Author's Note: Well, I'm somewhat nervous about posting this chapter since the last one had an incredibly mellow reception, but I rather dislike the version of myself that can't like something I wrote simply because other people didn't share that opinion so I'm posting anyway. So yeah, for the two of you who reviewed and the others that followed this story, thank you very much. I hope it doesn't disappoint;)

Clarity

Chapter 3: Family

It's hours before Emma has a change to take a moment and just breathe. Once both Gold and Regina had left, it was up to the rest of them to clean up as best they could in the aftermath of Cora's attack. Granted it had been the pirates that had done most of the damage, Cora's attention firmly settled on Regina during the whole confrontation, but to Emma it was all her doing anyway.

Snow had taken charge quickly, ordering Dr Whale to do his best to help those that needed it and asking Emma if she'd coordinate with the hospital on getting those that were beyond help to the morgue. Emma had done it, had made a few phone calls and eventually gone back to the Sheriff's office to get supplies. The hospital had only one vehicle to transport bodies, so she'd cordoned off the street with her seldom used crime scene tape and then covered the bodies with tarps. She hadn't known what else to do, so she'd fallen back on what would have been expected of a law enforcement official at the scene of a violent tragedy.

For once following rules set out by someone else was something she took a little comfort in. It kept her from having to focus on the fact that she knew some of the people lying in the road, that of the twelve bodies on display, seven where Storybrook citizens. It was a fact that pushed up bitterly into the back of her throat and made her swallow down bile more than once.

Three hours later, when the last of the dead was taken in the white van Emma now passionately hated, she stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed the road around her. Leroy, who'd returned half an hour after his initial escape, was still helping to clean up the last of the debris left by both the fight and the one team of EMT's that Storybrook had.

There was nothing he could do about the blood though and it was the thing that bothered Emma the most.

"I think I'll give the fire department a ring, see if they could come and maybe hose down the street. People don't need to see…"

She just trailed off, no need to really explain further. They really didn't need blood in the streets to remind them of the people they'd lost today.

Leroy simply nodded.

"It's your call, Sheriff."

He teared up again then, stiff shoulders shaking as he turned his back on them and finally just walked away. He'd had enough for the day and so had many others.

So Emma made the call and waited until the last of the faintly pink tinted water had washed away before she finally took down the last of the yellow tape. She stuffed everything back into the boot of the Sheriff's cruiser and shut it firmly.

It's strangely quiet then, save for the cold wind that causes her to shiver and wrap her hands around her midriff.

"We've done what we could here, Emma, I think it's time we go home."

It's James, her dad. Her dad who looked no more than a year or two older than her with his blue eyes and boyish smile. It's something else she needs to think about besides the fact that fairytales, and all the mind boggling things that encompasses, are true.

"Charming is right. The people are scared and we need to discuss what happened, but I think everything is a little too raw right now for that. It'll keep until tomorrow." Snow looks at her then, expression more Mary Margaret then fabled fairytale character. "Besides, I'm not naïve enough to think that any of this is easy on you. One day you woke up the sheriff of a small town and now you've slain a dragon and spent time in a place you only know from children's story books. It's a lot to take in."

Emma nods and gives her parents a lopsided smile.

"That's a mild understatement, but I can't say I'm sorry it happened." She's not sure she wants to have all the conversations they'll eventually have to have about everything that happened, but they at the very least need to know this. "I never had anything that resembled a family before and even if I don't think I'm ever going to be comfortable calling you Mom and Dad, it's wonderful to know that…I belong to someone."

Her eyes are stinging and she has to bite down hard to keep the sudden surge of emotion from spilling out of her, but she somehow manages it when Snow puts a warm hand against her cheek.

"It'll never matter what you call me, Emma, only that we're together and we love each other. That's what it means to be a family."

Emma nods again, lets Snow's words sink into her and she's surprised at the amount of comfort it brings. It also reminds her that there is one more thing that needs doing.

"Can you pick Henry up from Granny's and take him home?"

James nods as Snow's eyebrows go up in an unspoken question.

"I need to go talk to Regina."

She sits in her car for a very long time just watching the house. It's a beautiful house, the kind kids like her dreamed of growing up in even, with its trees and its large yard. She wonders what Henry's first ten years were like inside of it, wonders if he and Regina spent winter nights in front of the fireplace and summer days under her apple tree. Are all his memories of the place awful or was there a time before he got the book that he loved his mother like any other son would and they made normal, happy memories together in a place they called home.

