A/N: I'd like to start by apologising for the long delay between chapters. I'm not going to bore you all with excuses, but I will give you a quick trigger warning for this chapter. There will be violence and mentions of child abuse... quite a heavy chapter to end my absence. Oops.
After spending the rest of the day scrubbing the floor of the dining hall, Emma is exhausted and dirty and drained and angry and wants nothing more than to go back home to Storybrooke. Unfortunately, she's taken back to her cell in the dungeon, and left with a bowl of food for her dinner.
As the doors clang shut behind her, Emma looks down at the bowl that has just been pushed into her hands. In it is a grey, sloppy substance that lies somewhere between a liquid and a solid, and has got to be the least appetising thing in the world.
"What the hell is this?" Emma says with disgust to the guard who is locking the door to her cell.
"Gruel."
"Gruel?!" Emma repeats. "That's actually a thing?"
She doesn't get a reply. The guard just looks at her, tilts his head slightly (Emma can't see his face, but she assumes that he's looking at her like she's crazy), then he walks away, whistling a jovial tune that is a complete juxtaposition to the dungeon that surrounds them.
Left alone, Emma tentatively picks up the spoon, which is coated in the... gruel. She warily sniffs it, but it seems to be scentless, or maybe the damp smell of the dungeon is just too overpowering. Next, she sticks her tongue out, licking the tiniest bit off the spoon, and immediately regretting it. She can only describe the taste of the sludge as 'stale', and she feels rage build within her that she's actually expected to eat it.
Emma has had all day for her anger at the Evil Queen to brew and grow. Anger at being caught by her guards in the first place, anger at being locked up, anger at having to agree to obey her, anger at being turned into a common member of her staff, anger at having to scrub a dirty floor while that witch had sex on a higher floor of the castle. This bowl of gruel that she has been served is just the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Feeling herself reach boiling point, Emma turns around and launches the bowl at the door to her cell. It hits the metal bars, sending the grey sludge flying and splattering to the floor and walls. The thick wooden bowl is unscathed by the impact, but clatters to the floor, causing an echo.
Emma's chest rises and falls heavily, the silence of the dungeon suddenly deafening after the shock of the loud bang her bowl had caused. She half expects a guard to come and chastise her, but nothing happens. After a few moments, she hears a voice.
"Jeez... You almost gave me a heart attack." It's Marie from the cell next to Emma.
"They can't actually expect me to eat that crap. Who do they think I am? Oliver Twist?"
"Who?" Marie says, confusion evident.
Emma closes her eyes, having forgotten for a moment that the other woman wasn't from her world, and wouldn't know what she was talking about. "Never mind." Emma mumbles, rubbing her face tiredly. She's so sick of this whole thing. All she wants is to go home. All she wants is to see her parents and her son and her Regina, instead of this evil Regina from the Enchanted Forest.
"You get used to it," Marie says.
"What?"
"The gruel."
"I don't want to get used to it." Emma states, backing up until she reaches the wall, then sitting down. "I just want to go home."
Emma's voice comes out quiet and small, like a child who is spending the night away from their parents for the first time and just wants to go back to them. Emma closes her eyes and hugs her knees to her chest, burying her face in them. She stays like that for at least a few minutes, filled with self-pity at the situation that she's in, and wondering what her parents and Killian are doing to save her.
"Did you tell the queen that you were going to submit to her?" Marie asks.
"Yes."
"And what did she say? Why were you gone all day?"
Emma lifts her head and stares at the floor. "She made me clean the floor of the dining hall."
"Why do you sound so annoyed about that? What did you think she was going to make you do?"
"Honestly?" Emma asks, exhaustion turning her filter off and making her not care about what she's revealing. "I thought she was going to make me have sex with her. But no, she already has a fuck buddy. I'm just another slave."
"I'm confused," Marie says. "Anyone else would be thrilled at not having to sleep with the Evil Queen. Why do you sound so disappointed? You didn't want to sleep with her, did you?" The last question was asked with a small laugh, as though it was preposterous and even slightly amusing.
"I-" Emma frowns and shakes her head. "Of course I didn't want to." She says, though her mind is spinning.
