Just remember that I am sadistic… and read to the end. Enjoy! *wicked grin*
Songs: Blank Space/Style mash-up by Louisa Wendorff and Devin Dawson (this song is pure crack. I didn't even like either of the originals, but this… this is perfection)
"Wolf," Alex whispered and shook her mother's shoulder gently. "Wolf, I'm a doctor now."
Emma rubbed a hand over her face, trying to figure out why her niece called her by her mother's name. It all came crashing back to her, and she groaned. Thankfully, Henry stepped up to help out with the little girl that day because she apparently crashed out on the couch in the middle of a tea party. She and Regina had yet to say two words to each other. Perhaps Regina waited for her to start the conversation. She cracked her eyes to find Alex with a toy stethoscope and other paraphernalia that a nurse might have. They slipped shut again, and she readjusted her head on the pillow.
"What's my problem, Little Wolf? Can you cure it?" Emma played along, cracking her eyes again to grin at the little girl.
Alex touched her fingers, her tiny hand wrapping around the middle knuckle. She stared at the blank, mangled spaces where her nails should have been. Sadness crossed the girl's tiny features, and Emma touched her face with the other hand. Her big blue eyes remained fixated on her fingers, though, and gingerly she touched the sensitive skin.
"Easy, Baby," Emma cautioned gently so as not to frighten the girl. Curiosity ruled her actions.
"You can't play songs," Alex said, trying to understand the injury.
"Not yet, but I think I'll make a full recovery," Emma comforted the girl with a wink. She grinned up at her, but that same fear resided in her eyes.
"Alex, are you ready for lunch?" Regina asked as she entered the living room. She wore an apron and wiped her hands on a towel, and the image caught Emma off guard. She looked like Regina, her Regina. She pulled herself into a sitting position and leaned against the arm of the sofa as Alex ran towards the foyer.
"I'll bring some soup, Emma. Let me get the children settled." Her voice rumbled pleasantly, reserved and calm, much calmer than it'd been since Katy attempted suicide. She wrung the towel and ducked her head as she turned, hair falling strikingly across her cheek.
Emma listened to her click away in the thick heels with Ruby's sensitive ears. She spoke to Henry and Katy in the dining room, asking them to keep an eye on the two younger siblings of the house, and then clicked to the kitchen before returning. She sat a bowl of broth on the coffee table with a few crackers on the plate beneath it. Her eyes, though downcast, studied Emma's pinched features.
"Do you need something else? Water or tea?" She asked, saying what she'd not intended in order to have a chance to say the things she did. Emma recognized the tactic and sighed deeply, crossing her arms over Ruby's thin ribs.
"Regina, we need to talk," Emma declared, her chest burning with memories of the previous night, the abrupt change from the night they swapped. Everything had looked so bright for them 72 hours ago. Now Emma barely tolerated the sight of the woman who had begged to be loved by her for the last two months.
"Yes, I suppose we do," Regina conceded regally. Emma scooted against the back of the couch, and Regina sat beside her thigh at an angle to face her, knees pressed together tightly. "May I begin with apologizing if I said or did anything last night which upset you? I apparently said some horrific things to Belle." Regina's shoulders and face fell with remorse, guilt, pain. What the hell had she said to Belle to cause such a dramatic reaction? She spent the past two plus years obtaining Belle's forgiveness.
"I don't even want to talk about your attraction to Ruby, which has apparently been building since you went back to fairytale land, or the fact that you practically molested her and tried to talk her into having sex with you while in my body in front of everyone at The Rabbit Hole with me sitting right beside you." Emma's words grated over her tongue harshly, and her stomach churned uncomfortably with the memory.
Regina's chest twitched like her chest clenched with the recapitulation of her actions. "I'm sorry, Emma. Truly."
"You're not in love with me," Emma dove straight into the frigid waters of their problems, brushing away the apology. It had done very little to soothe Emma's insecurity, so she went for broke, laying everything on the table at once. Regina's gaze fell to the hands clasped anxiously in her lap.
"No, I'm not," she agreed quietly, the grief too deep to express. "You're not her, no matter how much we've all tried to force you into that role."
Emma heaved a wet breath, feeling better for having the words uttered between the two of them. "I tried, Regina. I really did," Emma breathed, unable to stop the tears from blurring her vision. The sorceress took her hand, clasping it tightly in her own.
