Underneath The Surface Chapter 4 - Walk On Water
Regina could only sit on the fallen tree, stunned. It had been so long since anyone had treated her this way, given her any sense of caring, of hope, she hardly knew how to handle the situation. She had always prided herself on remaining in control of any situation, in the bedroom or out of it. Here though, she was not in control and barely knew what would happen from one minute to the next, let alone know how to deal with her feelings for Emma. She felt tears burn their way to the surface, and normally she would fight them back, but there was no one else to see them here. No one but the blonde woman she was quickly coming to care for. So the formal Evil Queen let the tears come and course a path down her dirty cheeks.
She wept not only because she was unaccustomed to having anyone care for her, besides Henry, but also for the sheer joy of still being able to care for anyone else. Despite having her heart firmly in her chest, some days she thought her mother had the right idea when she took hers out.
She wept because those very walls Emma had mentioned had protected her so long, she hardly knew who she was without them, and she was afraid of the truth.
Regina eventually got her emotions under control, and sat on the log sniffling when a hand reached from behind and offered her a folded, red bandana.
"I know it's not a handkerchief, but it's clean."
Regina turned and accepted Emma's offering. "Thank you."
"You feeling a little better?" Emma sat on the log beside her, close enough their arms were touching.
Regina nodded and sighed. "Lighter, I suppose."
"Think you can give me a hand with a couple more saplings?"
The brunette nodded, dabbed at her eyes and nose and rose to meet this next challenge. By the time she turned to face Emma, she looked more in control than she had since they had arrived.
It didn't take too long to lash the saplings to the cross pole with Regina's vine-ropes. Then they wove smaller saplings and sturdy, stripped branches in between.
"Now we need to break off pine boughs and lay them down so they act like shingles on a roof, with all the needles sloping down so the rain runs off." Emma demonstrated what she meant with a pine bough she'd brought over. "The more boughs we can do that with, the drier we'll be, and it's getting cloudy, so we have no time to waste."
Regina nodded and wordlessly went about breaking pine boughs off various trees. They had formed a sizeable pile when Emma started tucking and arranging pine boughs to form a roof. Regina watched and marvelled at how quickly their green roof took shape. Emma knew exactly where to weave this one and tuck that one so that by the time she was done, the bough-roof was almost a foot thick and nothing looked like it would blow away.
"In an ideal situation," she grunted a little as she wiggled into their shelter and looked up at the greenery for any holes, "We'd have a properly equipped pack, survival food, tarps and matches. But in this case..." Emma shimmied out.
"In this case we have you." Regina came to stand beside Emma and gently shoulder-bumped her. "Henry was right you know... you really are a saviour."
Emma looked at the ground, red faced.
"You're my saviour."
All sorts of rebuttals crossed Emma's mind, but she said none of them. She just stood there and blushed some more. "I saw some berries...back there...I think I'm going to collect them and see if I can't find some more stuff to make a broth with. Can you keep the fire going?"
Regina straightened to her full height and let an imperious look settle on her features. "If I can run a town for twenty eight years, I'm fairly certain I can keep a fire going." Regina gave a small smile to show Emma she wasn't too serious and turned to the woodpile.
Regina filled the juice can in the stream again and set it at the side of the fire, maneuvering some of the embers closer to the can so the water would boil. She could barely hear Emma foraging out in the woods behind her, but she knew there was no reason to worry, the other woman was smart enough not to go too far. Regina took the time to find the downed tree they had been sitting on earlier and drag it back to the fire for them to sit on. Sitting on the log and keeping the fire fed gave her time to study her surroundings. They were at the edge of a stream that ran beside a forest, which she already knew, but as she sat there, she could hear a variety of birds calling out to one another. She was slightly surprised to find she recognized a few of them, and wondered how similar this place was to the Enchanted Forest.
She sighed and wondered where this place was.
As Regina tended the fire, Emma searched for wild plants that she could use in a broth. Reaching into an inside jacket pocket, she brought out another clean bandana. She collected the berries she recognized were edible and left the ones she didn't know. Luckily for them, blueberries, Saskatoon berries and raspberries were plentiful here.
Emma straightened her back and looked around to be sure she could still see Regina.
She too, wondered where they were.
As she bent again, she spotted a broadleaf plantain plant and plucked it from the forest floor. It, and it's neighbours, would go into the tomato juice can and provide them with some nourishment. After picking a few handfuls more of blueberries, she spotted a few scraggly mallow plants, and quickly pulled some leaves off. When she spied some dandelions, she dug her knife out of her pocket and dug and pulled until she had a pile of plants, including the stubborn taproots, set beside her. She stuffed those into her pocket as best she could and slowly made her way back to their little campsite, keeping her eyes on the ground in case she spotted any more edibles.
When Emma came into the camp, such as it was, she gave Regina a small smile. "I found some plants to make a broth with. It may not taste as good as your onion soup, but it will keep us alive."
Regina nodded. "I think the water has been boiling for a couple of minutes now."
"Good. I'm pretty sure neither of us wants to get anything from the water. Oh, I got us some berries." Emma held the bandana out for Regina, who raised one eyebrow.
"How many of these do you carry?"
"Usually two. One in case I come across evidence I don't want to touch and one in case I get the sniffles or something." As Regina bent to wash the berries in the stream, Emma continued. "Jerod used to carry a film canister in his pocket that had a length of fishing line and two hooks. He was prepared for anything, that kid. But he had stashes of supplies all through the ravine." She set to the task of cleaning and preparing the plants for the water. " Now if he were here right now, you'd think you were in a well-supplied, rustic hotel."
Regina handed Emma the now-washed berries and said, "For all that, I'm glad you're here."
