Regina sat in her office, with an enormous stack of heart boxes piled up behind her. The door shut behind yet another former victim now reunited with his heart. This was exhausting, not to mention humiliating and occasionally painful. A bruise was already starting to blossom on her cheek. Apparently not everyone was quite willing to forgive her. But she knew that now that she had started, she wouldn't give up until she had given back every heart that she could. Regina had never done anything halfway.

Emma showed up a few hearts later and perched on the edge of the desk, ignoring any number of chairs she could have sat on.

"You're seriously doing this?" she asked.

Regina shrugged. "You were right. I should have given them back a long time ago."

"It must be so much work, though."

"Well, I'm afraid sloth is not one of my many sins. But now that you're here, we should talk about something more important."

"And what's that?" Emma asked, looking down at Regina curiously.

"King Arthur. What do we do about him?"

Emma just shrugged. Leaning forward, she brushed a finger against the bruise on Regina's face.

"Who did this?"

"Who do you think?"

"Give me a name. I'll make them suffer."

Regina shook her head. "King Arthur, Emma. We need to take care of him before he does … whatever he's planning to do, and that would be a lot easier if we had our memories from Camelot."

She looked up at Emma with a poignant glare, but the blonde woman didn't react.

"Don't worry about him."

"Ms. Swan, he is a problem. And one I intend to solve. Now I don't know why you took our memories of Camelot, but to be honest, it doesn't really matter. I can do this with or without your help."

"You're really determined to do this being the Savior thing, aren't you?"

Regina didn't bother replying to that.

"It's not as easy as you think." There was something bitter in Emma's tone. "You'll see soon enough. At some point, you just have to … give up. Stop fighting."

That didn't sound like the Emma Swan that Regina remembered. But it did sound like the Emma who had tried to run from her role as Savior when they had first met, and the Emma who had wanted to go back to New York after they defeated Zelena. At her worst, Emma ran from her responsibilities. It wasn't surprising that the Dark Swan would, too.

Ignoring Emma, she reached for another heart and gave its owner orders to come to her office.

"So what now?" Emma asked. "We just wait until whoever that belongs to gets here?"

Regina nodded. "If they do." She glanced at the two hearts sitting off to the side whose owners had never shown up. Maybe they were dead, or bedridden, or back in the Enchanted Forest. She would see later if there was any spell she could use to track them down.

"How long do you think it will take? To give them all back, I mean."

"A long time. I took hundreds."

Regina recognized the woman who found her way to her office. She had been the wife of one of the guards, who claimed he was willing to serve her but had been a little too fond of Snow for the queen to trust him. She had taken this woman's heart in order to make sure her husband didn't turn traitor.

"I take it you're giving that back now," the woman said coldly, eyeing the heart.

"Yes."

"Keep it."

Regina stared at her silently. No one so far had refused to take their heart back. Not even the man who had punched her – especially not him.

"Why?"

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?"

"My husband died in the final battle against Snow White's forces. It was painful enough without that in my chest. Do you think I want it back?"

Oh. That was something Regina hadn't been counting on.

"I can understand that," she said. "But I also know that you're making the wrong choice. Take the heart. Think about it. If you decide you want me to put it back, then come find me and I'll do it."

She dropped the heart back into its box and pushed it across the table. When the woman had taken it and left, Regina saw Emma looking at her with a contemplative expression on her face.

"What?" she demanded.

"You're so sure she's making the wrong choice?"

"Emma, I know what it's like to lose someone you love."

"Sometimes it would be easier, though, don't you think? To not feel any pain?"

Regina wondered if Snow had told her that she had taken out her own heart after their return to the Enchanted Forest.

"I don't care what's easier," she snapped. "And you wouldn't either if you were acting like yourself. First you don't give a damn what King Arthur is doing, then you think going without a heart is a good choice because it's easier? That's not the Emma Swan I know. She was a fighter."

"Well," said Emma, folding her arms across her chest. "Maybe I'm tired of fighting. Maybe I just want life to be easy for once. Is that so wrong?"

Regina shrugged. "That's your choice, Emma. But you know I want you to keep fighting."