"As did I, Darling," she affirmed, allowing tears of her own to fall unhampered onto her cheeks. Emma squeezed her hand, supporting her silently. "We're not being fair to our family or to each other."
Emma shook her head, slinging tears over her face. Regina wiped them tenderly. "I do love you, Regina. I love our family. I can't imagine my life without them. I'd never leave you guys. You got me for good." She smiled sadly, knowing the truth beneath the words shone brightly in Ruby's brown eyes.
"I'd never ask that of you, especially with the children," Regina soothed the slight fear that she'd take soul custody, cut Emma out because of her inability to care for them in her current condition. This wasn't that sort of situation. "We'll find a resolution, Emma. We always have."
"I can start looking for a place when I get a job," Emma thought aloud, but Regina waved her hand dismissively.
"I'll take care of you. You needn't worry about money. This is your home, Emma, and you're welcome to stay as long as you'd like. If you wish to live elsewhere, I'll support you as long you require." What Regina hadn't said struck them both harder than what she had. If she wanted to continue living in the mansion, Regina gave her that option because they both knew that Regina couldn't replace the Emma she lost, not with this version of her wife or any other person in existence. Emma wondered if she'd ever replace Regina.
"This is really happening," Emma murmured in disbelief. They had tried so hard. After the past two months, it hardly seemed fair that they survived in one piece only to realize that it wasn't going to work.
"I can't pretend any longer, Emma. Your memories aren't going to return, and we've spent far too much energy attempting to rekindle something that simply doesn't exist anymore." Grief clawed and scraped the inside of her chest, attempting to break free. She wanted to scream, to lash out, to expel the creature of anguish growing where her heart should have been.
"What if they come back?" Emma presented the hypothetical situation hopefully, but it sputtered and died in her heart when Regina shook her head sadly.
"I cannot live my life based on what if's. My heart cannot bear the pain any longer, and our children deserve better from us. They're what's important, and we need to put them back at the top of our priorities once more, where they should have remained."
"I agree, but if they do…" Emma tried again. This woman sacrificed so much for her. She wanted Regina to be happy. She wanted to feel grounded again, a real part of this family instead of the invalid they all took care of because she couldn't remember how to do it on her own.
"If they return, we'll cope with it then," Regina answered with no real hope in her eyes. "Until then, I cannot bear to hope for more than this." She squeezed Emma's hand.
"So, this isn't necessarily an end in your eyes, just a pause for the moment to put everything back together and then try again?" Emma clarified, finding that option much more appealing than a divorce.
"I suppose, if you're agreeable to the idea," Regina placed the decision delicately into her hands, not daring to hope for or condemn their marriage.
Emma snorted, her entire head moving with the motion. Her gaze dropped to their joined hands, and she swallowed tears. "You're going to wait for her for the rest of your life, aren't you?"
"I'd cast another curse and wait an eternity if I knew she'd return to me at the end of time and break the spell," Regina declared passionately. The conviction in her quiet proclamation caught Emma's breath in her throat, and she raised her eyes to the beautiful caramel of the woman stoically fighting tears and winning. Regina believed, no matter how fervently she denied it to protect her heart.
"Regina, let's not do this," Emma changed her mind, catching the older woman off guard. "Anyone who loves that deeply, and I believe that you do, is never going to give up. It hardly seems fair if I do, at least so soon."
"You don't have to do this for me, Emma. I won't ask you to sacrifice anything else for me." Regina tried to pull away from her hand, but the other woman held firm, not allowing her hand to escape an inch.
"Yes, I do. I want what you had, Regina. Things are coming back. I remembered being a bail bondsperson. Maybe I'll remember everything else tomorrow. If you need to just be like this until our family is more stable, that's fine with me, but don't give up on me yet. So much has come back, just… not a lot about us. Isn't that strange?" Emma laughed at the irony. "I've remembered things about Ruby and Katy and snippets of Annabel and Henry. Everything is coming back but us."
"What about saying our blood oath and the memories of Salem you spoke of the other night?" Regina's brow pinched in confusion, and Emma's cheeks reddened dramatically while she scratched her forehead anxiously.