If she doesn't want to sleep with the Evil Queen, then why is she so annoyed? Obviously, the Evil Queen is an incredibly attractive woman. Storybrooke-Regina has always had the ability to take Emma's breath away, and Emma has had many a drunken fantasy of bedding the mayor. The Evil Queen is a spitting image of Regina, but darker and more alluring; and her cleavage has always had a way of grabbing Emma's attention and making her mouth go dry. Maybe a small part of Emma had looked forward to sleeping with a woman as attractive as the Evil Queen.
Not that she would ever admit that, because the Evil Queen was, well, evil. She was sick and twisted and did terrible things to good people. Emma's attraction to her started and ended with a physical attraction. Emma should never, and would never, want to sleep with someone as dark and twisted as the Evil Queen.
"Good," Marie says with a laugh. "I was worried for a second there. I mean, obviously, the queen is hot as hell, everyone thinks so, but... no one could be attracted to someone that evil. No one could be attracted to a mass murderer. It's just... weird."
"Exactly." Emma agrees with a nod.
But then her mind wanders to Regina, present-day Regina, who is still technically a mass murderer. She may not be that person anymore, but she has still killed a lot of innocent people in her past, and she is still worthy of love. Surely there's still a part of the Regina that Emma knows in the Evil Queen, and does Emma really want her being miserable and unhappy?
Emma shakes her head, not wanting to think about that. It's so much easier to think of the Evil Queen and Regina as two separate people. Blurring the lines just makes it too confusing and makes Emma feel guilty about the life of the Evil Queen.
Emma is still angry at the Evil Queen, but as her energy seeps away from her, she also loses the energy to be annoyed. She closes her eyes and leans back against the wall. She feels as though she's too tired to survive another day in the Enchanted Forest, and the thought that she would wake here tomorrow makes her want to cry. The only thing that keeps her going is the thought that, hopefully, her family will be working to save her, and she won't have to stay here much longer.
As soon as Emma wakes the next morning, a guard opens the door to her cell, claiming that the Queen wishes to see her immediately. She is shackled and taken upstairs, to Mrs Potts. The friendly woman bathes her again, gives her some clean clothes, braids her hair (she's in a rush, so at times she pulls on it so hard that Emma is worried she'll pull chunks of it out), and even sneaks her a slice of toast for breakfast, then sends her away with a guard.
The guard hurries Emma down a corridor in an area of the castle that she has never been before, then takes her into a large room, which is empty with the exception of two chains hanging from the ceiling. Emma frowns and turns to the guard, about to ask what is going on and why she's been brought here. However, before she can get the question out, or even comprehend what's happening, the guard pulls Emma to the centre of the room, where the chains are, and connects one to each wrist.
Emma opens her mouth in shock and looks up at her wrists. Her arms are spread wide so that her body forms a Y shape, and she already feels vulnerable.
"What the hell?" She says, glaring at the guard, though he doesn't reply. Another voice does, though.
"Good morning." A female voice says. "I trust that you had another pleasant night in my dungeon?"
The voice, coming from someone who certainly hadn't been in the room when Emma entered, startles the blonde and makes her spin around awkwardly. The movement is clumsy because the chains restrict her from turning fully, so she ends up stumbling slightly, not that it matters. The chains would have prevented her from falling, anyway.
Eventually, Emma manages to turn enough to see the Evil Queen, leaning against the wall in the corner of the room. She must have poofed herself in here.
Emma is too stunned to respond to the question (chances are that it's rhetorical anyway), but her silence spurs the queen on. "I suppose you're quite lucky, though. You don't spend half as much time in your cell as the other prisoners do." Regina smiles darkly, as though a thought has just occurred to her, then laughs slightly. "On second thought, let's see how lucky you feel when you leave this room."
The ominous phrase makes Emma swallow loudly, her heart rate beginning to speed up. What, exactly, is going to happen in this room? The fact that her hands are chained already gives her a bad feeling and she finds herself getting more and more nervous by the second.
Regina turns to the guard, who is still standing by the door. "Leave us." She instructs, with a dismissive wave of her hand. As the man leaves, Regina walks around to the front of Emma, sticking to the wall of the room instead of coming closer.
