Chapter Two
The second time young Regina ever used her powers, it was at her mother's behest.
She was thirteen years, one month, twenty-one days, and six hours old, and her mother had just brought her into the county morgue.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" Her mother's tone was all imperiousness, impatient at being made to wait for a lesser being to catch on to the plan.
Young Regina, however, was not paying her mother any attention, a fact she would soon come to regret. Instead, she was focused on the sensations of the room - the sharp, cold tang of stainless steel, the smell of formaldehyde, the ever-present hum of the coolers. It was a lot to take in, almost too much, but for Regina it was still vastly preferable to thinking about what her mother wanted her to do.
Cora had no such qualms. Her magic was different from Regina's, but no less powerful, and Regina was painfully reminded of that fact when a tendril of magic shot out from her mother's hand and grabbed her painfully tight around the waist. It dragged her over to one of the morgue drawers and held her there, staring down as Cora pulled it out unceremoniously, her stomach roiling at the pallid tone of the man's skin, the chill from the refrigeration bringing out goosebumps on her arms. When Regina still didn't move to get closer to the body, Cora hissed, "Touch him," with an emphasizing tug on her magic leash, forcing the air from Regina's lungs as it pull her even closer. "Now."
Young Regina, who had already learned the value of a subtle rebellion, looked up at her with beseeching eyes. "But Mother, you always say that I shouldn't use my gift unless it's for a good reason. You say people won't understand."
"And they won't, dear," Cora had said, smiling a sickeningly sweet smile down at her. "Just trust that your mother knows best."
When Regina still showed no signs of moving toward the dead man, she added in a threatening tone, "You do trust me, don't you?"
Rather than risk an answer, Regina decided to do what her mother wanted. She reached out her finger and pressed it gently against the man's bare shoulder, springing back when she felt the spark of magic sizzle up her arm.
The man sat up and gasped in fear upon seeing Cora.
The grin that stretched across Cora's face was shark-like in its ferocity and lack of warmth, and Regina decided that being somewhere else at that particular moment was an idea with some merit. She stood over by the door, careful to stay in sight of her mother in case she was suddenly needed again, but also knowing that she was invisible until she was either of use or a nuisance.
Her relief was short lived, as soon the approaching click of heels outside the morgue doors startled her from her thoughts. She gasped, rushing over to where the man was frantically writing out what looked like bank account numbers under her mother's watchful eye. She waited to be acknowledged before speaking, but the footsteps sounded like thunderclaps to her frantic mind, and finally she burst out -
"Mother!" Her voice, breathless with equal parts fear of discovery and of Cora, came out in a hoarse croak, "Someone's coming!"
Cora brushed her off with an impatient, "Be quiet, Regina," and, before she could try again, there was a sudden gasp and a loud thunk from just outside the doors. Regina darted a hand under her mother's arm and tapped the man again and he slumped back onto the table, skin returning to its ghastly hue.
The whole incident, from waking the man to panicked reversal, had only taken little more than a minute, but Regina's heart beat as though she had just finished running a full marathon, adrenaline flooding her veins and leaving her shaking.
Cora turned to her, lips curling her mouth into a snarl. "You insolent child!" she growled through gritted teeth. She brought one hand up, fingers splayed in a familiar pattern. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't string you up and leave you here for the janitor to find tonight."
Regina fought to calm the nervous shake in her voice before replying. "Someone was coming down the hallway. They could have seen everything. I'm sorry, but I know you don't want anyone knowing about my power." She gazed steadily up at her mother, careful not to look too contrite. Cora could sense a false apology from a mile away, if Regina wasn't careful.
Cora, body suddenly tense, said "Stay here," and strode over to the door, stepping through with one hand raised, ready to ensure the silence of anyone on the other side.
But what she saw was not a person that could spill their secret - at least, not anymore it wasn't. What it was, was something that would change Regina's life forever. Again.
She's smaller than Regina expected.
It's not something she thinks she'll ever get used to, the way bodies seem to shrink without the force of their previous owner's personality there to give them shape, and Emma Swan is no exception. Her blonde hair is pooled beneath her head on the morgue drawer, brow permanently furrowed even in death, her lips pursed as if upset at an unpleasant dream.
"Emma Swan," Regina says into the empty room, pulling up a chair to sit down next to the extended drawer. "You sure have caused a lot of trouble in my life, for a dead woman."
She laughs humorlessly, wiping a few stray tears from her eyes. "Did you know," she says, "that I had to pretend to be your wife in order to get in here? Your wife. When it's the last thing in the world I would ever want from you."
She's addressing Emma directly, hands clenching the sides of the chair, keeping them out of trouble. Her voice is quiet, now, words stumbling from her as if each one were painful to say. "You are taking... my son from me, Miss Swan. Without even knowing. Without even caring. How am I supposed to compete with the perfect mother he never got to meet?"
She sighs, suddenly exhausted, wiping a hand across her mouth. Her shoulders sag as she waves at Emma's face, exhaustion making her motions looser, sloppier. "You have his chin, you know."
She doesn't realize she's reached out to rest a finger on the point of that familiar chin until it's too late, the golden tendril of her magic sparking out of her almost before she even has the chance to brush the soft skin. She gapes in horror as Emma's eyes blink once, twice, focusing on the hand hovering over her face, and then-
Regina's vision starbursts into kaleidoscoping colors as pain radiates from her forehead - Emma has grabbed a lamp from the table next to her drawer and clocked Regina over the head with it. By the time Regina has recovered from the shock and the indignity, Emma is already up and over the edge of the drawer on the other side, running for the exit.
