REGINA
"Excuse me?" Regina asked, unsure of what she'd heard.
"My hair." Emma was holding a lock of it and smiling. "I'm told it can feel verrrry nice. On the Right. Spot."
"WHAT?" Regina, it seemed, was so shocked at Emma's none too subtle suggestion that she couldn't control her reaction. Neither she nor Emma, in all their dancing around the dynamic between, them had ever been quite so… direct.
"Sorry, Regina." Emma said, wearily. She exhaled loudly. "Ignore me."
Regina knew that was impossible, but she left the room anyway, as quickly as her feet could carry her.
Why was Emma baiting her? And when she'd so recently—once more—proved herself stalwart, undeterred. The very measure of a savior. Were Regina still Queen, she would have been expected to, wanted to, bestow knighthood for the first deeds of heroism, let alone this last. More than that, she herself could no more ignore what had happened than could Emma.
Everything was still so fresh, so painful, and Regina felt all her protestations against Emma returning to mock her. She'd spent months angrily, fearfully trying to keep Emma away, away from her, from Henry, keep the woman off balance. But Emma, when Regina admitted it, was the only thing that brought balance to her.
Emma…
Regina moved slowly, gathering ice, water, some food. There in the office, she could feel the undercurrent of magic that hummed around Emma. At least she was pretty sure it was magic. Regardless, it was profoundly distracting.
Emma
She tasted the name, spoke it silently in her mouth. She did this often, she knew, when no one would see. It had become a kind of mantra. She loved how soft the sound was, how—ironically, as it represented a person who brought such tumult to her life—it calmed her.
And shook her.
Regina leaned on the counter, head low. If Regina was right about what had been happening between them, whatever happiness she might find, would again be wrested from her.
Regina had been able to feel Emma in her thoughts. See as though through her eyes. Could speak to her without regard to sound or distance. Even Emma was recognizing the substance of it.
Upon her return to the office, Regina stood for a moment in the doorway. Emma was still sitting on the couch, head in her hands. She had somehow gotten her jacket off, but otherwise hadn't moved. She looked so very tired, so still.
Regina set the tray she carried down. She walked behind Emma and placed gentle hands atop Emma's head. She let fingers course through the long hair, gently massaging the scalp beneath. Emma whimpered quietly, sat back. Regina brought her hands to Emma's strong, sore shoulders, moving under the shirt, rubbing with the lightest touch, leaning over the couch, her breath drifting over Emma's cheek, her nose at Emma's ear. "I love you, Emma."
Regina startled out of the daydream, nearly dropping the tray she carried. China and silver tinkled in warning.
At the noise, she saw Emma twitch on the couch, but that was all.
"Here we are." Regina tried to sound 'up,' controlled, the picture of calm. "I'll just put these over here. I'd hand them to you, but…"
Emma looked at her and Regina stopped speaking. Emma's gaze traveled over the tray. Ice packs, water, red wine, cheese, fruits, bread. She smiled.
"Thanks."
"If you need something else, you have only to ask." Regina said graciously as she stepped back.
There were a few moments of silence, as Emma rose with a grimace and went to the tray. "No. This is great."
Regina found she could not move. Could only watch from afar. Emma stood at the table, ate a bit, drank a bit. Regina saw the effort as Emma tried to be polite though she looked famished. Emma finally loaded up a plate, took a glass of water and sat back down.
Regina made a plate carefully sat beside Emma and handed it to her. Emma's eyes filled with untarnished gratitude. Regina's hand swept the hair from Emma's eyes, and she smiled. 'Now, eat,' Regina said as she leaned in and kissed Emma gently.
"Look, Regina." Emma was suddenly, gruffly speaking, leaning to put the plate down. She turned to look at Regina. She was impatient. "Something's happening between YOU and ME. Us. Not ANYbody else. Why? I don't understand, and I don't think you do either, but I'm trying to come up with some reason, some…
"Motive?"
"Yes. Motive. It's a good place to start." Emma scratched her head. "I'm usually pretty good at spotting that stuff."
"So you say."
Emma lifted a brow at Regina's apparent disbelief.
