I'm so sorry for the long delay! The holidays have me running ragged, and time to write is at a minimum. Thank you all for the new reveiws follws and favorites!
In other circumstances this would have been nice. Regina's hand was on her back and she was pretty sure she had found the most comfortable place to rest her head that she would ever find. But the chaos that had begun to erupt around them, and the frantic grip she had on Regina's suit jacket took away any pleasure she could have pulled from it. Emma's nerves were beginning to fray.
Her grip on Regina was tight, but shaking, her breathing was erratic. Regina's low voice floated across her ear, "It's going to be ok."
Emma felt anything but ok at the moment. She shook her head feeling the woman's fingers press into her back a little. She'd worked with her magic enough to know that what she had felt when she'd thrown Hook wasn't right. The power was familiar, the invisible strength that seemed to flow through her when she cast had become a welcome feeling. It was the lust for more, the desire to crush the man that was foreign. In those few seconds she'd felt joy that she could control him so easily and would have gladly continued.
"What just happened?" Snow skidded to a stop a couple of feet from them watching anxiously. "Emma are you all right?"
She knew her brief moment was over, and she raised her head looking at her mother with blood shot eyes and nodding. She wasn't completely letting go of Regina yet though. She wasn't doing that. Instead she kept one hand firmly wrapped in the expensive fabric of her jacket and then turned to take in the rest of the room.
"What the hell Swan! You could have killed me." A wildly swaying Hook jerked out of David's grip, slapping a hand against the vault's wall to keep his balance. "I just want to help you!"
"Maybe you should find a better way to help." David's eyes were narrowed, "And maybe you should find a better place to do it."
The pirate scowled at him, still trying to shake the dizziness. "I won't leave unless Emma tells me to. You don't control her."
"Neither do you." David crossed his arms and stood between his daughter and the pirate, every muscle screaming he was ready for a fight.
Hook looked like he wanted to respond but Emma cut him off, "Just go Hook."
A dark look turned her way and she tensed. His scowl deepened. "I love you Emma, and you love me, you'll see that soon enough. You just need to get away from the distractions. Come with me. We'll figure this out, we don't need them."
It was her turn to scowl. "They're my family. I do need them. Please just go."
He stared at her for a long moment before turning to stomp up the stairs, throwing an extra glare at Regina. "When you realize you need me love, you know where to find me."
Regina quietly led her back to the stone bench with the watchful eyes of Snow and David on them the whole way. Once she was seated, Emma finally let go of the death grip on the woman's jacket. Henry was standing anxiously, not sure what to do or say. "Mom?"
"It's ok Henry. She'll be ok." The boy's shoulders relaxed and he came forward setting on the bench beside Emma. She looked up at him and smiled.
"Sorry Henry, I didn't want you to see something like that." She wrapped her arm around his thin shoulders pulling him against her side.
"It's ok. You probably should have done that a long time ago."
Regina barely covered a snort, studying them both closely before Emma looked up and gave her a nod. For now she was ok.
"Would someone please tell us what's going on?" She turned her attention to Snow and David.
Snow White was staring at her with a look she'd seen hundreds of times, determined, defiant. Something that even just a year and a curse ago she wanted to crush, but now that urge was gone and she straightened her shoulders. "It's a hitchhiker."
Both of them looked at her confused, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Last night, when Emma's protection spell was broken, it found a way to latch itself to her."
"So possession?" David was looking at his daughter with concern.
She was going to have to spell this out it seemed. "No. I said hitchiker. It can't control Emma's actions, but it can certainly try to influence them. Wehave to find a way to release it's hold."
Snow took a deep breath, "So that was the demon that influenced her to throw Hook?"
"No, that was me." Emma stood up from the bench, "I don't know how to explain it. It doesn't control me, its encouraging me to do things I normally wouldn't. Trying to break me down." Her voice trailed off.
Regina felt Emma's hand return to grip her jacket, watching Snow's eyes narrow when she saw it. "We have to find a way to kick it out of Emma and defeat it, that's the only way."
David straightened, nodding. "Then we find a way. Simple as that."
Snow looked up from the book in front of blinking to clear her straining eyes. They'd been at it for hours and hadn't come up with much. Her eyes wandered around the vault inevitably landing on her daughter, who was now stretched across teh stone bench with a book in her lap and Henry asleep against her. Long legs were laying over Regina's lap and the woman was saying nothing about it. That alone was enough to make Snow wonder what was really going on.