There is a small, petty part of her that hopes not. That hopes Regina was the villain in Henry's eyes from the very start and that he never loved her like he did Emma. It's a small part though and most of her just hopes he was a happy, loved kid before all this happened. She doesn't want him to be like her that would never look at her early childhood as anything but some of the worst years of her life. No one deserved that if it could be helped.

So she pulls herself out of her thoughts and gets out of the car, walking the strangely familiar path up to the Mayor's mansion. Or she supposes she should be saying Queen, but that's not the Regina she knows. The Evil Queen somehow belongs to Snow and James in her eyes, they fought their battles with her long before Emma was even born, but the version of Regina that is Mayor Mills belonged to her.

It's with that last thought still lingering that she lets her finger gently push down on Regina's doorbell. She doesn't wait very long for the door to open.

"What do you want, Miss Swan?"

As greetings go it's not the worst she could expect from Regina, so she lets that bolster her courage a bit.

"I was hoping we could talk."

Regina purses her lips tightly for a second, hand going white knuckled where it grips the door.

"I think, Miss Swan, that even you can appreciate the fact that I've had a rather trying day, a day that will by no means be improved by your unsolicited visit." Regina's grip on the door falters, hand dropping limply to her side. "I simply don't have the fortitude for another injudicious disagreement today."

It's a lot of big words to say something that really just translates to 'I'm tired, please fuck off'. Emma gets that, she does, but she also knows that if she lets the uncertainty of the situation drag on for too long, nothing good will come from it.

"Then that's okay, because I'm not here to fight, Regina, I just wanted to…" She trails off, because knowing this is the right thing to do and liking having to do it are two very different things. "Just let me come in and listen to what I have to say for ten minutes and then if you want you can throw me out, okay?"

It's a testament to how tired Regina truly is when she just pushes the door open wider and walks inside, leaving Emma to close it and carefully follow her in.

"If you're intent on doing this then I'm going to need alcohol."

Emma expects her to head to her study, but instead Regina leads them to the kitchen where she indicates with a wave of her hand that Emma should take a seat.

"Can't say I'd be opposed to a glass of whatever it is you're planning on having myself."

Regina gives a wry smile as she pulls a bottle of red wine from a rack.

"No, I don't suppose you'd be."

Emma gives a wry smile of her own when a full glass is put down in front of her.

"I can live with it if that's the worst thing you can say about me, Regina, that I like to take a drink."

Regina's glass stills abruptly halfway to her mouth, eyes settling hard on Emma.

"The implication being that in comparison I'm much worse. So that's what this visit is about then? The flawless and pure of heart savior come to put me in my place?"

Regina slams her wine down hard enough for the glass to shatter, liquid spilling over the clean surface of the table between them.

"Just get out before I forget my promise to Henry and throw you out!"

The threat is not an idle one, Emma can see it in Regina's shaking hands and shallow breathing.

"No, Regina, I was implying that you could have mentioned the fact that despite being destined to save the people in this town, I've mostly just managed to get a few of them killed and left us all stuck here. What about the time I got myself pregnant by a guy that didn't even care about me enough to net let me have a baby in prison?"

Emma lifts her own glass and all but drains it, old memories and hurts a sudden, painful heat in her chest.

"Or how that baby was the one good thing that could have come from it all, but I was so scared and selfish that I couldn't see past the responsibility of having to raise a kid by myself that I gave him away?"

Regina doesn't say anything, just gets up and passes the bottle of wine to Emma, then heads to the sink. Emma simply refills her glass as she watches Regina pull a large shard from her hand, watches as blood drips steadily from the cut on her palm.

"I'm not here to fight, Regina, I'm here to say I'm sorry that your mom is such a bitch. And maybe to thank you for taking care of my son for ten years and not treating him the way she obviously treated you."

Regina stills, bleeding hand held under a steady stream of cold water as the silence in the kitchen stretches out between them. Finally Emma puts her wine down, mindful of the remains of Regina's glass, and walks over to where she spots a dry dishcloth. When she takes Regina by the wrist and presses the cloth into her hand, closing the woman's fingers around it to form a fist, she knows the worst of it is over.

Regina will listen, if only because what Emma has to say is such a surprise to her.

"It wasn't selfish to want a better life for him."

Regina's words are soft, but it's a clear offer for a temporary ceasefire that Emma will gladly accept.

"No, but it doesn't change the fact that it made what should have been a very hard decision a rather easy, convenient one. It was just so logical to me that he'd be better off without an eighteen year old for a mother and I'd be better off without having to worry about keeping two people alive and fed."

Emma's not sure that this exactly is what she came to say to Regina, but she knows it's making the point that needs to be made for any of this to work. Emma might not have gone to the dark side and built herself a Deathstar, but she's no Luke Skywalker either.

