EMMA AND REGINA

Emma stood, but didn't move, though every nerve stung in attention. Her legs ached from her abruptly truncated run, and more, from her abrupt transformations. Her top clung to her with sweat that had nothing to do with her jog up a mountain.

Regina sat, brown eyes wide and filled with something approaching marvel-and perhaps a smattering of amusement.

A long—an, oh, so long—silence extended between them.

Emma looked down to see her gun near her feet, right where she'd chucked it, useless, to the floor. She bent to retrieve it, her hands visibly shaking.

A breath of compassion fell from Regina's gaze, and entered her throat.

"Miss Swan, are you allri…?"

What sounded like a sonic boom from under the house, shook the room with a twist, a jerk, a plunge, and Emma stumbled back into her crouch, fear etched all along her soft features.

She turned as, from Regina's fireplace, a red-tinted cyclone appeared, stretching purposefully into the foyer and drawing all the disconnected, gory bits of the monster into its whirling vortex. As suddenly as it appeared, the cyclone vanished up the chimney, leaving the house utterly vacant of the demon that had so recently terrorized the woman within. Gone was the ravaged flesh. Gone was every speck of its existence. The broken house, though, remained. And Rudy Vega's empty, brown satchel.

"What the…" Emma began.

The door behind her slammed, sucked shut in the vacuum left by the cyclones departure.

"Fuck!?"

"Is it over, do you think?" Regina wondered in Emma's general direction. Regina found that she was feeling particularly… uncomfortable in the other woman's presence.

"What did you do?" Emma's voice was as stern as she could muster, and dabbed with an accusation that even she didn't believe.

"Me? I didn't DO anything." Regina sputtered at that. Just, she thought, as Emma might expect she would.

"No?" Emma's head cocked to the side and she felt her neck muscles stretch painfully from her shoulder. She'd hurt something and, unlike Regina, she hadn't quite healed.

"No."

Regina—Emma knew—wasn't lying.

They didn't speak again for another long while. Regina slowly rose and began surveying the damage, moving in wide circles around Emma, not venturing too close, as though she were in the presence of a wild animal. Or something.

Emma watched her. Still. Silent.

Inside, though, Emma roiled.

Regina began picking up this or that bit of handrail, the vestiges of a glass fixture, a sliver of an ancient vase. Regina's movements finally nudged Emma back into herself and she knew she had to move. She HAD to leave.

"I'm gonna go now." She said and stood.

She couldn't figure out what to do with her hands, hands that had felt massive and powerful moments ago, hands that had so recently been paws. She scrubbed the back of one hand across her mouth, her mouth that had been a muzzle, a muzzle that had torn apart that thing with

really

crazy

violence.

A muzzle that Regina had held, and caressed.

"Of course." Regina said, straightening herself to her full height, folding her hands sweetly in front of her. No small feat, as she held the better part of a newel post, and the business end of a sconce.

Regina. Poised and collected in mayhem. Emma let her eyes travel the length of her, making sure all of Regina was where were all of Regina should be, and she tried to still her own feet, her weight shifting about haphazardly.

Emma took a deep, deep breath. But, while her unconsciousness had told Emma that doing so would make it bearable to leave this house after everything that had happened, that breath served instead to create an enormous sadness that quickly overwhelmed her.

For Emma had her Lion's nose no longer, and she couldn't locate the scent of Regina alive and whole like she had, and she couldn't make the depth of it flow through her lungs and melt into her muscle, and carry it away with her. Once she hit the other side of that door, it'd be gone, and the thing was?

The thing was…

"I have to go." Emma stomped her foot, surprising them both. She tugged at one of her runners as though it had come half-off—though in truth, it hugged her foot too tightly. "I'll be back. Don't touch anything, else. I need to look for…"

She was bending and using her gun to catch up the strap of the satchel, lifting it high in front of her to take back to the office. Due diligence, she had.

"Evidence, Sheriff?" Regina presented her particularly annoying, 'how-quaint' smile.

Emma's choice to leave instead of trying to dissect what happened was unexpected, and Regina was feeling... Was it lucky?

Don't blow it.

Emma turned away, and headed for the door. Regina's voice shifted low, and caught Emma in the back.

"Are you sure this isn't a dream?"

"A dream?" Emma looked at the threshold under her feet, rocked her feet over it to feel its solidness. She remembered Regina's voice, tender as she soothed the Lion before her, her gentle touch, her smile, the moment of understanding… "Maybe. Maybe it is." Emma stepped outside.

Before Regina could shut the door, though, Emma spoke again.

"You called to me."

"Did I?" Regina's glance banked away. Though Emma had her back to her, couldn't even see her, Regina turned her head, felt shy. Uncovered.

"So I came."

The pause before the answer was too long. Too long, before Regina could speak,

"I… That was very kind."

For one, small moment, without hands touching, nor even eyes meeting, Emma knew something about Regina she'd suspected, but never known before.

Regina

Regina waited until she heard Emma's cruiser pull away before she stepped delicately around the rubble of her home and shut the door.

And locked it.

What had happened here? Who? Her hands came up, covering her nose, her mouth, as she felt suddenly flush with memories. With fear. Tears glistened and she fretted that she couldn't still them once they started.

The rush of feelings, this weakness.

Wretched.

She brought her right hand down, fingers now closed to a fist, and smacked angrily at her own thigh. She'd tamped these thoughts down in front of Emma, she could do it now.

Emma

Regina's brow scrunched in a deep furrow. Who had happened here? Why? What power was this? Why was it in Storybrooke? Her Storybrooke?! Her chest swelled. And how DARE whoever it was attack HER. They clearly had no idea who they were playing with.

