A/N: Huuuuge apologies for the delay, life got super intrusive this week. Here's the next chapter- it's getting kind of dark in tone so sorry if that's off putting at all. I'm bringing the theme back to the sharing stories element too so hopefully that'll fit in with the general dramatic plot. You'll have to let me know if it doesn't. Once more...a round of applause for favers, followers and especially reviewers, your interest fuels my inner muse and I'm hoping to post again soon so all comments welcome. More Jefferson and Storybrooke characters coming up so stay tuned. Peace!

TELLS: Chapter Six

"Regina, please!"

Emma flinched, wrinkling her nose as she felt another breath of air waft past her. It had taken her a while to realise exactly what Regina was doing until she started to pick up on the small gust of wind that brushed across her skin every few minutes.

She was pacing. Walking up and down the centre of the room, then turning back and beginning the ritual again, her heeled boots muffled into silence by the deep luxurious rug.

At first she'd wanted to reach out and bring the woman's frantic movements to an end, to try and reassure her that things weren't as bad as they seemed. But something inside seemed to stop the words in her throat every time they tried to get out. Seemed to whisper dark labyrinthine thoughts, as if it looked out through the pores in her own skin.

Let her pace. It's her fault we're in this mess anyway, it said inaudibly.

She knew that wasn't true. She knew it and still she kept quiet. And actually as she began to measure the seconds between gusts of air, Emma allowed herself to fall into the rhythm of the motion, and began to find it oddly calming. If nothing else it gave her own brain time to try and get a hold on the current situation. To try and corral some of the insectoid questions buzzing around inside her mind.

Like what exactly had Jefferson taken from her?

She felt like the same person inside, except for the coiled panic her body was currently suppressing. But was she really the same? Was she even capable of telling?

And what if this was permanent?

She flicked that one away almost immediately, unwilling to even contemplate the answer at the moment. It was cowardly. She knew that deep down in her bones, but right now, she figured she'd earned a little thinking time.

The problem was, as soon as she pushed that one away, hundreds more questions seemed to surface almost immediately from the dark pools of thought.

How could she keep her job if she couldn't see anything?

Being Sheriff hadn't exactly been her intention when she agreed to stay in Storybrooke but somehow she'd grown accustomed to being the first port of call in an emergency. The composed voice at the end of the line, rather than the shepherd tracking down lost scum-bag livestock. And no-one could deny, for a small town, they seemed to have a lot of emergencies. Somehow, despite all intentions she'd been drawn into the lives and loves of the people that lived here, had helped most of them at one point or another even if it was in a trivial way. And without the badge, without an official seal and the authority that came with it, would that just drift away into the blackness too? All those relationships, all those threads of...things indefinable, would they just unpick themselves? The very thought of slinking back to her life before, made her feel nauseous.

And yet the questions kept crowding in.

How could she take care of Henry? There'd be no more spontaneous sundaes at Granny's without him holding her arm, showing her the way like some kind of pitiable war veteran. And what if he was the one who needed help? Kids, especially boys as inquisitive as her son had a bad habit of getting caught up in ridiculously dangerous situations. Just look at the old mine on the outskirts of town. If that were to happen now, what role would she have to play? Some faceless co-ordinator sitting in a squad car, waiting for a friendly voice to tell her whether her own son was...was...gone.

Emma took a deep breath, as the worries shifted around her.

Do they even have disability living allowance in Storybrooke?

How did people even go about claiming something like that?

How will I know whether my outfit's co-ordinated in the morning?

A whoosh of air floated past.

And why the hell isn't she tripping over any of the hats?!

Emma broke out of her thoughts through sheer frustration. Judging the number of seconds until Regina was on her second part of the circuit she reached out a hand, and grabbed wildly at her arm.

At least she hoped it was her arm.

Feeling material under her skin, she clamped down. "Regina, please stop."

The motion stilled.

"It helps me think."

Emma nodded, "You know what helps me think?"

