Thanks for the feedback guys :) In response to a comment about the time framing being a bit confusing i've made flashback scenes in italics. I hope that helps.

As ever, thanks for reading and i would love to know what people think of this.

It's the darkest dark she's ever experienced and she's shivering – her teeth are actually chattering. Which seems ridiculous but it just is.

Her side is on fire. She can't sleep even though tiredness is blurring her thoughts and her eyes are so so dry. Her mouth tastes like pestilence and famine have taken up residence in there, definitely the tang of iron as well – god know what kind of sight she must have looked when she was brought back. Thankfully she'd been unconscious for the impromptu surgery their captors had performed on her. Stitches and consciousness? Not a good combination. Especially when she suspects that any kind of anaesthetic would have been withheld from her.

God what she would give for a drink of water.

For a beer.

Emma folds her arms tighter around herself, mindful of her side. It wasn't just the wound that hurt to be honest, she's aching and stiff and cold and utterly miserable. Her ribs hurt. Cold unforgiving stone isn't comfortable to lie on for extended periods of time – who knew?

"Are you just going to suffer in silence or are you going to come here and try to keep warm?"

Emma takes comfort in Regina's gruff tone, a taste of normalcy in this shitstorm, and starts wriggling backwards to where she thinks Regina is.

She can't help the muted sigh of pleasure as she feels the slight warmth of the other woman and she settles, not quite able to cross that line into actual spooning since it's Regina and Emma can't really imagine –

An arm snakes around her and suddenly, oh, suddenly she feels so much warmer – the heat this woman produces! Regina presses up against her from behind, chest to back, thigh to thigh – she pushes her elbow under Emma's head to give it some support and pulls the blonde closer.

Emma is lost for a reaction other than to groan and instinctively tighten her arms around herself further so she's not stealing quite so much heat from the other woman.

Her stomach rumbles pityfully. The noise almost comically loud in the night. When was the last time they ate? She's been so hyped up on adrenaline and terror that it's only now in the quiet and the dark – the only sound is their breathing and the rustling of material if they move – it's only now that she realises just how strung out and empty she's feeling. Although the heat of Regina is making it more tolerable.

"You should let me go next time," The brunette whispers, tension rippling through her frame.

"Regina… just stop," she fumbles for Regina's hand and squeezes it tightly. "You wouldn't last ten seconds."

Regina draws breath harshly, but Emma continues "Regina, you are one tough woman, and you do pack a mean punch," her lips quirk as she hears the other woman's snort of amusement. "But really, against any kind of meaningful attack like they put me through? Without your magic you are not even remotely a challenge to them."

"You are a fool" The brunette mumbles.

"At least Henry is ok, we only have to worry about ourselves."

"And your stupid predilection for getting yourself hurt."

"Hey," Emma huffs out a slight laugh before she wheezes, her ribs aching violently, "gotta protect her majesty, I am the savior and all."

"I can look after myself," Regina snarls sharply loosening her arm and starting to roll away.

Emma grabs onto the limb around her and pulls the brunette solidly around her once more. She needs this.

Apparently the dark makes them honest and lowers and personal space issues which to be honest, never was high on their list of appropriate social behaviour - but this quiet intimacy is strange and new but it feels honest and right. Emma reflects that they have fought and fought with each other on so many levels since the first day they had been brought into each other's lives by Henry… but things have been changing between the two of them for a while… Had been until Regina's mother had arrived.

Regina snarked and raised her eyebrows but was still frank and practical and Emma recognised that as Regina considering her an equal. She could see right through the act. She had been able to for a long time. The events in the mines with the trigger, Regina showing an acceptance, confiding in Emma. The grudging "welcome back…" They had always had moments of vulnerability even when fraught with emotion Emma acknowledges, so maybe this isn't as strange as she thinks.

"I told you, you wouldn't last one minute – You've not let any kind of physical lifestyle in… god, I don't know, Regina, and I have… So please don't fight me on this and let me do this for us until I can't anymore." She releases her tight grip on Regina's hand slightly embarrassed at her little quiet speech.

She's made a promise, albeit a while ago, and it has kind of become central to her now, somehow. Regina's not dying. The other woman has been through a lot as well. Cora's mindfuckery. Greg had tortured her. Henry. Regina is the root of a lot of the bad stuff. But Emma can see she is damaged and she doesn't know the full history but she knows there is a tragic back story – more than just Snow telling on her. She'd been right, Regina telling Henry before going to the mine that she loved him and that she'd failed him had been her saying goodbye. Regina was willing to die for their son. She was willing to die for the town.

Emma is determined to push Henry and Regina together if and when they get out of this situation. They deserve it, they deserve to get to know each other once again in the careless ease of lazy breakfasts and Emma has a pang of want at the scenes she imagines in her head.