"I asked Ruby to tell me things that I could tell you to make you feel better. Regina…" Emma ground her teeth together and pushed a deep sigh through her nostrils. "I don't have a single memory of you. It's like you never existed in my mind, but my heart feels you. I know that everything you're telling me is true, the love we shared, the relationship we had. It's just gone, and I don't know why."
"You don't remember anything?" Regina demanded, her beautiful mind turning with some sort of dark thought.
"Not a damn thing," Emma confirmed. She tried to be strong instead of giving into the fear slowly eclipsing her heart, but Regina's sour expression and the rolling thunderclouds in her darkening eyes frightened her more. Had someone taken her memories with magic? She needed Amelia, but that wasn't an option until the neurosurgeon recovered from being stabbed.
"You lied to me," she scathed, eyes darkening with the betrayal of the admission.
"I never meant to lie or deceive you. I just wanted to give you hope. It made you so happy when I remembered things. I guess I was just buying time. I didn't mean to…" She stopped abruptly when Regina practically snarled at her.
"Enough, Emma. I've made my decision," Regina said firmly, holding her hand up for emphasis. "You'll be in my life, simply not as my wife or lover. I'm sorry that it ended this way, but I cannot carry on as a girl with no responsibilities anymore. I've three children who require my attention, one apparently a neurotic infant and the other suicidal, and a Council to rebuild from scratch."
"Regina." Emma reached for the other woman, but Regina stood abruptly from reach. A switch flipped inside of the sorceress, the same one that snapped the previous night when she'd taken after Ruby, and any progress they'd just made slipped away in the black hole of grief in the older woman's heart. "Regina, don't shut me out," she begged, tears already burning her eyes and throat.
"Enough," Regina whispered coldly, eyes closed against the pain. "Please, Emma. Enough."
The doorbell interrupted the desperate plea on Emma's tongue, and Regina disappeared into the foyer without further comment. Emma released the breath she'd been holding and readjusted her aching body on the sofa. How the hell had Ruby always made this look so flawless? Transforming hurt, made her joints ache, stretched muscles. Maybe if she remembered the experience, it served as a buffer to the pain, but that wasn't an option. More memory voids, more questions, not enough answers. Emma slouched into the cushions, pulling her knees to her chest and crossing her arms over her chest. She really wanted to curl into a ball and have a decent cry.
Eva entered a moment later, and Emma raised her eyes but offered nothing else as greeting. Eva sat on the coffee table, and Regina stood in the doorway. Emma raised her gaze a little further to meet her eyes, but she never moved into the room further, never made any indication that what they'd discussed two minutes ago affected her at all. The black layers of scar tissue and grief covered her Regina once more in a thick, protective balm of emptiness. It hurt Emma's heart, but the moment for emotional connection had passed for that day. Perhaps the next, Emma thought hopefully and turned her full attention to the nurse and surgeon.
"Emma, I'm just going to feel around inside you, okay? You won't feel anything, but I do like to work in silence," Eva explained, ever clinical and rational. How much pain had that woman felt to snap and attack her and Katy that day?
"Eva would you care for lasagna? I made a dish for lunch," Regina offered genially. Everyone glanced straight through the front Regina presented, but no one commented on it. Knowing the two chi-manipulating creatures before her, they already sensed their upheaval.
"I'll have some. Your lasagna is like a mouth orgasm with red pepper flakes," Lauren answered and slipped into the room with the bag Eva had carried the night she pulled them out. Eva smiled endearingly. Her girlfriend ate as much as Emma and Ruby.
Regina narrowed her eyes at the succubus, and Emma jerked in surprise. Regina liked both of the medical professionals, so why had she looked like she wanted to eat their souls for a brief moment. It ended as quickly as it came, and the witch disappeared into the foyer again, presumably to get Lauren a plate of food and check on the kids. Emma let it go. Regina ached as much as the rest of them. Her moods swings weren't unexpected or unreasonable.
"How are feeling, Emma?" Lauren asked, doing her physical exam instead of Eva. The pen light hurt her eyes, the blood pressure cuff cut into her arm, the only thing that hadn't hurt was listening to her chest and taking her pulse.
"I'm okay besides puking up raw deer and achy," she muttered, still embarrassed. How the hell had Ruby found the courage to show her face in town again after everyone remembered that she'd eaten Peter? There was a joke in there somewhere about cannibals, but Emma left it alone, something she might not have previously done.