She watched her daughter's eyes drift closed, and knew it wouldn't be long before she would be asleep as well. Sure enough her head lowered slowly to rest against her son's and her hands went slack. Regina turned her head to stare at them both with a look Snow was sure she'd never seen on the woman's face before dark eyes went back to the pages in front of her.
There was something there and it was big, and Snow either couldn't grasp it or wasn't ready too. She sighed, looking back down at the book on the table. She wasn't sure what she was looking at, only that it was a catalouge of plants and minerals from the old world. Things that wouldn't be available in this realm. She recognized the plant in front of her as one from her mother's garden that had always made her itch. Flipping to the next page she found an entry for another mineral she'd never heard of.
Her eyes scanned the brief description, "Ceylock is found only rarely, but is considered powerful in unlocking doors..."
Snow didn't want to unlock doors. She sighed, looking at the rest of page briefly then went on to next.
Regina was having better luck. She'd found what she was looking for at least partially. The illustrations wound around the page, with tight scrawling script woven among them. Most of it she could read, but the rest she was going to have to translate. Which could take hours.
Snow interrupted her thoughts. "We should call it a night."
Regina looked up ready to protest, but glanced at Henry and Emma and reluctantly nodded. She shook one of the legs across her lap, bringing Emma out of her light doze. Blearly green eyes looked at her before scanning the room. "Sorry, didn't mean to fall asleep."
"It's all right. We should get Henry home. I'll take some of the books and keep working."
Emma nodded slowly moving her legs and helping a groggy Henry sit up. Regina stood, stretching a bit. "We'll give you a ride home, Emma. You'll feel better after a good night's rest." Snow was closing her own book and looking at her expectantly.
Emma's face went still with fear, her eyes widening. "No."
"That's not a good idea." Regina shifted a bit closer, not quite touching her. "There are..."
"I need to stay with Regina." Emma blurted it out, never one to be subtle.
Both of her parents stopped and looked at her in confusion. "Emma, what?"
Regina opened her mouth to speak, but was beat again by Emma. "Earlier at the docks the only thing that kept me from burning this town to the ground was Regina. She talked me down. I don't know if it's the magic, or...I just don't know, but I can't hurt anyone when she's close."
"Emma, you're good, you're not going to hurt anyone, you can fight this."
"It's not about being good! I'm human. I wish people would start realizing that."
Snow stared at her for a moment, before finally nodding, but Emma knew that the conversation wasn't over.
Emma sat back against the leather sofa in Regina's study, watching the fireplace and letting out an exhausted sigh. Glancing at the woman beside her, she watched as she arranged the books she brought from the vault, reminding her of college student cramming for finals. Idly she wondered what Regina would have majored in, if she'd gone to college. Probably political science. She chuckled, quickly shooting another look at the woman beside her.
Brown eyes narrowed at her before turning back to her books. Emma stayed on her train of thought. Did the curse give degrees? Surely if it gave people knowledge of a new career it gave them the paperwork? If it did, did Regina have one? She opened her mouth to ask that very question, then thought better of it. Regina had never answered when she'd asked if she watched Buffy.
Shifting to tuck her feet under her, she changed tracks to when they'd first gotten back to the house. It would best be described as awkward. Terribly awkward. There'd been a lot of waiting outside bathroom doors and avoiding eye contact as they tried to make themselves more comfortable for the night. She shivered a bit, wishing it wasn't that awkward between them. Regina had never replied to her remark about Hook earlier either, but she could tell the woman really wanted to. She knew that was another conversation that was waiting she wasn't sure she wanted to have, but it was going to happen.
Regina being the only one who could break through the demon's hold was a very large elephant in the room. Lowering her head to couch arm she stared back into the fire, stretching her legs until they rested almost against her couchmate. Eyes never leaving the book in front of her, Regina shifted back and Emma let her legs slide into the woman's lap.
Regina waited for Emma to get comfortable before she went back to her books, wrapping a hand around the woman's ankle. The texts weren't as hard to translate as she feared but she could it was still going to take a while. Setting back to read the paragraphs she had already translated, she let her attention shift to Emma for a moment. Her eyes were closed and her breath had slowed. Asleep.
That was good. Emma needed to rest because this wasn't going to get easier. Shaking her head slightly, Regina turned back to her notes. They did have a lot to talk about. Her eyes scanned the page, and what she found was disturbing. "No spell will turn it away. It only grows stronger so that even True Love cannot shield against it's influence. There is only the will of the afflicted to repel it, or be doomed to it's eternal presence."
Letting out a shaky breath, Regina couldn't bring herself to read the rest. Squeezing the ankle under her hand for a moment, she felt her stomach growing cold. It didn't matter what any of them did. Emma would have to face this alone.