Maybe she's the Han Solo of the story, not really fitting in either box marked good or evil, just somewhere in the middle trying to make it from one day to the next.

"Fine, I can agree that we've both made mistakes. Now please just get to the point of it all, Miss Swan."

Emma does just that.

"You love Henry, that's the point. You love him and he loves you even though that's not something he knows how to admit right now without feeling like he's somehow failing everyone, because you're their Evil Queen."

Emma finally realizes that she's still holding Regina's wrist in her hand when she can feel the woman's pulse rate spike with every word she says. She doesn't let go though, finds the physical proof that a heart beats somewhere in Regina's chest strangely comforting.

"The point is that when he heard that they wanted to kill you for what you did to the people in this town, he begged me to save your life, because you're his mom and he doesn't want to lose you."

Regina looks at her and Emma can see it, can see how much she doesn't want to lose Henry either.

"I promised him I wouldn't use my magic and I meant that."

Emma nods her head, but tightens her grip a little before she speaks again.

"I know you did, but I think that with the way things are now, you'll break that promise eventually."

Regina tries to pull away just like Emma knew she would, but her grip is firm and she steps a little closer trying to make Regina see that she meant what she was about to say.

"I'm saying that no one can do it alone, that even when you have the best intentions of making things right you're going to fail if that's all anyone expects you to do. You gotta have someone on your side."

Regina swallows heavily as she tears up and Emma wonders what she's thinking right then. If she realizes the truth in what Emma is saying or if she thinks this is just another way for Emma to hurt her.

"I have Henry on my side."

That makes Emma smile, because she's a mother now and believes in all the things mothers do. Like that their child is the single most bright and wonderful thing on earth and she knows Regina thinks the same, thinks that as long as Henry believes in her she can move mountains if she needs to.

"You do, you have Henry and now you also have me. We might not like each other very much, but the fact is we're his parents, the both of us. You and me, we're his family and that's not something I'll allow anyone to take away from him if I can help it."

There's a war raging on Regina's face, it's in the way she bites her lip to stop it from quivering even as she narrows her eyes in what Emma can only guess is disgust at her. Disgust at having to share her son with the daughter of someone she has hated for so long and so passionately. Disgust at knowing it might be the only way she'll ever have the love of that son.

"So you're going to play the savior after all and you're starting with me."

It's not a question, she states it as the fact they both know it is.

"I am, because Henry thinks you're worth saving and I believe him. I do, because you can't love someone as much as you love Henry and still be completely evil."

Regina falters then and drops her eyes away from Emma's own, but she doesn't have to see her eyes to know there's a flash of doubt in them.

"I don't think I can ever be simply good again, not even for Henry's sake, and I don't think anyone in this town would believe it if by some miracle it did happen. You're right about that at least."

Emma accepts that with a nod, takes a deep breath and finally lets Regina's wrist go as she steps back. She still feels the phantom beat of a pulse against her fingers though and gently shakes her hand once to try and rid herself of it.

"You don't need to be that good, Regina. You just need to not be that bad again, I think that's all he really wants from you."

There's nothing more she can say, at least not now when Regina looks like another kind word from someone she on principle despises will undo whatever has held her together since making her promise to Henry. So Emma turns around and leaves, feeling like for the first time since breaking that damned curse she's actually gone and done something right.

When Regina stops her just before she's out the kitchen, she knows she did.

"Miss Swan, if you want to you and Henry can come for lunch tomorrow. I'll make something he likes and then we can perhaps discuss how this new arrangement would work."

Emma smiles, because despite Regina being to blame for a lot of the heartache in her life, this will make Henry happy.

"Alright, what time do you want us to swing by?"

Regina thinks for a second.

"I should have everything prepared by one, though I won't hold my breath and expect you to be punctual, so come any time after that if you can."

Emma smirks despite the sarcasm, because at least this is familiar ground between them. She couldn't say she cared much for the version of Regina that Cora seemed to bring out and much preferred her like this: Head held high and looking down her nose at Emma like she doesn't just think she's better than her, she knows she is.

"I do own a watch, Regina, even figured out how to read the damned thing all on my own."

Regina looks doubtful.

"Did you want a gold star for that great accomplishment dear, or would a pat on the back suffice?"

Emma doesn't bother responding to that, just rolls her eyes a little and makes her way outside to her car. Just before she pulls away from the curb she glances back to where Regina is leaning in her open doorway.

She doesn't much look like an Evil Queen then, just a very tired woman standing in the cold all by herself.

./././././././././

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

P.S I won't be able to update again this soon, but I'll hopefully manage a chapter at least next weekend for those that are interested.