Won't Someone Save Me From Me?

Regina had decided to go on an angry stroll around town, because why not. Sitting in her house, it smelling of Emma's scent, was enough to make her wince in remembering of how they had enjoyed each other countless times. Of how Regina had knotted Emma despite promising to herself she wouldn't, wouldn't put Emma in such a position.

She had broken all her promises concerning Emma and it did not sit right with her.

She should have tried better. Should have done more.

But Emma had been in so much pain. And the thought of letting her struggle, of letting some other Alpha sate her desires, made Regina's veins nearly burst with hot blood. Emma was now her mate whether she planned it or not. Whether she liked it, or not. And it was here to stay until the curse could pass. So what did she do about it?

Did she pursue something more with Emma? Or act like this all didn't matter? She knew Emma might still be under the thrall of the heat so wasn't thinking clearly on such topics. Because surely, who would pick to willingly be with the Evil Queen?

She rubbed her hands over her face, conflicted and annoyed at her own self. Why couldn't she just accept Emma? Accept the fact Emma liked her and she liked Emma and that this mating bite was fate between them.

Because anyone you ever loved has either left you or died. A snide voice told her. Love Emma openly and the same will befall her.

Right, Regina couldn't let that happen to her friend. To her mate. To her omega.

She shook her head and leaned back on the hard bench she was sitting on. The sky above her looked so clear and problem free. Why couldn't she be like that? Why couldn't she at least have one day like that?

Because you don't deserve it that same voice told her and it was true. She had done too many vile and reprehensible things to deserve good things. That's why she had to give up on her feelings for the savior. Had to move on.

"I was hoping Emma had been kidding when she told me the two of you slept together. But no, I can smell her on you," came a voice dripping with disgust. Regina looked to her left and saw that Mary and David were approaching her, both sporting protective parent faces. And clutching weapons.

"Oh, was there a hunting party I missed?" Regina asked casually. The last thing she needed were the Charmings to beat her low mood down even more.

"Yes, a hunting party in your honor," Mary said and Regina quickly recalled that the brunette had been an Alpha in the Enchanted forest. That hadn't changed here, and if it was one thing Alphas were known for, it was being territorial and aggressive. Both of which Mary was feeling right now, no doubt because Regina had dared to touch Emma which Mary viewed as her property.

And David, being the loyal beta he was, was backing up Mary on this.

"You shouldn't have, really," Regina said, slowly getting up. She didn't want to hurt them, but she would have no choice because she was certain they would stop at nothing to hurt her.

"Let's take this somewhere more appropriate, shall we?" Regina asked and with a whirl of her wrist poofed them away into the woods, where they could not be a danger to anyone but themselves.


Why did all the damned Alpha fights have to take place in the middle of the woods? Emma was angrily thinking this, as she stumbled over some rock she hadn't seen before. The sounds of yelling and the rumbles of magic were becoming clearer as she neared the area where Regina and Mary were fighting. And why did her mom have to go and attack her mate? Emma had wanted everything. Nothing had been forced on her.

She parted some bushes and at last got to a scene of chaos. Notably, less chaos than when Ruby and Regina had fought, but still bad nonetheless because Emma did not want anyone getting hurt.

"Stop this!" she called out and utilizing her magic, she made vines grow around her parents, trapping them with their arms to the side.

"Emma, what are you doing?" David hollered out, struggling to move. He had been a foot away from Regina, sword aimed at her head but now stuck in midair as the vines held him still.

"I'm stopping this stupidity," she shot back. Tentatively she approached them. Regina was the only one not tied up and she was breathing hard, her shirt askew and hair sticking to her sweaty cheeks. Her magic died down. "Tell your idiot parents to stop this before they really piss me off."

Emma could smell the alpha pheromones in the air. The clearing was rife with them and it even raised Emma's hackles, made her arm hair stand up as unnatural aggression filled her. She shook her head to clear it.

"Mom, dad, you need to stop this. There is nothing to fight over. I chose to be with Regina during my heat. She didn't do anything to me I didn't want, okay?" she looked them in the eyes. Eyes that were still filled with anger.

"How do we know she didn't force you into wanting this?" Mary spat out, struggling in the vines as well. Emma had to redouble her efforts to hold them still before they hurt themselves or anyone else.

"Because..." Emma licked her lips here, trying to find a quick solution out of this. "Because I gave her a mating bite. Not only that, but she bit me back. She made a commitment and chose to be my mate."

David and Mary draw collective gasps at this. "She what?"

"That's true," Regina said gravelly, pulling back on her shirt and revealing the mark. "We're both marked to each other."

"Emma, do you have any idea what this means-"

"Yes, I do," Emma cut Mary off. "I do because Regina warned me about it. Told me what it meant. She didn't let me go blindly into anything, always asking to make sure I was okay. So, she didn't force anything, if anything, I was the one who was pushy. But this curse made me realize something and that it's I've had feelings for Regina for a while now."