"It so happens that I've been thinking about this too." Regina stated firmly.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yes." Regina was moving to her desk. As she neared Emma, both tensed, measuring the distance she was careful to keep between them. When eyes lifted, they met. And held. Regina let herself fall into the bright, light of Emma's unwavering gaze. She found she hated the tired sadness at the edges, unable to push off the clutch of angst that crept across her heart. No, for a moment she let herself fall in, only a moment, until she felt a blush rising to her skin. Hurriedly, she continued to her desk and sat.
"While you were resting, I did a bit of research."
"In that old book you were reading?" Emma asked.
"Book?" Regina asked.
careful, dammit. careful.
Emma smirked at her response. "It's just lots of folks are using a computer these days."
"Well, of course. I'm not an idiot." Regina snipped, hoping to imply she had as well. "Anyway, I made some notes. Some would say this is more up Henry's alley..." She gave Emma a glare. "Let's see."
Regina removed a yellow legal pad from the leather portfolio on her desk, tilting it enough for Emma to see her handwriting across the pages, the pronounced, underscored words, the exclamation points.
"It was actually very interesting," Regina began.
Emma sat back against the couch.
"I'll bet." Emma said without giving away a thing. "What'd you find out?" She lifted an ice pack and placed it on one shoulder, and sipped carefully from the water. She stretched her long legs out in front of her and seemed to relax.
Regina's glance took her in, grazing down Emma's body for a breath, over her chest and down to her bold, open legged-posture.
Regina stalked over to Emma, stood before her a moment and smiled at the trusting, beautiful face that waited. Regina lifted herself and settled slowly down, there, into the space between Emma's legs. Regina put her hands along the top of the couch, while Emma's traced up Regina's legs to hold her, low on her hips. Emma tugged her closer. Regina pushed in, and sighed at the warm press of their bodies together. Regina's tongue moved languidly on Emma's clavicle, tasting, teeth nibbling, her own skin alive and singing with sensation…
Mouth dry, Regina took a sip from her own water. She prayed that Emma hadn't noticed where her eyes had wandered, mind had gone, but from the look on Emma's face, she'd noticed.
For a time, Regina could only stare at her papers, make a feeble show of shuffling things about as she gathered herself.
You can't touch her. You can't touch her.
You
Can't
The large grandfather clock bonged, exaggerating the silence between them. When Regina spoke again, her tone was all business.
"From what I was able to gather, we seem to be dealing with two different things, which have… collided." Regina resisted lifting her gaze to gauge Emma's response. If Emma wasn't buying her ignorant-of-all-things-magic act, Regina didn't want to know it. "I appear to have been cursed. Isn't that ironic? Surely Henry's evil queen is immune to curses, wouldn't you think?" Regina half-met Emma's eyes, eager to express her incredulity, but quickly went back to the dubious safety of her yellow pad. "You, it seems, have been, oh, what is it called?" She paged through her notes, and then read from the paper. "Enchanted. Um. You're under a 'spell.'"
Emma sat up, and her mouth quirked down.
"Huh." Emma said. "Why?"
"That I don't know."
"Who did it?"
Regina smiled mischievously. "Henry?"
"Not really funny." Emma stood. She started to pace, to prowl the other half of the room. Emma looked like she was constructing buildings there inside her head. Regina could practically hear the hammering, see the pieces being fit carefully together. Regina watched Emma's long strides, and tried not to get lost in them now, not while she needed to make Emma understand basic magic without revealing all her own cards.
"What's the difference?" Emma asked.
"Well," Head back to the papers, Regina knew better. "Curses are dark. Your spell is called a protection spell. It's light. Now, normally a person would invoke it to protect themselves, but for some reason, it makes you protect me. Which seems strange." Regina continued to review her notes.
"You're saying I had to be under a spell to do that?" Emma sounded offended. And suspicious.
"No." Regina said slowly, looking up. She recalled well, as she knew Emma did, the night of the fire. Back to the papers she went, "But the spell affords you the ability to take whatever form is necessary to save me."
"Some might label that a curse." Emma cocked her head. Waited.
"Perhaps," Regina couldn't tell how Emma meant that, but was struck by how terrible it felt she might have meant it to hurt. "Curses, though, seem to be… irrefutably undesirable. Or, mine is, anyway." She couldn't stop the catch in her voice, and Emma took a step toward her in concern.
"What is it?"
"From a source that appears to be reputable—if there is such a thing in this business—I'm under something called the Curse of a Dread… Death." The word ate up the oxygen in the room. Regina kept her head down, slowly reading from her papers, "It's a curse reserved for the arrogant." Regina couldn't stop the brow that lifted at that. "With it, I will be pursued, relentlessly, until I die under violent circumstances, or the curse is broken." Regina paused. "Whichever comes first, presumably."
