savouring every mouthful as if it might be her last when she heard the door at the far end of the hall swing open on creaking hinges.

The heavy thud of footsteps was unmistakeably coming in her direction and she stiffened at the approach, one hand steadying herself against the bars. Beyond all evidence to the contrary, she was still hoping she would wake up and find this all a dream. She lifted her eyes and peered up the hall to the person walking in her direction. The man she saw dimly by the light was bulging at the seams of his leather, an ugly, squat man with a heavy set face and meaty arms.

"Oh aren't you just a beauty, your grace," he said, spitting out the final words as if they were acid on his tongue. Leering towards her he brushed his hand over her fingers, "We're going to have some fun with you."

Emma pulled her hand away as quickly as if she'd been burned, hatred flaring in her eyes. "Who the hell are you?" she demanded, thrusting her chin out, her usual defiance resurfacing briefly as her pulse accelerated. The reeking ale on this man's breath was enough to cause her to gag and she fought to keep the bile down.

The guard laughed and turned back down the passageway to yell, "Oi, Jonathon, let Her Majesty know the bitch is awake." He made a final leer in Emma's direction, raking his eyes over her body in such a way that sent cold shivers down her spine. "I hope you have better manners in the presence of the Queen," he remarked before sauntering off, leaving Emma alone and confused once more.

o

Time passed slowly for Emma as she sat on her small cot, leaning up against a cold, stone wall; she had no way to measure how long she stared at the flickering torch, lost in her own thoughts. She'd been trying without success to piece together what had happened from her fragmented memories, but nothing was making any sense, least of all what she was doing in a dungeon and why on earth there'd be a dungeon in Maine. She wondered if perhaps she'd become blind drunk and insulted the wrong person - it would, after all, explain the raging hangover she had been feeling since regaining consciousness. If she were honest with herself, however, she could feel in her bones that this was certainly not the case; she never allowed herself to lose that much control over her own actions, never had and never would. She felt herself clenching her jaw, finally releasing it as the muscles began to tense and ache. It was when she heard a sound at the end of the hall that she was finally roused from her memories and brought back to the present, to her current predicament.

Emma would later look back at this moment, the moment when the Mayor of Storybrooke, the adoptive mother of her child, and possibly one of the sexiest women she had ever laid her eyes on, came in to view in front of her cell. Donned in supple black leather pants, black stilletos, a black overcoat that hung to mid-thigh, deep red corset that pushed all the right assets to all the right places and hair pulled severely back from her face, the Mayor looked exactly how Emma would have pictured a dominatrix. For the briefest of moments the idea that the Mayor was, in fact, a dominatrix flitted through her mind, and that this dungeon was actually some kind of elaborate playroom - but it was soon discarded as the reality of her situation bore down heavily upon her. This woman looked, for all the world, to be the epitome of a person so very used to getting her own way; and so it was at this moment that her life ceased to make any sense, when her world most assuredly tipped upside down and cared not whether she hung on for dear life or fell off the edge into insanity. Her breath caught involuntarily, forcing her to steady herself against the wall, the cold stone beneath her palm anchoring her briefly back in to this reality.

"Madame Mayor?" she asked in a small voice.

"Why Miss Swan," the Queen started, the sneer on her face bleeding through in to her voice "how nice of you to join the land of the conscious."

Emma shook her head, trying to clear the fog, trying to harness one logical memory. "Madame Mayor, what's going on? I don't understand…" she looked around her cell, gesturing to the walls in an effort to convey her confusion.

Regina moved with snake like grace to the bars, almost hissing as she answered. "You tried to take my son!" The anger radiating from her was palpable.

"I brought him back!"

The Queen's eyes glazed over slightly as she recalled Henry lying on the hospital bed, the life gone from his body. And this woman she spat internally was the one to bring him back. I'm his mother! She cringed slightly at the memory. "It changes nothing." She turned on her heel to leave.