"Bourbon?" said Regina thickly.

"Having someone to sound ideas off." She lifted her hand away and held both of them up, as if to placate the older woman. "Besides, the whole moving around thing is kind of messing with my equilibrium." Emma smiled sadly. "Not that I'd say no to some Jim Beam right about now..."

She heard a subdued chuckle from over to her right. "Nice try, dear. We have very few advantages at this moment but a clear mind is one of them."

Sensing the blonde's new uneasiness and seeking a way to calm things down, Regina sat herself quietly down on the edge of the bed next to the blonde and faced forwards towards the wall. Towards the mirror where once there had been a face.

And now there was just the reflection of shadows.

"You might be on your own with that one."

If Regina heard the muttered comment she didn't answer. She was well aware that there must be a whirlwind of emotions cascading through the blonde's mind right now. As incohesive and fragmented as her own thoughts were, the Sheriff's must be a thousand times more demented. Slack and unfixed to anything real; spinning in circles without control. And she found to her surprise, that she wanted to reassure the younger woman. Wanted nothing more actually, than to tell her that they'd figure this out, that they'd fix it no matter what the cost. But the truth was that she didn't know if that was even possible.

The truth was, that she, the Evil Queen was completely lost as to what to do.

And it filled her with rage. Impotent, humiliating rage.

So she stayed silent for a second. And simply laid her hand over Emma's on the silk sheet. Hoping that it was enough encouragement. At least for now. Then she began.

"Let me tell you a story about someone I met a long time ago." She took in a cleansing breath, unsure if she was giving too much away too soon.

"Back in...the old world, there weren't many people in the court that I had any time for."

"Shocker."

Regina flicked Emma's wrist tenderly.

"The problem with people is that whatever their station, all have the same problem. King, nursemaid, town crier or huntsman."

The blonde cocked her head. "They want things they can't have."

"No. They want the things they can just about manage to get if they put everything into the effort. And then once they've got them, they want the next almost unreachable thing. It's the source of our greatest joy and our greatest discontent. The farmer wants one more clutch of eggs out of his best hen because gold is a ridiculous dream for someone in his position. The under-footman wants to be first footman because then he'll get the respect he craves. He never thinks about being master for more than a few seconds at night before sleep takes him because it won't do him any good. Well, you get the picture. Anyway, there was a girl in King Leopold's court who refused to subscribe to this idea. Her name was Tommelise; she was an orphan who'd been found out on a winter's night lying in the castle's begonia crop. One of the kitchen-masters took her in, and fed her until she grew strong enough to work doing odd jobs around the place. Filling the water pails, pulling up the vegetables, things like that I suppose."

She snuck a glance at the blonde who was listening with an unreadable frown marring her features.

"Anyway, she only came to my attention when I came into my chambers one afternoon after mass and found her parading around in one of my finest gowns, every piece of jewellery I possessed slung around her dirty little neck."

A ghost of a smile graced the blonde's lips.

Probably identifying with the little urchin, thought the Mayor irritably.

"I asked her what she was doing and she turned round, brazen as you like and said that she was being democratic and giving the outfits at least a choice of who they wanted to wear them. I suppose I could have called the guards at that point but the cheek of her answer... it intrigued me truth be told. Pointing to the room and all the masses of riches contained in there, I took the opportunity and asked her what she would take if she could have just one object."

"I'm guessing she didn't give the standard gold-digger's answer," interjected Emma softly, shifting a little.

"No she didn't. She stuck her finger out and pointed right at me. Calm as anything. I told her quite honestly that she didn't want my life. The tiaras and accolades wouldn't bring her any happiness and it certainly wouldn't kindle any kindness in her heart for others."

An image of sallow flesh pressing down on her below the canopies of their marriage bed suddenly burst behind her retinas and Regina had to press the heel of her palm into her eyes just to keep it at bay. Glad momentarily, that her companion couldn't see what she was doing.