She thinks of Henry trying to slyly bargain with Regina over what to have for breakfast as she's absolutely certain the other woman would have a fit if she knew what Emma would let Henry have for breakfast. Bickering over breakfast foods…

The words are out before she even thinks about what she's saying "I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt when I could have done something about it to protect you." Emma freezes, breath suddenly caught in her throat.

Regina is silent. The moment stretching onwards and for a moment Emma thinks the older woman has fallen asleep but she catches the sigh and can visualise the lines crinkling around Regina's eyes as she half smiles.

She's not sure if she imagines it as she succumbs to exhausted slumber, the whispered words so faint and soft.

"Thank you."

David heads up the stairs to look for Henry. He's checked downstairs for Regina and Emma and there's no sign of them and no sign of the young boy who had sat quietly on the journey over.

He finds him standing silently in the open doorway of what must be Regina's bedroom, looking in.

The room was quiet, serene, punctuated only by the gentle breathing of the observed and the observers. David lets his eyes rest on the strange but peaceful sight and he really doesn't know what to make of it. Regina is lying on her back with Emma tucked into her side. Her arm was curled around Emma's waist and Emma's arm was slung carelessly across Regina. She was pressed so tightly into Regina she was almost on top of the brunette. Her head was tucked into Regina's neck. They were so quiet, so still. There was a strange kind of poetic symmetry in the two women lying there, something he'd never thought he would ever think. Light and dark complimenting each other.

So this was not as disconcerting as David imagined he might have reacted. He feels like she should be storming around in a righteous rage. But he isn't. He is a little surprised, but the picture of contentedness that Emma was painting right now stilled any form of negative reaction he might have had. Whatever his feelings towards Regina were, Emma drew some kind of strength from the other woman and David just… well Emma is his daughter and he will follow his daughters compass.

Emma is guarded, it pains David to acknowledge because it always dredges up everything else but here she is clearly comfortable enough to just be.

He's perversely glad Snow is not here right now… he imagines she would flip with indignant rage impulsively before getting her act together but for now, he doesn't want to disturb the two slumbering figures. He feels like he is intruding on something immensely private in fact as both these women are notoriously closed off from the outside world.

David settles his hand on Henry's narrow shoulder and squeezes gentle before looking down at him. Henry's eyebrows are hovering near his hairline and his mouth is hanging open - the look of wonder on his face almost making David laugh before he catches himself.

Henry is whispering urgently to him as they back away, "I'm not seeing things right?"

David smiles indulgently, guiding Henry downstairs away from his mothers, leaving them to their rest.

God knows they probably needed a lot of it.

He was torn between trying to talk to Emma about what was going on with Regina but he imagined it was all wrapped up in whatever had happened over on the island and he knew, he just felt, that it was going to be a drawn out process to get to the bottom of it all. If Emma even wanted to share that was…

He knew his daughter was a private person, and truthfully he was envious of the friendship Snow had developed with her as Mary Margaret. He hoped that maybe with some effort she would open back up to them. Open up to him. He was greedy for her. He'd missed so much and wanted so badly to make up for time lost but somehow knew that smothering her just wouldn't work.

And it was infuriating. David had grown to be brash and impulsive alongside Snow, further from his more contemplative farming roots but he was trying so hard to think his actions through because Snow was likely not to. Emma didn't owe them anything and although his inner voice and Snow's voice was in his ear telling him that she would love them without reserve he just knew that things were not that simple.

Maybe he should seek advice.

But from whom?

Blue?

Archie?

Perhaps he should talk it through with Snow?

Henry breaks his rambling train of thought, "David?" he asks, looking up, brows furrowed. "Are my moms… are my mom's together? Like you and Snow together?"

David opens his mouth to deny instinctively because come on – Emma and Regina are like fire and gasoline and please, the saviour and the evil queen.

But something stops him.

"I don't know Henry." He sits on the bottom step of the staircase and pats the varnished wood beside him.

Henry sits, knees gathered up to his chest and small hands clutching them. He looks so young.

"Like, It's not an issue…" He begins, eyes narrowed in concentration, "it's just… It's them. And I've never really thought about them." Henry starts to smile a small smile, and it grows, "It would be pretty cool though."

"Henry," David interrupts hastily, "I think you need to let your moms come to you with whatever is going on with them. Sometimes people who have been through something scary just need to spend time together. And your moms do get on better than they used to…"

"Yeah but not like… cuddling better. I've never seen mom hug anyone other than me. Even Emma doesn't really hug you guys."

David spreads his palms before him. "Well we just need to see, Henry."

"Would it be a problem for you and Snow? If they were a thing?"

David is surprised at the question, he's reminded again how grown up Henry can be.

"No Henry, it wouldn't be for me, but it would take some getting used to… And I can't answer for Snow, she has a… complicated history with Regina as you know."

He nods to himself before pushing to his feet.

"I do think we should just let them both come to us in their own time though. Come on, let's leave them to their rest."

Henry nods thoughtfully as he springs to his feet and follows David out of the house.