Mary looked like she didn't know how to feel about this, a medley of emotions living on her face and dying in seconds to be replaced by another. David didn't look as shocked.

"I sensed there was something more to your relationship. I just didn't expect you to sleep with our daughter behind our backs like a coward," he said, shaking his head sadly at Regina.

"I didn't sleep behind your backs with her. It only happened recently. It wasn't suppose to happen," Regina argued and those words cut into Emma's heart. Did Regina really not want anything more to do with her? Was she only putting up with Emma for the sake of the curse? For the heat? "But it has, and there is nothing to be done about it now. And if you bumbling fools would stop trying to maim me, perhaps I would have gotten a chance to tell you about this, and about a much bigger threat we should be concerned about."

David, as a beta, was able to relax more easily. Mary and Regina had harder times doing so, but Emma wanted her mate to be soothed and not agitated so she let out pheromones that calmed the brunette down. Regina let out a relieved sigh as the tension ebbed from her. Emma didn't drop the vines just yet, not until she saw Mary was ready to cooperate.

"And what is this big danger?" Mary asked, struggling to put behind her the issue of her daughter being mated to the Evil Queen.

"Rumple. The reason the omega curse is back is because he's doing something. He's meddling with the fabric of our town. And we need to find a way to stop him," Regina insisted.

"That reminds me, Leroy told us he heard an ogre running around in the woods," David filled in. "That's what we were discussing before Emma came in and we became wrapped up in other affairs."

That did not sound good.

"And what else has happened?" Regina asked.

"He also said he saw images of the Enchanted Forest overlaying those of the town," David supplied.

"What does it mean?" Emma turned to Regina, looking for guidance.

"It means we need to hunt down this ogre and then hunt down Rumple," she said, businesslike. "Emma, free David and Mary. They can take the woods to the right and we'll take the woods to the left."

"And why should we trust you and Emma together?" Mary spat distrustfully.

"Mom, stop that! My heat is over, you can be certain I won't be making any dumb decisions," Emma said, losing patience. "If you want to yell at me for mating with Regina, do it later. Not now. Not when our town is in danger."

Mary's lips thinned but she held back her tongue. Emma dropped the magic and her parents rubbed their sore joints. "Stay safe, Emma," David said as he pushed Mary in the direction they were supposed to go in. And Emma couldn't tell if that was a jibe about protected sex, or about the ogre.

"Yea, you too," and in her words there definitely was a jibe about their sex. No child should have to see their parents cycle.

They split up, Emma rushing after Regina who had already forged ahead, ready to take down this ogre.

Emma followed after her in tense silence. "So," she began as Regina followed some invisible path she had determined. "My parents give you much grief?"

"They always give me grief," was the murmured response. And then more silence.

Emma didn't like that, it itched under her skin. And she didn't like not knowing where she stood in terms of their relationship. "Regina, can we just cut to the chase?" Emma sighed out, deciding she would be the bigger person and just go through with this. "What are we doing?"

"Hunting down an ogre. Trying to find that slimeball Rumple," she said briskly and without turning around to look at Emma. Her back was tensed, meaning she most certainly was trying to avoid a topic of conversation. Emma reached for her wrist and pulled her to a stop.

"No, I mean what are we doing," she indicated with a finger between them.

"Emma, now really isn't the time-"

Ah, classic avoidance.

"Yes, this is the time, because I know you and you are going to clam up and not talk about this, telling us to focus on the Rumple problem and then it'll be too late to talk about us. I'm not going to let you do that." Emma said this softly, looking into her Alpha's brown eyes. Eyes that held a bit of fear of rejection in them.

"I know what you're doing because I've done the same thing. In order to protect myself I've cut other people off. But you don't need to do that. You can be loved."

"No, I can't," Regina snapped out, trying to pull her wrist from Emma's hold but failing. "Anyone I've ever cared about is dead or has been hurt."

"You don't need to worry about that happening to me. I've got a hard head and I'm even harder to kill," Emma assured with a sappy smile.

"Emma-" Regina began only to be cut off.

"Just try. Since when are you scared to go out there and do something? To take something for your own."

"That was when I was an Evil Queen and didn't care about who I hurt for my own selfish needs," Regina pointed out.

"Then do it for my own selfish needs."

When Emma saw Regina closing down, she tried another tactic. "How about this. You do a trial run with me. Give me a month to prove you wrong. To prove I'm not going to go anywhere. And then if you still don't feel like you can handle it, just cut me off, okay?"

Regina shook her head. "If you're saying this out of the obligation of the mating mark-"

"I'm not. I'm saying this for me. Out of the obligations of my own feelings. Give me a chance to prove the worth of the words I said during me heat. So, what do you say, Regina? Date me?" Emma gave a hopeful look and Regina turned her head to the side to look into the distance as she thought.


