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When Emma opens her door early in the morning, one week later, she couldn't have known it would end up changing everything so drastically. That it would finally make her confront things she up until that moment had avoided at all costs.
-x-x-x-
It comes more naturally to her now, Emma thinks as she levitates some utensils into the air, smiling at how little energy doing it costs her this time. When she had first attempted this a few weeks ago, making anything float would exhaust her within minutes. Practice it seemed really did make perfect after all.
She makes the fork and knife rise up a little higher and stares on in wonder at how perfectly still she can make them float just above her head. Humming quietly to herself she can't suppress a little twitch of guilt settling in the pit of her stomach for practicing magic like this. Secretly, always without Henry being present to witness her doing so. Like the act itself is wrong, while to Emma it feels anything but. She just doesn't know how to explain this to him. A part of her thinks that when she does, he might think Regina influenced her in some way. As if the most harmless of spells would suddenly turn her evil. She scoffs at the thought. But then the hints of a doubt makes her worry her lip in contemplation.
It was something she has been meaning to ask to Regina. How much magic was too much? And when would it take you to that dangerous precipice she had mentioned a few months ago? Emma tries to think of how to broach this particular topic with Regina. She cringes at the thought of what the other woman's response would be.
Her attention wavers and she gasps in horror as the knife drops down, narrowly missing her foot. Emma sucks in a breath as she stares at it, while trying to maintain her concentration on keeping the spoon and fork afloat. Maybe that was enough for today. Emma muses she can do a little more practice with conjuring up balls of energy and barriers after she has done chores around the house. Right now she was too distracted to perform any more magic. She had learned the hard way, while almost setting the house on fire, that magic shouldn't be practiced when you couldn't concentrate fully on what you were doing.
Sighing Emma lowers the cutlery to the kitchen counter and closes the book Regina had given to her; storing it away in a lockable drawer. She always had the key with her, not taking the chance that Henry being the naturally curious kid he was, would stumble upon on it, and find the book afterward. In the back of her mind she knows this is a conversation they should be having. She had promised him no more lies, and though she hasn't been lying to him exactly, hiding this from him would on the long term harm their growing child-parent relationship. He had barely accepted Regina using magic again, even though she limited using it in his presence. Having both of his mothers actively using magic was going to be a lot tougher for Henry to accept. Especially if he found out the book she was learning magic from was Regina's.
She should really talk to her about it, Emma thinks, as she stuffs the key in a pocket of her jeans.
Knocking at the door startles her, actually making her jump up in surprise. She wasn't expecting any visitors today, Henry was getting a horse riding lesson this afternoon from David and would be staying at his grandparents for the night. Peeking through the peephole, Emma feels a little shocked seeing who is at the other side of the door. This was the last person she would have expected. Then again, taking into account everything that had happened over the course of the past few months, maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised.
"Regina, hi. Uhm, if you're hoping to see Henry he's over at my parents."
"I'm not here for him," Regina responded coolly. Her facial expression betrayed nothing of what was going on inside her head, but for some reason Emma got a weird vibe from the former Mayor. Like something wasn't right. That and she swore she saw a glint of purple flashing through Regina's eyes, though it was gone the next second.
"Okay... Well come in? Uh, the place is a bit of a mess right, sorry," Emma babbles nervously as she throws a few dirty dishes in the sink. "I was going to clean it up just before your arrival here. I swear it normally looks a lot more..."
"Nervous, are we dear," Regina interrupts as she strolls inside.
She slams the door shut behind her a lot harder than necessary; the sound rings around obnoxiously loud in the small apartment. It makes Emma heart speed up. Years off living on the edge, living while being acutely aware that danger could come from everywhere, makes all the warning bells go off inside her head.
"Maybe a little? I didn't want to make it seem like Henry is living in a pigsty all the time, seeing as you're such a neat freak and all."
"You know that's not what I'm talking about. You really do take after your mother, don't you? Playing the role so perfectly. So sweet and innocent, that it just crawls under your skin without you ever noticing it, like a poison that seeps right through." Regina's face twists into a fearsome mask as she speaks, each word more venomous than the previous one. "Granted, you do make a great actress. You certainly had me going with that sob-story of yours."
"I.." Emma shakes her head, dumbfounded. "What the hell are you even talking about? Sob-story? Do you mean..."
"You know exactly what I mean!" Regina bellows.
There's a thousand tiny pinpricks on Emma's skin and she gasps with a sudden pain. Regina is standing right in front of her now, the sheer magnitude of her magical power crackling and popping with every move she makes. Like she's literally made of magic. Is magic. Dark magic. And Emma's currently at the wrong side of it, and she doesn't even know why.