Thank God Henry had indeed snuck out.

Emma the Lion's nose pressed at her, nudged.

Regina remembered. The touch, impossibly soft for the huge animal. 'Live,' it had said. 'Please, live.'

Regina wrapped herself up tight and slid down the wall. She spied the corner of the room where she'd lay dying, her body bent, bones smashed, blinded by tears and blood all mixed up, a heap of torn flesh. Over her own sobs and the screech of the monster, she'd heard the door slam open, the gunshots, and then, the roar of a lion.

Emma

The Lionhearted

Regina smiled. At the truth of it, at Emma, the savior—saving her. Of all people, indeed.

And from every sound, every energy her senses could convey back to her—and from the devastation she'd seen once she'd healed, Emma hadn't just saved her from the monster, Emma had ripped the monster to shreds.

For threatening you. For hurting you. For you.

'Please. Live.'

Regina tipped her head back, letting it thud lightly against the wall behind her. But how could any of it be explained, or gratitude even be expressed without revealing everything?

Still. It wasn't her magic. It didn't feel like Gold's – and they'd had little to do with one another of late. Regina couldn't think of why he'd be bothering right now. Also, why let Emma save her?

Emma.

Regina smiled again, broadly.

Oh, my dear, the look on your beautiful face when the spell broke.

Regina frowned.

Oh, for crying out loud, Regina.

So much for getting the woman out of her head before the Festival.

Regina stood. She wandered to her study and picked up her phone. Dialed.

"Get me that group of fellows that fixed my gazebo last year, Micheal. I have a little project for them"

Emma

They say that when you know a route that you drive well enough, you could drive it while being catatonic without incident.

Emma must have traveled between Mary Margaret's and the Mayor's mansion a few more times than she'd thought.

And while she wasn't exactly catatonic, she really had only one, ineloquent word that raced around in her head—though, granted, in an array of intonations, inflections, enunciations…

Really? REALLY? really?

Really.

She parked the cruiser and got out. She walked up to the apartment and shut the door. She tugged off her tank, tangling herself in the cord from her headphones and growling at if before yanking it from the iPod. She heeled off her shoes, took off socks, sweats, underwear, bra.

She didn't stop and examine her body before the mirror. She didn't want to know if, or what, was different or the same. She just wanted a shower,

Goddamn it.

The water was hot. She turned it lower. Some part of her not wanting to wash away that strange connection to the beast that had been her. But she was desperate to get under the water, hoping it might stop her mind, stop thinking, stop trying to unravel the events of the day.

The minute the water touched her body, she started to cry. To weep. She was grateful to be alive, but didn't know how it was that she was. That thing, that thing should have ripped her apart like it had Regina, but instead…

Instead.

She breathed herself calm and tried again to let it go. She didn't know how she would, but if she was going to go on, to even just keep her sanity right now, she was going to have to get some control. And soon.

She rolled her shoulders under the warm water, along her neck. She saw through her lion eyes, Regina's eviscerated stomach. She wretched, and spun around in the shower.

No.

Emma opened her eyes. She saw Regina, standing in her doorway, standing in all her… Regina-ness.

Emma learned something else today. Regina knew a whole lot more about a lot more than she was telling.

That thought was enough to get Emma soaped up, rinsed off and towel-dried. Tugging on some cleanish clothes she headed back, armed with a wet head full of questions she wasn't sure she wanted answered, but she was sure the hell going to ask.

Regina and Emma

By the time Emma returned, armed with a few of the actual policing supplies that Regina provided for in the Sheriff Department's budget (other than dartboards and nameplates) there was already a crew of 10 working on rebuilding the entryway of the mansion.

Emma slammed her door as she got out of the cruiser. She was so livid at the sight, she re-opened her door and slammed it again.

Emma mounted the steps and unceremoniously clomped past everyone in her path until she got to Regina's office. She pulled the door open and glared at the woman who was apparently just determined to be her adversary. Regina's eyebrow arched.

"Regina!"

"Careful with that door, Miss Swan." Regina signed a sheet of paper on her desk. "We're still not entirely sure what's escaped unscathed around here."

"I specifically ordered you NOT to touch ANYTHING. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Destroying the evidence, silly.

"Ordered? Hmmn. Well, now, Miss Swan, I can't believe you'd want Henry to see all that when he got home. What could I tell him?" Regina cocked her head. "The truth?"

Emma threw her hands up impossibly high. "You might!" She sat in the chair. "Christ!" Emma rubbed her eyes. She rolled her neck. Flinched.

Regina noticed. She stood.

"I know it's a bit early, but… could you use a drink?" She walked to the sideboard. "You've had quite a day, I think."

"We've had quite similar days, I think." Emma stood, too, and followed her a step, watching as Regina poured two glasses. "And I can't help wonder that while I seem to be flipping completely fucking out, you're just doing Mayor-ey things, and being completely impossible."

Regina smiled widely. A real smile, colored a bit with something new.

Emma felt a blush rise. She took a step back. Regina advanced on her with the two glasses raised.

"Well, Miss Swan, we wouldn't want me to get too unpredictable, would we?"

Regina took another step, closer, entering Emma's space.

When Emma felt that now not UNfamiliar feeling, she held up a… big, claw-heavy, padded paw in Regina's face.

This proved quite affective in getting Regina to stop.

"Don't come any closer." Emma warned.

"Okay." Regina agreed with a steady nod.

Emma took another step back.

Her hand returned to normal.

The two looked across the glasses at each other.

"Maybe you should go sit where you were?" Emma looked at the drink. "You can leave that."