"You know," Regina says thoughtfully, standing directly across from Emma. "I want to kill you."
Emma's eyes widen at the blunt statement, though Regina doesn't seem to notice.
"You're annoying and outspoken and you lack basic manners, which infuriates me. You have no idea how to treat a queen with respect, and even if you did, I'm not sure that you would. You have trespassed on my land, then acted like a victim. You speak back to me, then act as though you're being treated unjustly when you get punished. You've been here for three days, but yet," Regina raises her hands so that she's indicating towards Emma. "Here you are. You haven't learned to be any better behaved, despite agreeing to obey my orders.
Emma doesn't know what the purpose of being listed all her faults is, but she finds it rather awkward. "If you want to kill me, then why don't you just do it?" Emma asks. She doesn't want to encourage Regina, but she does want to know the answer to her question. What is stopping the woman with no morals from killing her?
"That's a good question." Regina acknowledges. She begins to walk towards Emma, slowly. "Though the only answer that I can think to give is," She stops, inches away from Emma, and lifts her hand to the blonde's cheek. "That it would be a shame to waste such a pretty face."
Emma jerks her head away from the other woman. Again, she's feeling as though the queen wishes to seduce her, which just makes it more confusing that she would be sleeping with another person and treating Emma like a maid.
"But this can't go on," Regina says, lowering her hand from where it had been hanging in thin air. Emma notices that she's clenched it into a fist, as though she's angry, and even her tone sounds frustrated, but she doesn't shout or lash out or slap Emma as she had yesterday. "You're too disobedient, which is something that I intend to change."
Regina backs away from Emma again, putting a couple of metres between them. "Are you familiar with the process of training animals?"
"Um..." Emma looks to the side, unsure of the relevance of the question, but she answers it anyway. "When I was a kid, I found a stray dog once and tried to teach it how to sit. But someone called the local dog shelter before I could make any progress, so..." Regina narrows her eyes questioningly, creating an awkward atmosphere for Emma. "No," Emma corrects. "I don't have any experience in training animals.
Regina spends another moment looking critically at Emma, then shakes her head and continues. "Animals are trained through a series of rewards and punishments. Any desirable behaviour that the animal displays gets rewarded, so the animal is encouraged to repeat it, whereas undesirable behaviour is punished, to discourage repetition. Do you understand?" Emma nods her confirmation. "Well," Regina smirks. "I'm going to apply a similar strategy to you."
"You're going to train me," Emma says, as though it's a fact, not a question. "Like an animal."
"Exactly," Regina confirms with a dark smile. It's clear that she's proud of her idea, which makes Emma dislike her even more, for finding pleasure in her degrading plan. "Every time you do something that I don't like, you'll be punished. Would you like to know what your punishment will be?"
"Yes," Emma says, which isn't completely true. She'd rather there not be any punishment at all, and therefore there be nothing to know. However, it didn't seem like that was an option, so she would rather know what exactly she had got herself into.
"'Yes' what?"
"Yes please?" Emma inflects, as though it's a question.
"Polite." Regina says with amusement. "But that's not what I meant. How do you address a queen?"
Emma clenches her jaw when she realises what Regina expects from her. "Yes, your majesty."
Emma can honestly say that she has never felt so demeaned in all her life as she has during her stay in the Enchanted Forrest. Acting subservient to Regina is almost painful for Emma to do. She hates to feel inferior to anyone, but hates it even more so when that person is Regina. It reminds her of when she'd just moved to Storybrooke, and Regina treated her like crap. Those memories make Emma angry all over again.
Regina waves her hand, causing a puff of purple smoke to appear. As it dissipates, Emma notices that the queen is now holding what appears to be a whip. Her eyes widen at the sight, then she realises that the sense of foreboding that she has had since entering the room has finally been proven justified.
"A strike with this should do the trick," Regina says, looking at the whip with admiration. As if to accentuate her point, she cracks the whip, causing a loud bang as it hits the floor. Emma winces at the noise alone, causing Regina to smirk.
"You're going to whip me?" Emma says, not really needing the clarification, but asking for it anyway.
"Indeed." Regina nods. "But only if you're bad. If you're good, you'll be rewarded."