"Regina just tell me what the fuck is going on with you?" Emma stares right into fiery brown eyes that are filled with utter hatred. She almost takes a step backwards at the sight but catches herself just in time. "I don't get it, I thought we made some progress last week, I thought..."
"Save it dear, I won't fall for your lies again," Regina hisses out. "If you think you can wrap me around your fingers like you have done with Rumpelstiltskin's worthless son, you are sorely mistaken Princess."
Emma frowns at the mention of Neal. She works her memory trying to figure out why Regina chose to involve him now. Her hands form tightly clenched fists as she mentally conjures up a ward to help protect her should things get even more out of hand. Not that she stood a chance when Regina did decide to unleash hell on her.
"Did I hit a nerve there dear? Or did you conspire with that bastard Baelfire all along? Tell me, did you share your victories over a few beers before you spread your legs for him again? Did you enjoy playing the happy family, all the while laughing behind my back about how gullible I proved to be?"
Regina takes one final step forward, her magic sparking off the barrier Emma had raised between them. Her eyes swirled a ominous purple color as she titled her head down, just inches away from Emma's. "Tell me!" she growls, seething with anger.
"I'm not..." Emma swallows, audibly clears her throat as she tries to wrap her mind around what Regina was accusing her of. "I'm not sleeping with Neal, I don't know where you got that idea from, but I'm not. And even if I was, it would be none of your fucking business," Emma yells back, gnashing her teeth as a wave of bright hot anger washes over her. Just who the hell did Regina think she was anyways.
"When you conspire with him to take away MY son, it is my fucking business."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Regina, when are you going to get it into that thick skull of yours. I'm not going to take Henry away from you!"
"Why should I believe you, when you've lied about everything else," Regina grits out, voice dangerously low.
She makes a counter-clockwise motion with her hands and Emma can feel the hastily conjured up protective barrier beginning to dissolve.
"I haven't lied about that..." Emma only barely manages to get out the last word before she feels the remains of the ward crumble away into nothingness.
The moment it does, a wave of magical energy flings her backwards violently across the kitchen counter and against the wall. There's a sickening crunch of something breaking, and Emma has some vaguely jumbled thoughts that it might've been something inside of her own body that did.
She groans in agony, raising one of her hands towards her head and isn't surprised to find that it comes away bloody. Almost everything lying on the counter had been thrown against the wall along with Emma and several things had collided with her body with considerable force. Something sharp was digging painfully into her back and she gasps, every breath she takes sends waves of pain through her entire body.
Before she is able to completely gather her bearings, an invisible force wraps itself around her neck and hoists her up against the wall. Emma gulps for breath as her feet kick out futilely, colliding with the wall behind her, body hovering a small distance above the floor.
"Re'ina...wha," Emma manages to choke out, eyes wide with fear as Regina stalks towards her. One of her hands is stretched out towards Emma, slowly choking her to death without even touching her.
"What would you call this, Emma," Regina hisses out, face contorted into an hideous sneer. She practically shoves a picture into Emma's face.
Emma coughs violently, hands scrabbling at her throat as if she could stop the invisible force that was choking her that way. "Stop," she pleads. Her eyes take in the picture momentarily, but it's blurry, the lack of oxygen was making everything she was doing more sluggish.
The pressure at her throat does disappear, but at the same time Emma is magically thrown around the apartment once more. Her already sore back collides harshly with one of the cabinets. Wood splinters fly everywhere as Emma screams out in pain. Something small but sharp had lodged itself into her side, and her white t-shirt darkens with the blood that seeps out of the wound.
Mind hazy with pain and her vision clouded with tears, Emma only barely manages to make out Regina's dark form towering over her. That damned picture she had been holding before, once again makes its way near Emma's face. She tries to process its significance, but the way her whole body feels like one big ball of ache makes it neigh impossible for her to do so.
"Henry told me all about this perfect little date you had with Neal, Miss Swan," Regina tells her, still sounding completely enraged. "About this trip you were planning. Just the three of you. How Neal mentioned that you were considering moving with him to New York. With my son," the last sentence is practically spat out, and for a moment Emma wonders if she's going to be magically launched into another trip through the air.
"Re..gina," Emma tries, the words stick into her aching throat. Her thoughts drown into a cloying soup of molasses that has taken up residence in her brains. Regina got it all wrong, but Emma couldn't form the words to explain herself.
"Henry is my son, not yours. You are nothing."
A second later there's purple smoke where Regina had been standing.
And Emma finds herself surrounded by shards of glass, wood slivers, streaks of blood and shredded pictures of herself and Henry.
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