"Achy?" Lauren asked, and Eva perked.
"Yeah, almost like I have a fever, but I guess it's just the day after the full moon. I don't know what it is. I'll have to ask Ruby when she gets back," Emma explained. She figured that the raw meat hadn't given her an infection or anything. Ruby's body was part wolf, more resilient than most.
"Emma, is it okay if I study your chi?" The succubus sought permission with all the seriousness of a physiological condition, which kept Emma's laugh inside. She nodded, and Lauren reached for her hands. Emma stared at the bandaged place where the fourth finger should have been, met Lauren's bright green eyes sheepishly, and took her hands.
Lauren hissed, and Eva squeezed her shoulder supportively. "She's so fractured, Eva," the succubus whispered. "It must be the energy required for the wolf blood."
"What the hell is going on, Eva?" Emma demanded. The cryptic talk surrounding her condition freaked her out. Lauren opened her eyes and dropped her hands, cradling her maimed left hand.
"I'm not sure, Emma," the nurse said gently. "We've never dealt with a body swap before. Your energy isn't meant to fuel Ruby's body, her soul. Your chi is fractured and scattered at the moment. You're mixed and probably confused about things at the moment, so you should probably refrain from making life-altering decisions until you're in the right body." Eva nodded, agreeing with Lauren's assessment.
They left out the fact that Emma probably slowly lost her mind as her energy focused on keeping the soul within the foreign body alive. They needed a fix and fast. Ruby's energy probably could have fueled Emma's body for years, or at least until she started tapping into Emma's magic. Who knew how much chi energy that required?
"Can I do a quick soul search?" Eva asked respectfully. They recognized the fear and apprehension in the other woman. Who wouldn't have been scared by what she'd just been told?
"I think I want Regina in here for this," Emma yearned, even as she reached for Eva's hands.
"Go ahead, Eva. I'll go get her," Lauren offered. Eva nodded, her scar moving and wriggling atop her skin as Lauren disappeared into the house.
"Eva, what are you looking for exactly?" Emma felt certain she hadn't wanted the answer, but she asked the question anyway.
"I'm confused, honestly. How many memories have you recovered since being in this body?" Emma thought seriously about the question before she answered. She'd recovered almost as much in the past two days as the past two months, except for the bits revolving around Regina. When she floundered, Eva directed her. "Do you remember being shot?"
"Yeah, I was in a coma for a while. It's kind of fuzzy, nothing specific, but I know that it happened. I know that I broke the first curse and was gone for about six months. I went nuts for a while and basically kidnapped Annabel because I had the wrong heart. I slept with Amelia." Emma ticked off new things in her mind, surprised by how much she remembered. The images slipped right in without her knowledge, and it felt good to have them, to ground herself in a sense of identity.
"What about the mine accident?" That moment defined her relationship with Regina and cemented the town's opinion of her.
"There was a mine accident?"
Eva nodded, seemingly unconcerned with her lack of recall. "What about meeting Henry," she continued, eyes closed as she delved into her subconscious, following the memories as Emma pulled them to the surface. She could have gone deeper if she wanted, but she risked damaging the precious little she'd recovered of her life in Storybrooke.
"Uhh, he found me in Boston. I brought him home. I stayed. Graham died, and I became sheriff." Emma closed her eyes reveling in the flood of pictures in her mind and feelings in her heart, even the bad ones. Eva followed her through the memories, allowing Emma's mind to be the guide.
"Nothing of Regina?" Eva asked opening her eyes. Emma shook her head, confused as hell. "Even with the little you just told me, you should have at least glimpses of her. I saw nothing, not one image aside from the ones you've created after the accident."
"Wait, why am I recovering more in Ruby's body?" Emma scratched her forehead and then crossed her arms over her stomach. It was very Emma, and looked odd on the wolf.
"Ruby's brain is not damaged, and her body is much stronger than yours. If your memories are buried in your subconscious, they should come to light a little at a time. I think your amnesia is real, Emma, but I don't think it was a completely random event. No one knows exactly how your cruiser was rigged to explode when it crossed the line. You clearly weren't meant to survive and wouldn't have if Belle and Ruby hadn't figured out how to cross the line without consequence."