Emma stood silently and stared at Regina.
If only Regina could read her thoughts! If only she could know how this all sounded to someone who had never believed, didn't understand the true power of magic. Had she managed to fool Emma enough? Revealing what Regina had, was a tactical move, needing Emma to know enough, but she still had her own secrets to keep safe.
Regina was under no delusion that Emma was actually operating under any newly cast spell. Instead, she believed that Emma was simply reacting, as savior, to the curse that had befallen Regina. She certainly couldn't tell Emma that. Emma hadn't shape-shifted before this, she reasoned, only because no threat to anyone had been dire enough.
And of course, Regina knew much more about exactly how dire this particular curse was, much more than she was ready to share. Not only was the curse designed to place the most arrogant, but also the most evil in mortal danger until their unsavory demise, each time it was foiled, the curse strengthened, and the method of death would grow more gruesome. First flayed and beaten, next, torn slowly apart, one beak-full at a time.
Regina refused to spend time thinking about what would happen next. The curse would succeed unless broken. Period. But it wasn't even this aspect that Regina understood was the cruelest condition of the curse. The Dread Death guaranteed that the one person the afflicted most depended on—and who depended on them—would be utterly unable to interfere.
Regina knew she needed Emma. Yes, even depended on her. She also knew that her need for Emma was about far more than Emma's ability to protect her. Regina had felt nearly ready to express to Emma that she did, in fact, depend upon her, but the events of the last many hours had convinced Regina she mustn't, for obviously Emma didn't need her, else she wouldn't have been able to vanquish the instruments of the curse.
No. Regina's hypothesis must be right. Emma was merely operating as savior, indiscriminately, as she would for anyone. For Henry. For Snow. Emma didn't care any more about Regina than she did anyone else. Possibly less. Regina didn't matter.
Still, Regina recognized that the status of Emma as savior represented a big gap in her understanding. Ultimately, how that distinction changed Emma, endangered Emma, or prepared her to deal with Regina's curse, she simply didn't know. Regina had never practiced the white magic that inspired the selfless acts of the valiant. She felt certain that keeping Emma in the dark about her destiny couldn't possibly make a difference, though she was concerned about the toll this latest transformation had taken. But Emma was already looking stronger, and the dark curse would eventually destroy Regina, as planned. Emma, she believed, would simply move on to save others.
"So what do we do to break it?" Emma finally spoke. It was a pointed question, but posed with more gentleness than the last.
Regina smiled with irony, in spite of the emotion that tipped and rolled her insides. "True love." Neither of them breathed for a moment. Regina continued, "That's it. The only thing that can reverse a death curse on the arrogant. Because arrogant people, apparently, are never, truly lovable. Isn't that dastardly?"
The tears that threatened must not fall. Regina's grip on the glass in her hand tightened.
Emma took two long steps forward, falling to a knee by Regina's desk. Regina rolled back in her chair, surprised.
"Then maybe it makes sense," Emma said, excitedly. "I mean, trying to come up with a motive for why US, ultimately, I can only think of one. One possibility." Emma paused, was studying Regina for any sign of impending sarcasm or deflection. Regina listened intently. "Maybe it's got something to do," She breathed out, lowered her head, and shook it, obviously uncertain she was doing the right thing. "with how I feel about you. How much you matter to me."
Regina had heard that expression, about a deer caught in headlights, but she couldn't stop herself from looking like one. To say she was surprised... She let the gratitude flood her eyes, happiness, even, before she stood shakily and looked down at Emma.
"Me?" Regina squeaked out.
Emma laughed gently at Regina's reaction, smiled.
"You." Emma reassured.
"Oh." Regina managed.
"So?" Emma stood up. "What about it?" She was diving in. Regina saw the set of her jaw. "What do I have to do?"
Regina's eyes filled, overflowed with tears. Emma was saying... Could she really have been so wrong? Was Emma right, and did it actually all make terrible sense? Was it possible that Emma couldn't ever save her, not because the dark curse which would destroy Regina was ultimately more powerful than any savior, but because Regina really did matter?
Regina shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself.
"You have to kiss me." Regina's mouth trembled. "But, you can't."