While Regina and Emma had gone their separate ways, Mary and David were walking by themselves through the woods, searching for any potential ogres like Leroy had mentioned he had heard.

But their minds were the farthest thing from monster hunting right now. They were still reeling from the knowledge that their daughter and the evil queen had mated. They didn't need to see the bite marks on their necks, their intertwined smells told the story of what had happened.

"I still can't believe that Emma and Regina are..." Mary trailed off, shaking her head. She may have forgiven Regina for many things and even seen her in a redeemed light, but it was too early to think of adding her to the family. But she supposed this was her fault. Her fault for not being there when Emma was going through her first heat.

"It must have been awful, her first heat. And all she had was Regina to help her through it," Mary shook her head.

"It could be worse," David settled on and Mary whipped her head to look at him.

"Worse?" she gaped in shock. "How can you say that?" Her voice went up several pitches. He winced but hurried to explain.

"You know what dangers can befall unmated omegas in heat. Especially one that is clueless to their situation and what it means. Think about it this way: Regina was protecting Emma from all this. Would you have preferred Emma to be devoured or attacked by some out of control Alphas?"

Mary frowned. "Well, no-" she said but was cut off as David continued, taking her hands in his.

"I too don't like this any more than you do. The queen could have held herself back more, for Emma's sake. But Emma consented to this, and she stands by that even out of her heat state, meaning there's something more going on between them than we know."

"But the mating bites! Their mingled scents!" Mary rushed to say.

"Knowing Regina, she's already working on finding a way to revert this curse. Which means the marks won't stand. And Emma will no longer be mated to her," he assured.

"But they're mated now and we just let them go off together," she grumped, not quite able to be bought over by his words. His job as beta was to suit himself to his alpha's needs. Betas were the peace makers, able to be more sound of mind than alphas and omegas when hormones hit. His scent wafted out to her, trying to soothe her.

His was a soft scent. Like mulch infused with pears and lily of the valley. The image his scent brought up was a nice forest, full of happy animals and murmuring streams that one soaked their aching feet in and cooled their hot heads in.

Her scent had always been more acrid when riled up. Like the stench of burning fires and of tanned pelts and brambles that rose from dirt and snagged on fur and skin causing blood to pool forwards. But as his scent calmed her down, her's became a bit more dull. Like someone had taken the color from her and washed over her scents in gray ash that cooled down everything.

She gave a huge exhale, expelling her stresses.

"It's okay. Emma's smart. There's no need for her to continue this mating situation now that the heat has passed." He spoke in a calming tone. He too was worried for Emma. Didn't like what had happened between the queen and her, because Emma was his little girl and would always be. But he was willing to look past it if Emma was happy. He only wanted Emma to be able to live on her terms, to seize whatever lightened her mood. For too long her life had been lonesome and empty and miserable. Who was he to take her chance at a new love away?

Without Mary's alpha hormones itching under his skin and making him want to fight, he was more clear minded and amicable towards the situation. Mary still wasn't on that same level because she and Regina had history. She wasn't worried about Emma dating the evil queen; she was worried what would happen if they stopped.

Regina had a habit of loving too hard. It had happened with Daniella, making the woman turn evil and destroy so many lives for hers. What would happen if she could no longer have Emma? Would she enact another curse? But Mary didn't voice this concern, worried if she did it would give it power and make it a reality. On her own terms she would try to dissuade Emma from perusing anything more with Regina before things deepened any further.

"But what about Regina's rut?" Mary whispered, immensely worried. "What if that hits? You know how bad it can get for Alphas."

David let out a sigh here, letting go of Mary's hands. "Then if and when that time comes, we keep Emma away from her."

Mary acquiesced with a nod of her head but whatever else she was going to say was cut off when a low grumble rolled through the woods. It was the ogre and it was nearby.

She drew her bow and David pulled out his sword. Crashing through the bushes in front of them, the monster reared it's ugly green head. It stood over them, a hulking ten feet, smelling of dead things and with a mouth full of black rotted teeth. It roared, trying to frighten them off with it's size.

"Where could this thing have come from?" Mary wondered, notching an arrow and letting it whiz right into the monsters eye. It let out a pained grunt and clapped a hand over the wound only digging the arrow in deeper. They never said ogres were smart.

"No portals opened up or else we would have known. Maybe it has something to do with Rumple? But how could he deliver a whole monster here without use of a portal?" David questioned and then he rushed forwards to finally lay to rest the beast.


Regina heaved out a heavy burdened sigh as she slowly drew her eyes back to Emma. "Yes, I'll date you."

Emma couldn't help the wide grin spreading on her face. "That's awesome." Her speech was less eloquent than this moment deserved but she was kind of speechless. She pulled Regina into a warm hug that the woman reciprocated immediately.

Maybe one relationship would finally work out for Regina.

Maybe she could have a good thing at last.

Was it too much to hope for?

Maybe.

Maybe not.