Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time, Storybrooke and any recognizable characters are property of ABC Studios and the Walt Disney Co. No copyright infringement intended.
A/N: Once again, thank you to all who are reading, reviewing and following this story. I am glad you seemed to like the way things started to change on the last chapter, and I do hope you keep on enjoying! This chapter is slightly shorter than usual, but it did not make sense to add the next scene to it as it is quite a long one. Thank you to my beta who has been putting up with my awful mood this week and still hasn't told me to go to hell. At least not out loud. I love you for it!
Chapter 7 - The Companion
"Here," Snow approached the two women with two sets of bed sheets, blankets and pillows and placed them on top of the new beds and mattresses which had been previously placed there by the guards. David had not wanted to be a part of this.
The discussion, as Emma suspected, had not been easy, but in the end she managed to show them it was the best decision, for her own sake as well as their own. She could not risk hurting them, or anyone else, again. So she needed the protection the cell provided against magic, at least until she figured out how to control it better.
Snow had then proceeded to arrange for Regina's bed to be replaced by two new ones – and much improved ones, too – that caused Emma to mumble that Regina should have suggested that arrangement much sooner because she could have been sleeping better for weeks now, to which the brunette replied that the bed would turn out to cost more than she was willing to pay. Her tone, though, was light, albeit slightly serious, and the blonde rolled her eyes with a smile.
"Do you…" the younger brunette started, and then looked from her daughter to Regina, "Do either of you need anything else?"
"A nice cup of Ruby's coffee in the morning?" Emma smiled tentatively, and was met with a similar expression on Snow's face.
"I can arrange for that," she spoke quietly, biting her lips. "Emma, are you sure…"
"Yes," her tone did not leave any room for doubts. She walked closer to the woman, with a smile she hoped was reassuring enough, "This is the safest option for everyone right now."
A pair of bright green eyes, much like Emma's own, stared intently at her.
"Regina won't hurt me, you know that," she whispered, hoping the older woman would not hear them. Neither mother nor daughter could quite explain how, but they both recognized the truth behind the words.
So, with a quick nod, Snow hugged her daughter before sending Regina a meaningful look. "Please, take care of her," she pleaded.
Regina, on her turn, nodded almost imperceptibly before turning on her back so that she could take the sheets and make her bed. It had been a long day. When she woke up, she would never imagine she would have a cellmate by the time she went to sleep again. And she would definitely never think that cellmate would be Emma Swan.
They both heard the sound of the lock, and suddenly the queen was not sure of what she should do next. To her own surprise, Regina was the one Snow looked at when she asked. "What do I do with the keys?"
In any other situation, it would be a stupid question, especially to ask the prisoner. But if there was ever an unprecedented circumstance, that was it.
"Take them. Just in case," Regina's reply didn't do much to soothe Snow's worries, but at the same time it showed that this was not just a plot to trick them into releasing her. She was serious about her promise. With a final goodbye and wishing them a good night, the woman left.
"I can't sleep," Emma mumbled from her side of the cell.
The grunt coming from the other side was not unexpected. "Maybe if you just closed your eyes and stood still for more than 5 seconds, you would be able to."
The blonde rolled her eyes. She was so confident she was being quiet enough while she moved around and tried to find a comfortable position, one that would allow her to relax. But not only had she not been able to relax, she had also managed to wake Regina up. Great. She would not hear the end of it now.
"What is your problem?" the brunette spoke a bit louder when the noise did not stop. "You're thinking so loud I can almost hear you. Missing your own bed, princess?"
She could almost see the damn smirk on the other woman's face just from the tone of her voice. "I'm just a little nervous, that's all," she admitted.
The silence was brief, but its possible meaning did not go unnoticed by Emma. "Don't tell me you chose this moment to start listening to your parents and you suddenly think I would do something."
"What?" her voice did nothing to hide how absurd the notion was to her, "No, of course not. I'm nervous about this magic tutoring thing. Despite what you might believe, not everything revolves around you, Your Majesty," the jab was delivered along with the sound of soft laughter. "I don't think I'm ready," the admission left her lips in a whisper, her tone changing to a more unsteady one.
Silence once more. Regina had been doing this quite a lot lately. Stopping and thinking of the right thing to say to make someone feel better had never been her first instinct when dealing with people. She usually just told them to shut up, or said the first thing that came through her mind – which was hardly ever something that could make the situation better. Regina Mills did not consider anyone else's feelings when uttering her words. Yet she remained silent, for the simple fact that she could not think of something helpful to say.
Eventually, Emma fell into an agitated sleep.
"Emma, you need to come with us," again, it was Snow's voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere around her. When she was able to focus her sleepy eyes a little more, she saw her family.
"But… I don't want to," her voice was hoarse, and she sounded almost like a scared child. "You can't make me go."
"Please. Henry is coming," the memory seemed distorted, as if her mind was trying to fit things into it that weren't supposed to be there. Things that never really took place. "Are you really leaving your son behind?"
"I said you can't make me," she could feel it within her, the anger, and then something else. The power that came with her magic. It did not take long until the fireball formed on her hand.
