A/N: Whew, sorry for not writing anything for so long and leaving several ongoing stories unfinished. I got a little caught up in videogames this past month. And by a little caught up I mean I have pretty much done nothing productive all month besides playing Kingdom Hearts. In any case, I will try to repay my debt now, and this fic is the first one to go.


Chapter 3: Rain

"Every time we… she says his name, it's like she stabs me in the back and doesn't even realize it."

"So you feel… jealous? Betrayed?"

The Queen stands frozen, her hand resting on the doorframe. The sobbing voice that first caught her attention is accompanied by another, chirping, questioning without pause. A myriad of options runs through her mind; what is Jiminy doing here, so far from his masters – she scoffs in disdain – and who are they talking about if not her? Perhaps it is Ruby, with whom Emma has developed a partnership in hunt, so to speak; or the purest of them all herself, who speaks of, say, Rumpelstiltskin their enemy, with impunity; whatever the case, Regina doesn't make Emma feel jealous or betrayed, gods forbid both. She knows so with certainty and pride unshakable by a thousand exploding suns. Emma is her queen, her knight, her—

"No—Yes—I don't know!" Emma's voice gains in amplitude what it has lost in its usual hardiness and Regina can hear something fragile, porcelain, like bones of a baby hawk, shattering against the wall. A bed creaks loudly, crying out in pain under new, heavy weight. Then there's her greatest fear, a whimper she has never heard before in her life, born not of pleasure but of a fang in a coronary artery entangling Emma's heart.

"Emma—you've been here for a while, but that's nothing compared to your life in the other world. Is it possible that all this seems so unreal to you that you would fumble about in the darkness for a shred of reality?"

There's an unspoken warning and sudden apprehension that cuts through flesh and blood straight to the core, leaving a gaping canyon in its wake. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that maybe you're so caught up in these from your perspective unreal experiences that you're subconsciously trying to hang on to real, tangible problems, problems that you are familiar with from your childhood and adolescence."

"I'm not making this up!" And she's like ball lightning – raging amidst a sea of ionized, ominous clouds, just waiting to explode. It's terrifying, even more so in its inexplicability.

"I never said you were," Jiminy chirps in panic and an attempt to somehow convince the lightning to change its direction. Judging by the way his tone takes a sharp detour upwards before descending quickly, he's probably envisioning himself being squished the life out of by Emma's fist – which could as well happen. "Of course not! I just think you might be overreacting—"

"With all due respect, Archie, I didn't ask for your help to be judged."

"It's Jiminy, and—"

Emma has called for Jiminy to help. Emma has called for Jiminy to help. Regina's head is spinning; she tries to remember the last time such an occurrence was needed. Back in Storybrooke, back during the first war, when there was no one to turn to in the empty chasm between good and evil, knowing that her family stood divided on both sides, she asked for help. Never since. "Enough! What is the meaning of this?" The door bursts open in an unnatural gust of wind that could only stem from magic. The scene opens itself in front of her; Jiminy being swatted away, Emma jumping up in a way strangely reminiscent of the popular children's game the floor is lava that Henry is so fond of and broken pieces of a vase observing the hassle quietly from the corner.

"How long have you been standing there?" Emma squeaks while Jiminy's feelers disappear behind his umbrella. Not that it's raining in here, but the cricket sure wishes it were.

"Excuse us," Regina says sternly to Jiminy so that it's clear there is no other option for him, if he intends to stay in one piece – which he very much does, thank you, sir – so he wastes no time in heading straight for the door awkwardly, almost tripping over his own wings when he realizes what he must have unintentionally started.

"It's not his fault—"

"Out!"

"Listen to me—"

But Jiminy blocks out the rest of the conversation as he hurries down the hallway, clinging to his little suitcase. Unsure what he's frightened of (as murderous as Regina looks, she does owe him and he knows her anger is mainly directed at her own insecurities), he bumps head first into something tall, walking—

"Jiminy?" Henry whimpers, cradling the bug in tiny hands, his eyes glistening with tears. Ever the prince, he asks the most polite and most irrelevant question. "Are you okay?"

Jiminy looks him up and down when he's gotten back to his feet and brushed particles of dust off of himself. How long has the poor child been eavesdropping, too?

"May I ask what on Earth possessed you to invite your parents' lackey over to my castle without telling me?"

"Don't talk about him this way! And suddenly it's your castle. It's always been your castle, hasn't it? I'm just a temporary guest in your castle, aren't I?"

"Did Snow White talk to you again? You don't believe her lies, do you?"

"That's my mother you're talking about! And she has nothing to do with this!"

