Author's Note: Sorry for any grammatical errors. As always, enjoy.
Emma walked down the long hallway and was met with the landing above the staircase again. She turned to her right and opened the large cupboard in front of her. She reached to the top shelf and retrieved a white cloth. She then turned back to the hallway and went into the bathroom opposite Regina's room, turning to her left to use the sink. She turned the tap on without really looking, soaked the rag and turned it off again. She rolled up the rag, switched the light in the bathroom room off and then shut the door. That was when she stopped. What the hell had just happened? Why had she known where any of these things were so easily?
That was weird. Emma thought to herself.
Emma pushed the thoughts away and entered Regina's room. She instinctively looked towards the bed where Regina had been sitting before and was shocked to see that she wasn't there. She quickly scanned the room and noticed a leg exposed near the corner of the bed. The bed was blocking the rest of her body and Emma ran over, dropping the wet cloth as she did so. Regina was laying worryingly still on the floor beside the bed.
"Regina!" She shouted as she reached her body. The older woman was out cold.
She quickly put her forefinger and index finger against her neck and checked for a pulse. She released the breath she'd been holding with relief as she felt a steady beat. She then put one arm behind Regina's back and the other under her knees and with a little difficulty at the awkward angle managed to pick the other woman up. She placed her on the bed and put the covers back over her. Looking across the room, she noticed the cloth that she'd previously left on the hard wood floor. She stood up, walked over and retrieved it. Returning to where Regina was sprawled on the bed, she paused. This is where the fast plan she'd made ended. Regina's body was twisted and her head was far away from the pillows. Emma carefully sat down on the bed and rested her legs out in front of herself. She gently altered Regina's body so that her head was now resting on her lap. This way Emma would notice instantly if her condition suddenly started to deteriorate. She picked up the cloth beside her, rolled it up and gently dabbed it at Regina's hot forehead. What the hell had happened while she had been gone for those few minutes?
"Emma?" Mary Margaret asked as she entered the large bedroom. An hour had passed and Emma had fallen asleep. It was only around eight thirty but the day's events had really taken their toll.
Regina was still out of it, now with the wet cloth flat against her forehead as Emma had accidentally let go of it during her slumber. Regina's head was now on top of Emma rising and falling stomach and they had a thin blanket resting over them both.
Emma opened her eyes in response to Mary Margaret and looked at the woman who was standing with a confused expression in the doorway.
"Hey there," Emma said with her eyes half open.
"What happened to her?" She asked whilst walking closer to them. She could see the cloth on Regina's head and she could also see how bad she looked. One of Emma's hands was gently laced in Regina's hair. It was an oddly intimate pose for them both.
"She had a terrible nightmare so I came in here. We talked and she looked so unwell. I went to get the wet cloth for her fever and when I came back and she was completely out of it on the floor. I have no idea what happened. I just rested her head on my lap so she would be more comfortable and I guess I just fell asleep somehow," she explained to her mother.
Mary Margaret nodded, her brow furrowed too. "And how are you doing?"
"I'm fine. It's her that we need to be worrying about," Emma responded, gently stroking her smooth hair. As she did so, her shirt slipped up her arm slightly and a bruise became visible on Emma's wrist.
"What happened to your wrist?" Snow asked with alarm.
"Nothing. I'm fine." She sighed. Mary Margaret came closer and gently lifted her daughter's arm up and pushed up her sleeve, seeking permission from Emma with eye contact the whole time.
"Emma! What on earth happened to it? This bruising is awful. You must be in serious pain!"
"No, I'm not. I'm fine, it doesn't matter."
"Did she do this to you?" Her mother gestured to the sleeping figure.
"Yes but it was an accident, it was my fault actually."
"How could that possibly be your fault?"
"I awoke her from a dreadful nightmare and she freaked out. She was in shock and she flicked her wrist, I just flew back a bit, that's all. It couldn't have been avoided."
"Okay, that's not so bad I guess. Did she tell you what she was dreaming about?" Snow asked with a surprising amount of concern.
"She wouldn't say, but it sounded awful. I've never seen her looking that distressed before."
Mary Margaret nodded. "Has she had nightmares before or was this triggered by what she went through today?" She asked.
"She told me she has the nightmares every night but the events of today won't have helped. She said to me earlier that she's been through worse than what happened today. You don't get much worse than being restrained and electrified, so that worried me a lot."
"It worries me too. I don't think I know this woman as well as I think I do," Snow said uneasily. "Emma, I was wondering if you have- no, never mind." She shook her head.
"What?" Emma asked.
"It doesn't matter. Now's not the right time. I came in here because Henry's been asking after you. He's wondering why you disappeared earlier."
"I wanted to explore this place, try and find out why we're actually here. I didn't see all the rooms and I gave up eventually and ended up in here."