"What are you saying, Eva? That I didn't die, so someone gave me a potion that made me forget Regina while I was in a coma? Why do I still feel her in my heart, then?" She presented her questions with ire at the violation instead of fear at the situation. Combating a tangible enemy scared her far less than warring with herself, her brain that no one could have healed, not even the brilliant and skilled Amelia Shepherd.
"I imagine what you feel is the blood oath you made the day of your wedding. You're connected by your souls, even if you can't remember that. Nothing that I know of can break a blood oath," Eva theorized, giving her the only possible explanation for the bizarre discovery.
"So, I got magically poisoned," she seethed.
"It's possible. Ben did work at the hospital, coming and going as he pleased," Eva mused, her brain working much faster than her mouth. "Call David. Tell him to get over to Ben's apartment and wherever Jacob was staying," she said suddenly. "I want every single paper scoured for an explanation to this."
"What are you going to do?" Emma asked, following the soul seer into the foyer.
"I have to consult the spirit world," she tossed over her shoulder cryptically. "Lauren, we need to go," she called towards the kitchen, barely shoving the medical things she'd brought into the bag, so violently were her hands trembling.
Lauren came from the kitchen in just a few seconds, her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter and waved before following her lover to the front door. Adrenaline coursed through Emma's system. It wasn't her, the panicked look in Eva's eye confirmed it. Someone had done this to them. Someone took them to hurt Regina, to break her. She'd become too good, too untouchable, so they attacked her family to weaken her. It sounded like psychological warfare at its finest, and Jacob was brilliant enough to pull off such a thing.
Regina shifted by the kitchen door still cracked and splintered from the energy ball that Belle had thrown at her head the day all of this started. Emma stared, chest heaving as hope and determination swelled there. She wasn't done. She'd promised to come home and intended to keep that promise. Her last chance slipped into her fingers, and she clutched at it like the lifeline that it was. It ended in bliss or disaster. Either way, they both deserved to exhaust every option to save this connection they felt in their souls.
Emma knew Regina felt it, too. The tangible pull to the other woman led wide, confident strides across the foyer. She was Emma Fucking Swan, and no on fucked with the woman she loved, even if the only evidence of that tugged inexplicably in her heart. One hand buried into dark, silky hair and the other slid around Regina's hips. Regina resisted as their lips crashed together, but Emma crushed her body against Ruby's, not letting her pull away. Emma broke the kiss after a few seconds to study Regina's eyes.
She felt different, more confident, sure of what she wanted for the first time since Regina revealed their relationship in the hospital. Even with Ruby's wide, chocolate eyes, Regina saw her wife within them, more so than any other moment in the past two months. Emma cocked her head to the side slightly and fitted her lips to Regina's again, softer but no less passionate. After a moment, Regina's moved against hers as her hands slid up Ruby's thin biceps until they rested on her collarbones.
Emma slipped both hands around the sides of her neck, thumbs brushing tenderly over her jawbones. Regina melted into her. When Emma took charge in such a manner, even in Ruby's body, imagining her wife wasn't difficult at all. Self-preservation urged her to resist, to run from the pain this indubitably brought when it crashed and burned again, but this was Emma. How could she have run from Emma?
The Savior broke the kiss slowly and bumped her forehead to Regina's. "You do what you need to do, Regina. Fix your Council, be with the kids. Those things are important, Regina, but so are we." She kissed her softly one more time and then spun abruptly towards the front door.
"Where are you going?" Regina asked a little breathlessly.
"I need to talk to Amelia about my brain. I'll be back in a little bit," Emma tossed over her shoulder, red cape sweeping behind her from the breeze of her stride.
Regina touched her chest, feeling Emma move beneath her skin once more, evidence of their blood bond. With a faint blush, she touched her cheek and turned towards the dining room to find the eyes of her teenagers upon her, wide and bewildered. She startled at the their previously unknown presence, brow furrowing at their dropped jaws and shocked expressions. Regina reminded herself that Emma currently paraded about in Ruby's body, but neither Henry nor Katy knew that yet.
"I suppose I should explain our current predicament," she mumbled, cheeks flushing with the thought of what it must have looked like to her children. Their unhinged jaws attested to that clearly enough, and Regina laughed because crying really wasn't an option in that moment.
For the first time in so long, maybe the first time ever, she laughed until her belly ached while her teenagers stared in confusion.