Jiminy bumps into the boy again – this time on purpose – trying to get him to move towards the stairway. It's enough that this is happening; he doesn't need to hear it, especially when they're not even aware of his presence, or so he hopes. He has, however, enough sense to know they wouldn't keep this up any longer if they did know, and for a moment he ponders the idea of telling them (or screaming at them over their own choir of yelling). Then again, what good would that do? "I'm fine, Henry, but this isn't a good time, okay? We should wait in the gardens. Come on, boy."

"I didn't want them to fight," Henry confesses as he strolls down the stairway, staring at the steps.

Ah, Jiminy connects the dots, he must have been behind their sudden visit. He sighs, settling on the boy's shoulder mid-stride and patting it. "I know, child. Neither did I. But your moms need to talk about some things right now, and their way is just a little different from what you imagined." He guides the boy outside, but Henry is in no mood to play games right now.

"Would you stop getting defensive?" Regina yells, the goblet of her patience having overflowed several minutes ago. Why, just this morning, Emma was repeating how much she loved her over and over in their bed, cheeks flushed and palms sweaty. Just how quickly can the heart change? Just how fast can she run? Or a more appropriate question would be – is she faster than the hands trying to hold her in place? Regina purses her lips and lets her insides twist in her chest, unable to admit to herself that she's helpless to stop it.

"I'm not being defensive!" Emma retorts. "You're the one who barged in here like my conversation was any of your business!"

They're both standing on tiptoe in front of each other, arms slightly outstretched, eyes firmly locked, and Regina wonders why this habit had stuck, why they still, after all they've been through, act like they're going to pull out a sword or throw a fireball in the other's direction at any second when they're fighting. She would guess it's what they're biologically designed to be, but that would be too easy. Regina has never been the one to give in to something just because it's 'what fate wants to happen'; when Snow married the Prince, when Emma was her enemy, when Emma was her lover. "Something's troubling you so I made it my business," she hisses. "And for your information, our son insisted I listen." Her eyes dart towards the door momentarily in a way that few people would register, but it's more than enough for Emma's hunter's instinct to kick in and send her running for the door.

"Henry—"

There's that gust of wind again, like a hurricane in a bottle, only bound by an invisible wall, and the door slams shut.

Emma snaps her head to Regina's back, her eyes blaring with a newly ignited spark to replace the one that died out when her son was mentioned. "These tricks of yours can be really annoying, you know that?"

"Oh? I seem to recall you enjoying my tricks immensely the other night. What's next? My dresses can be really annoying?"

"Now who's being defensive?"

A pause interrupts their bickering, leaving both women to reflect on their actions and the subtle sting of discharged electricity in the air to settle down. Regina exhibits no effort to look at her queen; instead she listens to the silence that envelops the two, only cracked and forced open by the blonde's growl that announces Emma's given up on arguing. She would find time and again that Regina always wins in some way. And Regina waits for the growl to quiet down, imagines Emma's face tilting to the side in defeat but shooting her back one last defiant look as in, 'You're impossible to deal with'.

"Henry said…" No, this is wrong. Henry's already involved in this situation more than is healthy. She doesn't want to – she'd rather crawl over broken glass – but desperate times call for desperate measures. Is this a desperate enough time? Her eyes are watering and she bites her lip and blinks it away. Mask on. Her next words are barely above a whisper. "Emma, no matter what you think – no matter what anyone tells you–" She steals a sideways glance at her lover, terrified to see the anger in her eyes, "—I do love you."

Chuckling humorlessly – a strained, cacophonous sound – Emma shakes her head. "You told me yourself. Doesn't get much clearer than that."

"What are you talking about?"

It should sound like mocking; it should be obvious Regina is and has been cruelly cutting through her gut since day one, but it's not. Instead there's only confusion, as one would expect, as Archie did, but Emma's determination doesn't falter. "'Daniel.'"

The cold is relentless. It is on nights like these that the implications of what they've lost of the other world fully sink in as the wind howls on and on, laughing at their helplessness in its shadow. It's not alone, either; miniature sculptures of ice, thousands of them, its faithful minions, descend upon the kingdom of the living and the weak. It is then that the Queen, half asleep, clinging to the body pressed up against her own for warmth, mumbles his name in her storm-clouded dreams.

Daniel.

Regina's mouth hangs open and she quickly covers it with the palm of her hand, eyes widening in horror as innumerable times she has unintentionally called out for past long gone in denial of the present. 'It hurts every time.' She wishes, and desperately so, that she had something to say in her defense, and struggles to find proof – any proof – of her innocence regarding a case that has long been closed. "Emma…"

"Don't bother, I get it."

"No, you don't." The brunette takes a deep breath and lets out a puff of air through her nostrils. Carefully, she walks up to her lover, but when she reaches to put a reassuring hand on her arm, Emma dodges the movement without so much as looking her in the eye, and Regina breaks a little more. "Do you remember what it used to be like when you were assembling a puzzle and you were only half done with it, but you already knew what the picture was going to look like, yet you looked for the remaining pieces anyway?"