"I see that." She smiled. She took a step closer and sat down next to Emma on the bed. She outstretched her hand and used it to brush away some of Emma's blonde locks from her face and put them behind her ear. She enjoyed the contact and lightly stroked Emma's cheek afterwards. "My beautiful girl." Snow looked at her fondly. Emma smiled and looked at her as her mother spoke. "You're all a parent could have ever asked for, you know." Emma smiled modestly but shook her head in the process. "Yes. You're strong, beautiful, brave, loving. What more could I have ever asked for?" She smiled, gently stroking Emma's cheek and playing with her hair.
"You could have a daughter that was a little less messed up and a little more princess."
"I don't want a princess, I want you. If I had the choice for some flouncy, stuck up princess of a daughter, or a brave, strong young woman like you. I'd choose you any day, Emma."
"That means a lot. And right now you don't have any other options, so I guess you're stuck with me." She shrugged with a goofy smile.
"Well the pleasure is mine. I mean I loved my roommate but I think I love my daughter just a little bit more. The line is slim though." She teased.
"I'm sure it is." Emma chuckled. "It was pretty cool when we were roommates though. Although we could have ended up about having some pretty awkward conversations. We're quite lucky that we found out when we did." She smiled.
Mary Margaret nodded and laughed. "Yeah, now there would have been a serious need for family therapy…" Emma chuckled in response, trying not to dwell on it any further.
In her sleep, Regina had faintly been able to hear a conversation and now she could hear it clearly. Wait, if she could hear, that meant...Oh. She cursed in her thoughts. She couldn't do anything these days.
"Emma can I ask you a question? I was going to before but I wasn't sure about whether I should or not. It's quite a sensitive topic."
Regina recognized Snow's voice and continued to listen with her eyes resting shut. She was partly too tired to open her eyes anyway.
"Sure." Emma said a little apprehensively.
"I wanted to know how you felt- I wanted to know if you have feelings for Regina. I mean I know I don't know you properly yet and there was always the possibility that you liked women- and then there was Neal and I wasn't sure and-"
"It's okay. You don't have to ramble. I'm not gonna bite your head off." Emma gave her a half smile. Mary Margaret nodded and sat patiently, ready to listen. "About Regina-"
Regina listened carefully. She was surprised to feel Emma's fingers absently running through her hair. Wait, was she laying on Emma?
"I can't really explain to you how I feel. I just care about her a lot. I just want her to be okay and long term I want her to be happy and not holding onto anymore pain. I feel like no one really understands what she's been through. Everyone in Storybrooke only sees what she did when you were in the Enchanted Forest and how it affected them personally."
"Emma, I'm sorry, but you weren't there. She did some truly heartless things."
"I know I wasn't there and the things that she did were not okay. I mean she was the reason I grew up alone. But I just think that she's in a lot of pain and she hasn't had it easy."
"She was the evil queen in the Enchanted Forest, she hardly had any obstacles to face, Emma."
"Hardly had any obstacles are you kidding me!" Emma outburst angrily. "She grew up with a mom who abused her power to obsessively control her. Then the man she was in love with was murdered in front of her. She was forced to marry a middle aged king when she was eighteen years old. Who knows how much marital rape would have gone on there? She was then corrupted by the Dark One who took advantage of the power she had inside of her. By then all she wanted was Daniel back and a chance to get away from the dreaded king and she obviously felt she had no other choice but to master the dark magic in order to keep herself safe, to protect her heart. So she may have done some pretty awful things but don't you ever say she had it easy!" Emma shouted frustratedly. She didn't know where all of the rage had come from. Regina opened her eyes and stared at them both intently. She sat up and looked at Emma anxiously.
"Hi there." Emma gave her a weak smile. "I'm sorry if I woke you, if you heard all of that."
"It's fine." Regina tucked some of her own hair behind her ear. "I'm just surprised that you know so much about me. I'm obviously not doing a very good job at hiding my feelings anymore." She said with discomfort, her arms raising to wrap around her body.
"It pisses me off so much that all of this has happened to you. It's always the ones that don't deserve it to begin with that go through the worst torture." She said angrily.
"Maybe I did deserve it." Regina's voice was shaky and Emma could tell she was fighting with all her might to push against tears. "Like you said before, Snow, I was the evil queen in the Enchanted Forest, I hardly had any obstacles to face." She scowled with resentment in her tone.
"Emma before,-did you say marital rape?" Snow cut in with a shaky voice.
Emma nodded. "I don't know this as a fact. But isn't it obvious? Why don't you ask Regina?"
Regina looked up at them and her eyes were glassy with tears. "It was normal back then, Emma. Stop making a big deal about it. I got over it, I tried to forget."
"My father- raped you?" Snow's voice wobbled and her eyes watered with disgust and remorse.
"God do I have to spell it out for you!" Regina outburst. "You were always such a naive child. I see that has never changed." She scowled.
"This is my entire fault." Mary Margaret said with shock. "I'm the one who got Daniel killed. I'm the reason my father met you. I told him he should marry you because you were perfect. I never realised how young you were. You were practically a child yourself." Snow wiped away tears that had escaped. "That's it. That's why you hated me with such passion. I ruined your life."
Regina scowled at her and quickly wiped away the tears on her own cheeks from before. She hated crying, it had always been the purest sign of weakness to her. Regina looked at Emma who had tears in her eyes also.