Emma gave her companion a tight smile and bent her head to her task, intent on not cutting off a finger. "I'm not all that special, you know. I can't walk on water or anything. I'm just me, using the knowledge I have to keep us alive."
Regina shot her a look that made it plain the brunette did not believe her.
When the water had boiled long enough, the various roots and leaves were dropped into it and let steep. Emma used the sleeve of her jacket again to protect her hand and carefully carried the can so it sat on the ground between them. While it cooled, they shared the berries from the bandana. Wordlessly they consumed their small lunch of berries and plant broth, until it was all gone. Then Emma rose and stretched.
"Good thing we ate before I zapped us here. Wherever here is... I ...uh... I'm gonna go find a bush. When I get back we'll have to rig something so we don't sleep on the ground."
Regina nodded and watched the fire as she listened to her walk a short distance away and unzip her pants.
"I would have figured you for a button fly kind of woman, Emma." she called out.
"Yeah, some of my jeans are, I guess."
"So, what are we going to construct for beds?" Regina called back.
"Well, if we were going to stay any length of time, I would rig proper beds for us, but if the weather holds, I'd like to move on in the morning, try and figure out where we are. I think..." Regina heard the sound of the zipper being pulled back up. "I think that road I saw not too far off is key to that." Emma came back into the campsite now. "The light is going to start to fade pretty quick, we'd better get moving. I think our best bet is a big pile of pine boughs to keep us off the ground. We'll have to sleep close for body heat since we have no blanket. It's not a cold time of year and we can pull more boughs over us. You okay with that?"
"Better than being completely exposed to the elements." Regina gave a sharp nod and followed Emma.
The two of them worked together without conversation and soon had an impressive pile of boughs waiting beside the lean-to. Emma turned back to the woods and saw a promising dying birch that was shedding thick sheets of bark, so when she pulled some of them off, Regina came and followed suit.
"Okay, we take them back, carry as many as we can in one trip, lay these on the ground first..." They were back at the lean-to and Emma knelt by the opening and laid the bark sheets in. "Then we cover them with almost all the boughs we collected. Leave some close by though so we can cover ourselves with them."
It didn't look like much, Regina thought, but it was better than trying to sleep in a tree.
They boiled more water, set more wood on the fire and sat on the log until it was obvious the day was waning. Regina shook the red bandana out and carefully eased the tin out of the embers. "I expect we'll want to ration this during the night?" she asked.
"Yup. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to trip around out there in the dark looking for a bush."
They sat on the log and watched the forest get darker. The glow from the fire cast dancing shadows, and Regina watched Emma chew on her bottom lip. A sure sign she was mulling something over.
"Penny for your thoughts, Miss Swan?"
"You're probably going to think it's a ridiculous thing to be worried about now..."
Regina waited.
"You and I both know our relationship is changing. Not just here, it was back in Storybrooke too. There's less..." Emma pondered the right word to use.
"Animosity?"
"Yeah. Here, we've already started to lean on each other more, and ..."
"Those kisses are what's bothering you."
"Yeah, but not in the way you think." Emma got up and shifted a larger log into the flames. "I've been attracted to you almost from the beginning, I still am. Every day I see more and more to be attracted to. Here, you're letting your guard down, and that's great. But what happens when we get home? Are you going to go back to who you were? Because I can't do that, Regina. I can't turn my feelings on and off like a light switch."
Emma fell silent then as she sat a respectful distance away on the log.
Regina watched Emma with dark eyes. She knew all too well the pain of reaching out emotionally and being rejected. She got up and moved closer to the blonde, sat down beside her and took her right hand. "Emma, you've changed me, everything that's happened since you came into my life has changed me. Here, with no one else around, it's easier to let my guard down. There are no expectations that I'm going to rip a heart out, no one that remembers how I was before the curse. I can be ... who I was supposed to be... I think. I can't imagine how we're going to get home, but I can tell you that I will try very hard not to shut you out when we get there. I will try to not settle back into old patterns." Regina looked from their interlaced fingers to Emma's face. "But honestly, I might need a friend to remind me of that from time to time."
Emma turned and studied the sincerity in Regina's brown eyes. "I can do that. And if we end up being more than friends, then that's okay too."
Regina settled her head on Emma's shoulder and they watched the fire together.
The next morning, Regina woke up alone in the little lean-to. At first she was startled, but then she remembered that Emma had drank more water than she had the day before. She shimmied out into the open air and readjusted her clothing. She hated that she had to sleep in them. On a whim, she flexed her fingers once more and willed the magic to the surface.
There was only a slight current and it moved sluggishly.
Regina scowled.
"Still nothing?" Emma came into view carrying more green things.
"I'm afraid not. Only something that might have been pins and needles from sleeping on branches. How did you sleep?"
"Not much. I kept the fire going, worried about every sound I heard and kept watch over you." Emma didn't mention the times she had looked out to see firelight reflected in eyes.
"Thank you."
Emma shrugged. "I brought peppermint back, for tea, and more of that plantain, and berries. Once we've finished those, we'll douse the fire and head out."
"And the lean-to?"
"We'll leave that as is. You never know who, or what, might need it." Emma thought again about those eyes she had seen in the dark.
Their breakfast didn't take long to consume, and soon enough Emma was dousing the fire and stirring the embers with a long stick. She repeated the procedure a couple times more until she was sure there was no more heat coming from the soggy mass. She straightened up and took a look around. She saw Regina had tucked the empty juice can under her arm and nodded at it. "Good idea. Okay, so the sun is over there, that's east. The road was to the west of the stream, so we head out with the sun to our backs. You ready?"
Regina nodded and they set out to find some form of civilization.