"I was leaving," Emma tried one last approach, one last ditch effort to connect with this woman, to move this woman to sympathy and gain release, "please, just let me go."

"You should never have stayed, Miss Swan," the Queen said with finality as she walked back along the hallway to the door.

Emma sunk to the floor as she took a last look at the Mayor's retreating form. "But I never stayed," she said to herself, barely audible, and with her shoulders hunched and head in her hands she missed the slight falter of footsteps from Regina and the quizzical look she passed over her shoulder back at Emma before the hall door was closed behind her.

o

Regina had never been one to admit there were things she didn't understand. Of course, there were plenty of things that baffled her on a daily basis, but it would be a cold day in hell for her to ever admit to being anything less than omniscient. None of that changed the fact that right now the Emma Swan that currently resided in her dungeon baffled her.

She'd expected to see Emma spitting nails, cursing furiously and demanding to be let out. She'd expected to have a rain of verbal abuse poured upon her or threats of what she'd do when she escaped. Honestly, she'd expected a lot more questions about Henry. She contemplated all the things she'd expected to see from Emma as she closed her bedroom door behind her, pacing the length of her room like a caged panther. Something wasn't right. Where was the woman who stood up to her and challenged her, pushed all the wrong buttons and was more obnoxious and irritating than she ever thought it was possible for one woman to be. She balled her fists as she stared at herself in the wall mounted mirror, her traitorous mind forcing her to relive memories long past.

The awkwardness of that first official meeting she'd had with Emma at Granny's when discussing Henry. Of course, she'd known that Henry had been having visits with Emma before and after school and it was becoming painfully obvious that this Swan woman wasn't going to be leaving town any time soon. The only hope she'd had of keeping Henry on side was to come to some sort of arrangement where their visits were out in the open, and not sneaking around behind her back. She could maintain some measure of control if she knew the when and the where of such arrangements.

The shock she'd felt the first time Emma had arrived for dinner, for Henry had persuaded Emma the invitation had been extended from Regina herself. Of course she acquiesced in order to please Henry and knew she had made the right choice when Henry's face lit up with joy; but she was still sure to lecture him afterwards about lying to either herself or Miss Swan in the future. She'd found herself surprised some time later when she realized dinner with both Henry and Emma had fallen in to some kind of routine and that the simple domesticity of it was as soothing as it was welcome.

She held back the stinging of her eyes as she silently pleaded with her mind to stop, to stop the torment, to not take her down that painful road yet another time. But her mind wanted to torture her, like picking at a scab so a wound could never quite heal and it hurled her back down in to her past with unrelenting force.

A quick handshake had turned in to a quick hug which in turn had become a quick kiss on the cheek on the days she'd pick Henry up from Emma at Mary Margaret's apartment. She knew deep down she would never forget the day when Emma had turned to say something as Regina had leaned in to kiss her cheek goodbye. Their lips had met, so briefly, though it felt as if time had stood still. They'd pulled apart quickly enough, of course, but her feeling of wonder, her sense of 'rightness' and of possibilities to be explored was mirrored on Emma's face. She had wanted to lean in, to brush her hand against the blonde woman's cheek and kiss her again, but Henry's calls from the hallway had broken any spell that might have been cast upon them in that moment.

She saw herself in the mirror and her own hatred bubbled up. She lashed out, striking at the glass and was rewarded with the sting of pain as her crimson life bled slowly out against the olive skin of her left hand, shards of glass shattering to the ground. Seven years bad luck she thought, I guess that's fitting. The smallest amount of magic had healed the cut and her traitorous mind had reeled itself back in, no more memory lane tonight.

"Guard!" she yelled, and was rewarded with a guard opening her bedroom chamber door in short order. "See to it the prisoner gets food tonight," she said, and almost as an afterthought added, "a blanket as well."

The guard nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty," he said before pulling the chamber door closed behind him.

Regina sighed; it was going to be a long night.