Emma looked at her desperately. "You don't have to hide how you feel anymore. The pain, it leaves you know, it starts to leave if you deal with it, talk about it."
"Oh and that worked for you did it?" Regina said sarcastically.
"No. But I never tried, I was never brave enough."
Snow looked at her daughter with an anxious expression. Just how bad was her childhood? What was Emma keeping from her?
Regina listened to Emma's words. She also recalled everything that the blonde woman had said to Snow whilst she was asleep about what she'd been through and she was grateful. The former Evil Queen wasn't exactly sure where Emma had found all of this out but she was thankful that she had someone sticking up for her. Maybe all that she'd preached about understanding her wasn't as inaccurate as she'd thought.
Regina composed herself and looked at Mary Margaret. "You had the perfect life, Snow. You'd had a mother who'd loved you. You were born a princess for god's sake! You had everything you'd ever wanted handed to you on a plate. Including me, your dream stepmom at the time. I despised your father and- Emma was right before. I don't know how she has my life as perfectly mapped out as she does, but -she was right. Leopold may have loved you but he certainly wasn't a nice man. He had no remorse for me before, during or after. I wasn't the only 'heartless' person you knew..."
"Regina, I'm sorry-" Mary Margaret cried.
"Just save it. Like I said, you were a naive child. There wasn't a world outside your own thoughts and feelings. People simply existed to serve you. You don't understand me so stop trying to make out that you do just because we spent a few years 'bonding'."
"You never loved me did you?"
"Regretfully, I did. I hated myself for it because of everything you'd done to me but I did love you. You were innocent and the warmth of your heart was rather contagious, though it became sickly in good time. You know I am really not in the mood to be having a heart to heart, especially with Snow White. As you can see I am rather too weak to be able to storm out so if you don't mind, I would rather you just left me in peace to replenish my anger for you."
Snow stood up from the bed and walked towards the doorway. She stopped halfway and began to speak. "I'll leave you in peace Regina. But I want you to know that I am sorry for being such a carefree child, honestly I am. If I knew what was happening I would have done everything I could to help you. To help you leave and be free of my father."
"It's too late to change things now. Maybe at the time you could have thought about something other than ponies, gowns and princes once in a while. Then maybe I would have had a much happier life."
Snow simply nodded defeatedly, sneaking one last glance at Emma who looked torn between them both and left the room, closing the door behind her.
As soon as she'd left, Emma looked back at Regina who was still sitting close to her on the bed. "You didn't have to be so harsh, Regina. She was a child after all when it happened; if the roles were reversed then you probably wouldn't have known either. You can't punish her for doing something she wasn't even aware that she did."
"She was always a bratty child. She deserved exactly what she got."
"She may have been a bratty child but she is still my mother."
Regina didn't comment on that, she simply said. "What you said before, how do you know so much about me? You're not even from there."
"Some parts of your life I've learnt from other people, some parts I've even read in Henry's book and other parts just come with instinct."
"What do you mean instinct?" Regina asked with a confused expression.
"Regina, I grew up in the Care system. I know someone who has been abused when I see them. There's this look in their eyes. Along with the self hatred, and the obvious anger at the whole world, it wasn't hard to put that jigsaw together. Also a medieval style king and queen where the queen is obviously a good thirty years younger than the king is just kind of self explanatory. Queens have never had as much power as kings. Therefore kings could do whatever they liked."
"I see you're quite the historian," Regina responded a little bitterly. Her face expression changed as she spoke again. "What you said about the children. If it was an ordinary thing then did it ever happen to you? Were you ever abused by any of your foster parents?"
"I was never raped luckily. But I knew teenagers who had been. I had a few families who were particularly awful though. I remember one man used to always put his cigarettes out on our arms or legs and there was this other woman who obviously had some kind of mental health problems who used to starve us to see how thin we could get. I was hospitalised along with a younger boy who had been fostered there too. We never had to go back there after that. I think those were the worst two families I had."
"That's dreadful," Regina muttered. "I could never do that to a child."
"It wasn't all bad though. There were a few good families too. There was this loving couple who had a twelve year old son already who fostered me when I was about three or four. I loved them dearly and lived with them for a few years but one day they got pregnant with twins and they couldn't handle to have me as well. So I got sent back to the care system. I loved the boy though, he used to play with me and he and his mom used to bake cakes with me a lot. His father taught me soccer and lots of other sports. I loved them all dearly, they were the only ones out of the whole time I would ever be proud to call my family."
"Did you ever see them again?" Regina asked, invested in the story.
"No. But I doubt I ever will. People change, grow old, move places. They probably don't remember me anyway." Emma shrugged, trying to show that she didn't care when she so obviously did.
Author's Note: I felt like harsh Regina needed to return for a little while. She's been rather soft and fragile in this fic (and will continue to be until she's properly better) but I felt like she needed to be more like her usual self for at least one conversation in this chapter and it wasn't going to be with Emma. If you disagree, feel free to tell me. I really enjoy reading your opinions, good or bad.