Emma felt the mattress move however, as if it had been flicked by a giant hand and filed the resultant questions that flitted into her mind away for another time. Content in an uncomfortable way just to hear the calm voice wavering with weakness.

"She..." The brunette stopped, trying to find the thread of her story again. "She didn't drop her finger though. She didn't mean the crown you see. She didn't want to take my queendom; that was too easy. Too simple. She meant that she wanted to take my life. Killing Leopold's wife you see, would create chaos and recriminations throughout the realms. She would slip out unnoticed afterwards. Even if she was caught, it would never be suspected that she did it for her own ends, a no-one like her. There would have to have been someone else behind the scenes and the kingsguard would have made certain to torture her until she made something up. Picked a name out of the hat."

Regina could have kicked herself at the choice of words but continued on, lost in the memory. "And the chaos wouldn't just have burned within our land; every other bordering nation would immediately have blamed the other for the assassination starting what could only be called the war to end all wars. Blood would run in the soil for centuries, it would have been inevitable..." Her voice trailed off.

"And she wanted that?"

Emma felt her skin jump waiting for the answer.

Regina turned towards the blonde, hoping that she could understand a little of what she was trying to say. "She did. She told me explicitly right before I had her arrested and executed. Because... some people just want to see the world change in front of their eyes. They want new vistas and new sights, however grotesque that might be. For things to look different; outside the ordinary and... astounding."

Regina batted away the memory of the girl's face as the executioner's massive cleaver cut through her sinewy neck, thrown by how despairing she felt about the whole thing even now. Even all these years later.

"And so says the evil Queen." Emma snorted.

Regina whipped her head round, a little stung. "Excuse me?"

The blonde's chin tilted up. "Oh come on! You can't really expect me to accept moral lessons from someone with your track record on putting trust in the wrong people."

Inwardly Emma was cringing at the rivulets of spite coating her words but somehow, out of nowhere, she couldn't seem to keep control of her own mouth. The itch underneath her skin was driving her insane.

"Let's recap shall we? First there was the ever impressive mother you ran through entire realms to escape from, Cora wasn't it?..."

Regina froze so hot was the instant rage. "You really need that to be the last word in that sentence."

But Emma was quickly losing control of the dark thoughts.

"Yeah, Mommy was a real headfuck, huh?"

She smiled coldly.

"And then there was Mr Go...I mean, Rumplestiltskin," said the blonde, correcting herself. "That was an absolute doozy by the way. Making backhand deals with a guy who with all the tricks in the book couldn't even make his own son love him."

Regina's eyes flashed fire. "Miss Swan..."

"But then they say like attracts like, right? I mean, am I the only one seeing a common denominator here? And who am I to argue against the basic laws of physics?"

Emma knew she'd gone too far as soon as she'd said it. Not that there wasn't a kernel of truth in the statement but bringing Henry into the argument was the lowest of blows. She was flooded with guilt almost instantly and still...Still, something inside her tamped it down. Anger and bitterness she hadn't even been aware of before mingled with it, coating its surface until her head whirled in the darkness.

What the hell am I doing, she wondered confusedly. She's trying to help m...

The thought was cut off as she felt a tight hand wrap around her neck and push her violently backward onto the bed. The spun silk clung to her hair, she could feel it pulling behind her and in a strange way, she was almost glad of the pain. It reminded her that she had been the one to cause it. Like for like, indeed.

But still the black voice whispered to her to fight. Clawing at the unbreakable limb around her throat to no avail, Emma franticly tried to drag in a breath as she suddenly felt the heat of a face hanging millimetres away from her own.

"Shut your goddamn mouth, Miss Swan." The voice was crystalline and arctic. "Or I won't be held responsible for what comes next."

It was all the brunette could think to say.

Regina stared down at the choking blonde, pulsing with rage at the naked rejection and vulnerability coursing through her. She'd opened up to the blonde, offering her a painful memory she'd buried years ago and it had been thrown back in her face with a derision she'd never associated with the younger woman before.