Regina scrambles after her, panic erasing every other thought clean from her mind except touch her again, and she regrets her tight skirt with every step she takes after Emma in her jeans and boots.
Emma slams through the doors of the morgue, startling the poor coroner's assistant so badly he stumbles into a cart of implements, sending them crashing to the ground in front of Regina. He gapes after Emma, glancing back and forth between her retreating back and Regina, who is now trying to pick her way through the sea of scalpels and other tools. He stutters, "W-wasn't that-?"
"My wife?" Regina grits out, kicking aside a particularly gruesome-looking set of pliers, "Yes." She pushes herself over the upturned cart and grunts, "Isn't it a miracle."
Finally free of the tangle, she rushes around the corner and through the double doors into the parking lot, but Emma is already gone, no trail to be followed. Regina breathes in deeply, counting the seconds in her head, then breathes out when she reaches zero.
She tries not to think of the consequences of the last sixty seconds - there's nothing she can do about them now. What she needs is to talk to Marian. What she needs is to see her son.
She gets in her car and drives home.
Once home, life continues as though the weight of her actions was not dangling over Regina's head every moment of the day.
Things go back to normal with Henry - that is, he sits in stubborn silence at the bakery counter, doing his homework and flinching away every time Regina reaches out to him. His suspicious eyes glare up at her when she slides his favorite pastries onto the counter next to his textbooks.
Sometimes he forgets himself, caught up in his studies, and he reaches out a hand absentmindedly to tear off a piece of cinnamon bun or a chunk of muffin. Regina watches from the corner of her eye, fingers gripping the edge of the sink, hoping- but each time, before it reaches his mouth, he remembers, and he pushes the plate away.
If there are more broken plates in the garbage on those days, Gwen never says a word.
Weeks pass in tense silence. Regina starts seeing Emma Swan's face everywhere she looks as the story of a bail bondsperson-turned-modern-day Lazarus takes the country by storm. She begins having visions of an enraged Emma Swan showing up in her town, in her bakery, in her home, ready to reveal her secret and ruin her life.
When Regina starts jumping every time the bells over the bakery door chime, Gwen quietly switches out her morning coffee for decaf. It doesn't help.
Nothing helps.
The bitter quiet has even invaded her home. Now, Henry no longer takes a seat on one of the kitchen stools while Regina makes breakfast before school. Instead, a red-hot lump of bitter anger settles deep in Regina's stomach as she rips the newspaper straight down the middle of a photo of a confused-looking Emma Swan in the kitchen while Henry watches TV in the other room, far away from her. It galls Regina, knowing that if she had just left well enough alone, she wouldn't even have to worry about-
A breaking news bulletin interrupts her thoughts, and she hears the voice of the news anchor say "-medical miracle 'Sleeping Bounty,' who authorities have just identified as-" and she's across the room, snatching the remote out of Henry's hand before he can blink and punching the power button hard enough to hear the plastic crack beneath her fingers. Henry stares up at her with wide eyes and she forces her fingers to loosen around the remote, dropping it on the couch beside him.
She reaches out to smooth his hair, tweaking his collar into place like she had never intended to do anything different when he flinches away.
"Come on," she says, false cheer making her voice high and brittle, "enough TV for this morning. It's time to eat breakfast."
But even that fragile peace could not last, and by two o'clock that afternoon, Henry would have run away - having given his teacher a note claiming an early pickup for a dentist appointment.
By two fifteen, Regina had yelled at every school administrator she could get her hands on, and Marian is already in her kitchen once more, rubbing soothing circles on Regina's back and calling up every sheriff's station in a tri-county area.
And by eight o'clock that evening, Marian is halfway to Boston after discovering Henry had bought a bus ticket with Regina's credit card, and Regina is sitting in her study, staring at the fire she'd built to ward off the unseasonable cold that seemed to be curling around her heart tighter and tighter as the night wore on.
Her ears had been straining for any sound for so long that, when the she hears the slamming of a car door outside, she almost dismisses it as a fantasy. But then it sounds again, echoing through the house, shattering hours of tense silence, and Regina is up and moving before she even realizes it, flinging open the front door and rushing down the walk because it's Henry, he's home, and she gathers up her dear sweet boy in her arms again, too overwhelmed to notice just who has brought him back to her.
Henry wriggles in her grasp and she releases him reluctantly, resting her hands on his shoulders instead.
"Are you okay? Where have you been?" She tries to meet his eyes but the stubborn set of his jaw means he's not planning on looking up from the weeds growing through the paving stones on the walkway. Still, she tries, "What happened?"
Henry twists his shoulders out from under her palms and pushes past her, his muttered "I found my real mom," leaving Regina frozen in his wake, only now noticing the horribly familiar boots of the person who had brought Henry back to her - a person Regina was hoping she might never have to see again.
Slowly, she drags her eyes up to meet the stunned gaze of Emma Swan.
"You're Henry's mother?" Emma manages to stutter out, looking as though she might heave up her dinner on the pathway at any moment. Her hand comes up in a seemingly unconscious motion to brush the point of her chin where Regina had awoken her mere days before.
Regina, unable to think of a single other thing to say in the face of her entire world crashing to the ground around her, offers Emma a lopsided smile, more a grimace than a grin, and simply says, "Hi."