Emma nods hesitantly, unsure of where this will lead.

"Daniel is a distant memory of mine that I've held onto for many, many years. Over time, he's… well, he's become like a scattered dream. Lately I've been finding pieces, hidden in you, pieces I thought were lost forever…"

Emma finally gathers the courage to look up. She expects to see the Queen in all her glory, disguised as the woman she's fallen for, but the resulting imagery is quite different. She sees a girl, a stranger who's barely come of age, but nonetheless a stranger who has seen and lived through centuries of what no one should ever bear. All this time tells a story in Regina's sorrowful eyes, and the three tears that spill over like the drumming rain that's started outside their door – the narrator.

"I never completed that puzzle," Regina whispers.

The next thing Emma knows is that she's wiping the tears away with the pads of her thumbs – as if that would ever help erase the cause of their birth – and the strange girl leans into the touch and grabs her wrist weakly, too young or perhaps just far too lonely to force it away. This strange girl closes her eyes for a long moment and when she opens them again, Emma finds she has run away, far behind the comforting blackness of Regina's irises. "It's coming back now because you remind me of him with this particularly irritating thing you never cease doing."

Hearing her own voice crack with frightened expectation, Emma frowns some more. "What thing?"

"You make me love you more than anything else in any world."

Jiminy's umbrella floats purposelessly above ruffled dark hair. Leaning against the bark of one of his mother's prized trees, Henry hugs his knees and rests her chin on them while the rain falls on both of them, not at all hindered by autumn leaves. He's been sitting here for almost an hour and Jiminy's attempts to humor him have all failed miserably. Eventually he gave up and instead started to focus on shielding the poor boy from the cold, lest an illness befalls him – but no luck followed him here, either. He has tried playing the conscience part, too. What would your mothers say if you got sick like this? Henry doesn't care – Good grief, mommy loves mama and mama loves mommy, what's the big idea? – and Jiminy is right in the middle of contemplating a drastic career change when two blankets assault the two stowaways viciously and without warning. (Though to be fair, Jiminy's is a napkin. Regina will have to settle that later.)

"And with that, I suggest it's time for a cup of tea for both of you," says Emma softly, wrapping the napkin/blanket tighter around the cricket, who appears to be frozen up to the feelers.

"No," Henry shakes his head in protest, "You yelled at each other."

Regina sighs, bending over to cup his cheek. "Yes, we yelled. We were angry, and we're sorry. But does it look like we're about to start again?"

The boy looks them up and down, pondering the question. Indeed, mommy and mama look pretty calm, happy even – except for their apparent disapproval of their son sulking soaked to the bone – but adults are weird. You can never trust adults, especially moms. Moms are even worse. Moms are like witches. At one moment, they have sweets and biscuits and storybooks and the other? Poof! Fire-breathing dragons! He shudders at the thought. "Pinky promise?"

Both women look at each other with a smile tugging at their lips before they kneel and each reaches for one of Henry's hands, intertwining their pinkies together. "Pinky promise," Emma nods.

Glad that he could help but missing the rest of his friends, Snow White and the Prince and the dwarves, Jiminy takes his umbrella from where it sits by the fireplace, says goodbye and gets ready to depart. Emma thanks him for all three of them, because let's face it – it was thanks to Jiminy that she even voiced her thoughts for Regina to hear. At your service, queen Emma. Anytime you require my assistance, queen Emma. This new collocation is quite pleasant to wrap your tongue around, actually, if only just to see the woman in question scowl. Queen Emma, heh!

Henry follows him up to the gates until he admits it is time to bid him farewell. "But what if they start fighting again?" he asks, worry evident in his expression, and Jiminy can't blame him for it.

He recalls the moment from several hours before, when he flew up to the castle tower – not very professional, he knows, but to be fair, Henry made him do it! And you try resisting when you're the size of a fat caterpillar and have a crying kid on your hands, or vice versa, to be more accurate. He remembers what he saw – and he has to, because for crying out loud, he would never in his life believe anyone who would tell him so – the tears running down Regina's cheeks, her shaking lips, her hand clutching Emma's wrist, the soft sobs visibly wrecking her body, and what came after; the kiss born of true love to break a curse of the Queen's own. He remembers that while he could hear nothing but raindrops bruising his umbrella, he could clearly see the Queen say one word and one word only – and it wasn't Daniel. "They won't, at least not for a good long while, Henry. You trust me on that," he chirps encouragingly, flies up to pat Henry on the forehead in that crickety way of his, and turns to leave.

"But if they do, you'll come back, right?"

"Always. What else would I be here for?"


A/N: Well, this is it, ladies and gays. Hope you enjoyed the ride and reviews are like food. :)