"With what?"
"Well..." Regina smiles darkly again. "You won't be punished. Isn't that reward enough?"
Emma swallows. Usually, she would argue that this hardly seems like a fair deal, but the rather large whip in Regina's hand dissuades her from doing so.
"Yesterday, you were quite rude to me, weren't you, dear?" Regina says, toying with the handle of the whip. "You asked me about my sexual relations, which is no matter that you should discuss with a queen. You also acted like the very idea of being jealous because I was sleeping with someone was revolting, which was..." Regina looks down, and for a second, Emma swears that she sees genuine sadness on the brunette's face. But before she can see if she's right, the look is gone and replaced with one of indifference. "It was worthy of punishment." Regina finishes.
Emma closes her eyes as she realises where this is going.
She's going to get whipped. Right now.
Her trip back in time can't get much worse, it seems. Every time she thinks that she's reached rock bottom, something happens to prove that she's wrong. First, she'd been arrested in the first place and shoved into a room the size of a shoe box; then she'd been moved to the dungeon; then she'd had to agree to submit to the queen, then she'd been made to scrub floors. The latest instalment: she's going to get whipped by the Evil Queen.
While Emma stands there, cursing her own bad luck that any of this is happening, she notices Regina making her way behind her and knows that she's going to get whipped at any moment. Why is she still surprised when crap like this happens? She should know by now that that the universe has some weird vendetta against her, a mission to make her life a living hell.
Emma turns so that she can watch Regina's movements warily. The brunette walks in a half-circle around her, until she is behind her, or would be if Emma hadn't spun 90 degrees. Then she stops, looking at the whip in her hand, somewhat fondly. Emma swallows, or tries to, but her mouth is dry with nerves.
"You can't actually whip me," Emma says, already knowing that the statement isn't true.
"Oh, I can, dear." Regina looks up at her with a smirk. "You should know by now that I can do whatever I please."
"What I mean is that you shouldn't whip me." Emma corrects herself. "It's wrong. I'm a human being."
"Maybe," Regina acknowledges. "But this punishment is only a response to the way that you have acted since arriving here. If you hadn't been so disrespectful then we wouldn't be in this position."
"Two wrongs don't make a right.".
"Maybe in this case they do."
As Regina gets into position to give Emma a beating, the blonde closes her eyes and turns so that her back is to the brunette. She wishes that she were anywhere else but right here. She's well aware of the fact that a mere few days ago she was sitting in her house in Storybrooke, reading the local newspaper while drinking her morning coffee, waiting for her parents to call and say that they were ready to go to Gold's shop. The trip to Gold's shop that resulted in this.
"You don't need to do this," Emma says, knowing that it won't make any difference.
"I know that I don't need to," Regina replies. "But I do want to."
It's phrases like that that make Emma detest the Evil Queen. Who is sadistic enough to want to cause other people pain? Emma had a hard time believing that this woman is the mother of her child, her best friend, the mayor of the town that she lives in. In fact, if she didn't know without a shadow of a doubt that the Evil Queen was Regina, then she wouldn't believe it. They are just so different. It really brings into perspective how much Regina has changed and grown over the years.
While Emma silently marvels in Regina's character development, her thoughts are suddenly interrupted in the most brutal way possible. She hears it before she feels it: the sound of the whip hitting skin. An awful slap, a sound that makes her wince before she even feels the pain run down the skin on her back, like millions of needles digging into her all at once.
Emma moves forward as if she can move away from the pain, but only makes it a step before the chains stop her. Instead, she arches her back as far away from Regina as possible, taking deep breaths to help her push past the pain.
"That's one," Regina informs her as if she hadn't noticed.
"Of how many?" Emma asks.
Her reply is another strike with the whip, this one harder than the last, causing a searing pain to run parallel to her spine. But this time, it's not the pain that bothers her.
She doesn't know what causes it, whether it's the sound of the whip or the feeling of it, but she has a flashback. A flashback to a particularly horrible foster father who had a short-temper and a violent streak. For a moment, Emma is not standing in the Evil Queen's castle, but is cowering in the corner of a living room, trying to shield herself from the black belt that she knows is going to come any moment.