And yet even knowing that. Even feeling that, she was awash with contradictory impulses. Wanting first and foremost to slam her fist into the screwed up pale face, to distract them both with the sight of something as viscous and tangible like blood. Wondering how the atmosphere could turn so quickly from what had seemed like some kind of burgeoning camaraderie... a new state of grace in their relationship if nothing else. And at the same time needing to black out her own eyes so that the flashes of old scenes stained with pain and ashes would recede into darkness.

Just for a second, she wondered if perhaps right now, the blonde had the better end of the deal not being able to see the exposed hurt cross the mayor's features. But the idea was gone in a second because she knew it wasn't true. Something was wrong here. Really wrong; beyond the obvious that was.

Something was wrong with Emma.

Regina gritted her teeth and forced herself to think logically.

Peering down without unclenching her fingers, she stared into the unseeing green orbs that were darting around the room. They were still slightly glazed, coated with an opaque sheen; a sure sign of magic at work. But there was something else there too. In the whites of her eyes. Leaning down further, she scanned the sclera of each one separately.

There.

In the corners of each one, a small dark lightning bolt marked the expanse of white. A swollen blood vessel. But not red with blood. Black with some kind of poisonous infection. A contagion.

No. Not a contagion, she thought, panicking now. That would have been too easy for Jefferson.

It was a substitute.

A filler for something that had to have been taken. And the force of that theft had even made it apparent to the naked eye.

Horrified, Regina drew her hand away from the pale neck below, trying not to look at the blooming marks left behind by her own hand. Her own role in this nightmare.

"Twice in one day- this is getting kind of ridiculous." Croaked Emma acidly, massaging her throat.

It was then, that Regina began to understand a little more about the situation they were in. Desperately picking through her other memories, fighting the instinctive resistance around them for some uncomplicated way to explain things to the blonde, she scrabbled around for something. Anything.

And hesitated for a moment.

"Sheriff, you have to listen to me." She said in a whisper.

"I don't have to do a damn thing, except get away from you."

She meant it in so more ways than one, but Emma let the retort hang in the air. Letting the other woman interpret it however she saw fit.

Regina blinked at the rejoinder, but made the decision then to just go with instinct on this one. Reaching down, she slid her hand gently under the blonde's neck and pulled her into a sitting position whereupon she moved directly in front of her. Crossing one leg under the other, she paused then wrapped her hand around the other's wrist, anchoring them together through touch. A soft, reassuring touch that implied apology; the exact opposite of what had happened a minute before.

"Emma."

"What?!"

She squeezed the blonde's fingers lightly and took a steadying breath.

"I know that wasn't you talking."

"I don't see anyone else here." Scoffed the Sheriff before scowling. "Literally or metaphorically. Or...whatever."

"What you're feeling is...it's..."

What?

Regina cursed at her own ineloquence. Something she'd taken such pride in all her life that now seemed to be failing her.

"It's not you. Well, actually it is you but there's something else going on too."

Emma sniffed but stopped her slight shivering as if curious to hear where this was going.

The mayor hoped it was a good sign. She brought up her right hand and placed it on the shoulder of the younger woman, frightened by what she was about to say out loud.

"Just like you, there's not a thing I can do to change my past. As much as I might wish it, there's no magic in the world that can erase my...my horrific mistakes from the history books. I live with their memory. As do the people I hurt. And their children who hear the stories second and third hand, with none of the vitriol watered down by the time in between."

She felt Emma still even more under her fingertips.

"It is unchangeable. Infinite. In the same way that your past crimes and misdemeanours will always be. To the police looking at your, what do they call it, a rap sheet? To anyone that knew you then, whether accomplice or victim. All we can control is how we act now. How we view those experiences and how we change what we do and what we say to stop them from repeating themselves."

She braced herself for a backlash but was heartened by the small weary nod thrown her way. Leaning closer, Regina lowered her voice.