And then, out of nowhere, and before any decision could be made, a mist of dark purple smoke appeared and, from there, Cora emerged. Right next to Henry. It took less than a second for her to grab him, a menacing smile on her lips, and disappear.
She did try not to shuffle and make too much noise, not wanting to wake her cellmate up for the second time that night, but she had a feeling she was already mumbling something even before she regained control of her body. A suspicion that was confirmed soon enough, when she heard shuffling noises coming from the other bed.
"Emma?" she could hear the still sleepy voice, and did not find the irritation she thought she would, "What's wrong?"
She could see, through the faint glow coming from the torches located along the dungeon corridors, that Regina's frame seemed to move. She was sitting up.
"Emma?" she spoke again when there was no answer, and it helped bring Emma back to reality.
"It's nothing, I'm fine," she tried to make it sound believable, but the image of Cora taking Henry away, the image of herself ready to hurt her family made her voice crack. It was enough to make the brunette get out of bed and make her way across the space until she reached Emma's bed. She then sat carefully on the side, facing the other woman, who was now sitting as well.
Regina just looked at her for a moment, barely able to make out her expression but seeing enough to know she was still shaking a little. She sighed heavily. "I shouldn't have told you about my mother."
Emma was startled. "How did you…" she stopped and managed to answer her own question, "I was talking, wasn't I?"
"A little," she conceded, "Enough for me to understand what it was about."
"I can't protect anyone if I'm like this," she whispered, looking at her own hands as if a deadly laser beam could project out of them at any moment.
"No one needs protection for now," she whispered, "Everyone is ok, everyone is safe, you know that. And you will learn soon enough. We have time, so don't worry too much."
"If they need protection before I'm ready…" Emma hesitated and did not go on, but Regina did it for her, after a deep breath.
"If anything happens, I will help you. I will protect them, too."
Sensing that it was probably physically painful for Regina to say these words, Emma knew how much they meant. Still, she could not help herself and grinned a little. "You know that when I say them, I mean…"
"I know exactly who you mean, Ms Swan," Regina interrupted her, talking through gritted teeth, which earned a quick laugh from the blonde, one that helped her relax and stop thinking about her nightmare.
"Sorry," Emma's grin couldn't hide the fact that she was not sorry at all.
"You are not ready to fight or use any spell on anyone," Regina spoke quietly, remembering the conversation they didn't have before they fell asleep earlier, "But you are ready to start learning," she assured the woman, "If your magic started manifesting now, it means you are ready to learn. But like I said, magic is intimately tied to your emotions. Magic is emotion. So you need to accept that magic, you need to deal with the fact that it is a part of you."
"Does that mean you're my therapist too?" Emma pouted, not making the slightest effort to hide her frustration at the unexpected addition to her course on magic.
Regina scoffed, "Even though you could clearly use some help on that department," she saw Emma rolling her eyes and almost did the same, "I wouldn't subject myself to that even if I was being paid. Which – mind you – I am not."
"Well, you're the closest thing to a therapist that I have around here, though, aren't you? You're the only one I can really talk to about this crap," she fidgeted with her fingers on top of her crossed legs.
A few months ago, there was no way she would be even thinking these words, let alone saying them out loud. It was true that she and Regina had always had some semblance of an understanding – well, maybe not always, but at least ever since the curse broke – maybe because neither had a rush of memories suddenly resurfacing, so they didn't really change. Sure, it had been a shock to learn that Regina was, in fact, THE Evil Queen, and that she had been responsible for the curse itself – and she knew that was only the latest of a long list of what couldn't be categorized as anything other than evil deeds – but still, she couldn't look at her and see someone all that different. The other ones, the change from Mary Margaret to Snow, for example, was visible from every single way you looked at it. The way the woman stood, the way she talked, the natural way in which she led people, and they followed. She wondered why she couldn't have inherited at least one of those traits, but one look at David and it was painfully obvious she was much more like him. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, he was the impulsive one, the one who spoke and acted first and then, if forced to, thought about the consequences. The one thing she certainly did not have in common with either of them, and she was sure it came from the way she spent her childhood and teenage years, was the black and white vision of the world. With Snow, there was still a grey area, having grown up with Regina as her stepmother. But with David it was either one of the other, and that was it. She chuckled at the thought that even though she had found her real family, she had friends and so many people who were willing to be there for her now, and still she had chosen pretty much the only enemy all those people had in that land to become her confidant.
"Yeah, and you sure don't miss a chance to complain about this… crap," the brunette rolled her eyes, and then noticed the look on the other woman's face. It was hard to read, but it seemed almost… hurt. It caused Regina's expression to change immediately to a much softer one, "And yet, you can be a remarkably good listener, too." It had the desired effect and, just like that, Emma was smiling again. Satisfied with herself, Regina got up. "Now, we have a long day tomorrow. Are you alright to go back to sleep?"
Emma imagined that was how the woman talked to Henry when he had a nightmare. Or maybe it was the way she talked to the people she cared about. Or maybe there wasn't a difference between one thought and the other. By the time she nodded, the brunette was already too far to see it. "Good night, Regina," she whispered as if to answer her question.