Emma opens her eyes quickly, trying to force the picture away. She doesn't want to recall that terrifying time in her life, a time that has scarred her emotionally for life.
"No..." Emma says quietly. She doesn't even know that she's saying it until it's passing her lips, her mouth seemingly moving of its own accord.
"What was that?" Regina says, her tone mocking.
"Please," Emma's voice is desperate. "No more."
There's a dark chuckle from behind her, then the whip hits her back once more. Even with her eyes open, she sees the angry face of her foster father, arm raised and belt at the ready. He's swaying slightly, most likely drunk. He always was, no matter what time of day it was.
This time, Emma squeezes her eyes shut to try and ward off the image. It works. All she can see is black. But then she belatedly feels the pain from the last blow, overlapping the tingling sensation from one of the earlier ones. Her breath hitches in her throat as she wants to scream but physically restrains herself.
"Please," She says instead. "Regina, please."
"I told you," Whip. "Not to," Whip. "Call me that." Whip.
These ones are quick but just as painful. When Emma realises that she'd called the queen by her first name, she curses herself for bringing the attack onto herself. She should have known better than to do that, especially when Regina has a whip in her hand, but the pain and the flashbacks were clouding her mind and making it impossible to think straight.
"I'm sorry!" Emma says honestly. "But please stop, I promise I'll be good!"
Even though she's saying the words as an adult, in her mind, she hears them being uttered by a child. That's when she sees herself again, crawling away from the man, sobbing quietly while she repeatedly says, "I'll be good, I'll be good."
Wait. Is she sobbing in her flashback, or in real life? Emma opens her eyes and realises that her face is wet with tears. When had she started crying?
"See?" Regina says, and Emma is relieved to hear the end of the whip hit the floor. "It's working already. You're willing to be compliant and this is only our first session."
First session? Meaning there will be more?
The room is silent for a moment, except for Emma's heavy breathing. Her back is tingling and stinging, but she knows she'll be able to handle it. She doesn't even think to wonder what Regina is doing, she's just thankful that she isn't whipping her.
Eventually, a knock at the door interrupts the quiet, and Emma hears Regina sigh.
"Enter," Regina calls, walking around Emma so that she's standing next to her, but a few feet away.
The door opens, and a guard walks in. This one isn't wearing a helmet, and his armour is silver instead of black, and Emma knows immediately that he isn't just any guard. He is probably of a higher prestige than the others.
"This better be important," Regina snaps impatiently.
The guard nods his head, then looks across at Emma. She wonders what she must look like with her arms chained above her head, her face red from a mixture of crying and the whipping she's received. She probably looks a mess.
"It's about Snow White." The guard states, looking back at Regina as if nothing about Emma's current situation was out of the ordinary.
Emma's ears prick at the mention of her mother, her first thought being that Mary Margaret had been found while she was trying to rescue her. She knows that that would be disastrous. The Evil Queen would not hesitate to murder her nemesis, even if it was a version of her from the future. Emma starts to panic, suddenly filled with guilt, convinced that her mother was going to die and it was all her fault.
"I'm listening." Regina sounds intrigued and doesn't seem to notice when Emma swallows thickly.
"My men found her," The guard says, his words causing Emma's heart to drop. He can't be talking about Snow White from the past because Snow White was never captured by the queen, which must mean it's Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret has been found.
"You found her?" Regina perks up.
"We did." The guard looks down and swallows nervously. "But we lost her."
While Emma regains some hope that her mother will live after all, she notices Regina's back stiffen. "You what?" Regina asks through gritted teeth.
"She was hiding in the forest," The guard says. "My men found her cabin, and went inside, but it was empty. They were getting ready to leave, but then they saw her. She must have been returning from gathering water because she had a bucket in her hand. She tried to run from my men, and a chase broke out. We finally caught her, had her pinned to the ground, but then... the girl in the red cloak appeared. The wolf." The guard looks down, seemingly ashamed. "The girl transformed and ripped apart three of my men. We had to retreat or she would have killed us all."
While Emma is happy and relieved that Mary Margaret hadn't been caught, and it must have been Snow White from the past if she was with Red, Regina has the exact opposite reaction.