"I can't change what I did. But everyone, no matter what their past is capable of treating those around them with grace and kindness. So tell me, in light of that, which one of us is found wanting right now?"

The green eyes in front of her began to tear at the corners and it broke Regina's heart a little to see. But she had to get through to her.

"The things you said, the things you just threw at me, they were meant to hurt me weren't they? Cruel, malicious thoughts, without provocation. "

"I..." Emma's head lowered as she fought the bile collecting under her skin. "They were. But ... I don't know why I..."

"I think I do."

"Is this because Jefferson took my eyes?"

Emma choked back a sob

Regina peered over at the emerald pupils with a soft frown, "He didn't take your eyes Emma. They're still there, you've just...lost the ability to use them."

"Then what? What did he do?"

"I'm not sure."

Emma's head perked up. "But you have an idea?"

The mayor cursed herself, forgetting that every intonation in her voice was being scrutinized by the younger woman.

"It's possible...he didn't take your eyes. I think he might have taken your...perception. For want of a better word." She shifted position for a moment.

"Perception?"

"Your insight. Your way of seeing the world."

The blonde laughed awkwardly. "You can't steal someone's point of view, Madame Mayor."

"Why not?"

"Because...it...changes all the time." She moved so that her knee was resting on the bedspread, unaware that it mirrored the brunette's position. "I'm not the same person I was when I came to town. This place...it's changed how I look at things, how I react to them."

Regina allowed herself a smile at that.

"You're quite right dear. And may I say, thank the lord because that Miss Swan was infinitely trashier and much less of a 'Storybrooke kind of person.'"

"Duly noted." Emma replied.

"But at the root of everything we do, we have a basic genetic predisposition..."

Just then, Emma let out a little gasp as she felt something feather soft touch her eyelid. First one then the other.

"Can you feel that?" Regina asked quietly.

The blonde nodded and held herself still as she felt a warm palm cup her cheek.

"I think...the combination of being the offspring of True Love and growing up in the outside world disconnected from magic means..." Regina paused, somewhat distracted by the earnest openness of the face in front of her, "...it means you're perception would be untainted by enchantment, uncorrupted by power... and the ability to see goodness and possibility in those around you, without wanting to take any small part of it for yourself...would seem a particularly valuable commodity to some people, you see."'

Emma struggled to keep her mind open as she shook her head at the assumption.

"That's not..."

"Tell me, why did you become a bailsbondwoman?"

The non-seqiteur threw the younger woman.

"It suited my...talents I guess." She shrugged.

"And once you'd caught these bail-dodging lowlifes and handed them back to the law, what did you hope would happen to them?"

"I don't know."

She considered for a moment.

" That they'd give some kind of justice to the wives and kids they ran out on, whether that was financial or a sense of security. And rehabilitation for the ones that were lost and sorry about what they'd done."

Regina nodded. "And would that be the standard answer, if I asked the same question to your colleagues."

"Hardly. They wanted most of them to burn." Snorted Emma.

"So you're sense of optimism and justice set you apart from everyone else."

Regina waited with baited breath for the response. At first there was silence but then Emma's shoulders slumped and all the air seemed to leave her body in one giant gasp.

"Oh."

It was all she could say. Her mind was so sluggish and weighted down that the blonde didn't have the energy to argue anymore.

And maybe. Just maybe, Regina was...right?

But then, if that were true without her optimism, what exactly did that leave her with?

Who did that make her now?

Emma peered upwards wearily into the darkness. "But...if you're right, who'd want to buy... that. And for what purpose?"

Regina swallowed hard.

"That, Miss Swan is the million dollar question. And one we need to find out, as soon as possible."

"Will you help me?"

It was asked in such a small, sorrowful voice that Regina couldn't help herself. She wrapped her arms around the woman in front of her and buried her face in the waves of gold hair. "Of course I will. We're in this together."

"Together then." Whispered Emma as she finally broke down and started sobbing uncontrollably.

TBC...