"You imbecile," Regina says through gritted teeth. "You had her, but you let her escape? Alive."
"The wolf-"
"I don't give a damn about the wolf!"
"We would have been killed!"
"I don't care!" Regina stalks forward, only stopping when she's inches away from the guard. "You have one job. To find Snow White and bring her to me, or if you can't get he to me alive, make sure she's dead. Why do you find that so difficult?"
"She has the wolf with her-"
"Would you shut up about the wolf?!" Regina sighs and shakes her head. "You are clearly incapable of carrying out this task, and I am sick of you wasting my time. I need to find someone who isn't an incompetent fool, and who isn't a coward." Regina lowers her voice to do an unflattering impression "We would have been killed," She imitates. "Pathetic."
Without any warning, Regina thrusts her hand into the guard's chest, causing him to cry out in pain. Emma suddenly straightens up, alarmed at this new advancement. Regina's going to kill him.
"No!" Emma cries out, forgetting for a moment that she's chained and trying to run over to the queen. The chains obviously stop her, and she falls backwards, the chains holding her up.
Regina removes the heart from the man's chest and squeezes tightly. The man doubles over, clutching at the place where his heart had once been. A moment later, he drops to the ground like a dead weight, then lies motionless on the floor.
Emma's mouth hangs open in shock as she watches the Evil Queen drop the dust-like remains of his heart next to his body, then she wipes her hands clean.
"You killed him," Emma states in disbelief.
"He was useless." Regina shrugs casually as if she hasn't just killed a man.
"You killed him," Emma repeats, louder this time, hoping to get through to whatever ounce of empathy or goodness that may still exist within the cold woman before her.
When all Emma gets is a blank stare, as though there is nothing wrong with murder and Regina can't see what the big deal is, Emma laughs mirthlessly. "How can you kill someone in cold blood and not even care?" She asks, then speaks again before Regina can reply. "You actually don't need to answer that. I'll do it for you. It's because you're a disgusting human being."
Seeing the Evil Queen kill another person, right before her eyes, makes Emma forget that she is talking to Regina as well as the Evil Queen. It makes her forget that her best friend, Henry's other mother, is also inside the body in front of her. Her filter gets turned off. Any desire to spare the queen's feelings is turned off. She no longer cares. She wants the Evil Queen to know exactly what she thinks of her.
"You're a horrible person, the worst person. You think that just because you've been hurt before, you're allowed to hurt other people. The world has hurt you, so you hurt the world. Well, you know what? That's why you're alone. That's why nobody cares about you. As long as you hold onto your anger, as long as you hold on to your need to hurt others until you feel like you've gotten justice for whatever happened to you, nobody is going to love you. No one could possibly love someone as dark and twisted as you. You're a psychopath. A sick, twisted psychopath. Pure evil. And what do you gain from any of this? Everyone is scared of you, nobody likes you, you spend your days in this castle making other people miserable. What kind of life is that? At the end of the day, you're alone, with nothing and no one."
By the time Emma is done, she can feel her cheeks flushed with anger. She looks at the Evil Queen, wanting her to react so that she knows her words have hit home but also fearing her reaction because she knows it isn't going to end well for her. While she waits, she looks at Regina's face, trying to determine what she is thinking, but it is pretty much a closed book.
After what feels like years to Emma, the Evil Queen moves, walking purposefully behind the blonde. Emma frowns, about to turn around to see what the brunette is doing, but then she feels it.
She's whipped again and again and again and again.
By the time Regina is done, Emma's legs can barely hold her weight. Her body is coated in sweat, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She doesn't know whether or not her back is bleeding, but she would be surprised if it isn't. Luckily, the flashbacks have ended, but only because she was never beaten this badly as a child.
The room is spinning, but Emma is aware of Regina walking past her. The brunette wordlessly leaves the room, slamming the door behind her. A few moments later, a guard enters to take Emma back to the dungeon.
A/N: I know this was quite a heavy chapter to return to this story with, I hope it's not too bad, though. Please leave me a review to let me know if this was OK. And don't worry, I know that Emma and Regina seem to be getting further and further away from being a couple, but this is part of my plan.
Happy New Year, everyone :)
