xxi. like looking into a mirror (about to shatter with only a touch)
Roland is hanging upside down on the monkey bars while one of the older Lost Boys- the one whose heart she'd taken, actually, though she finds she doesn't particularly care when he shoots her a nasty look- sits on top of them, holding onto his feet. The little boy sees Regina approaching and beams at her, and she smiles back as she sits down on the bench beside Robin.
"You're not here to tell me you've reconsidered," he says, leaning back.
She shakes her head and watches Roland as Robin fishes in his pocket. He extracts a necklace, her chain with Daniel's ring at the end, and says, "I believe this belongs to you."
"Thank you." She takes it from him, the ring cool against her palm, and contemplates it. It's always difficult to think too hard about the girl she'd once been- about the child, innocent and caged but so kind and loving. It leaves her straining for something out of reach, yearning for the simplicity of a youth when she'd been teeming with the goodness of fools. She prefers not to imagine what that girl would think of her now.
She shudders to think of Daniel seeing the Evil Queen at her prime.
"I owe you an apology," Robin says slowly. "Several, perhaps."
"You don't owe me anything."
"I knew," he murmurs. "I knew before we came here that you loved another. I could see it in your eyes when you spoke of Henry, when you spoke of this land." They'd had quiet moments together between jibes and insults, back in the Enchanted Forest. She'd been drawn to him from the start and hadn't wanted to, had craved the misery and the loneliness that a life without Henry- without Emma- had offered her. And each time he'd gotten past her defenses she'd hated him a little more for it.
And then, without her memories of him, she'd seen his tattoo and made the connection and jumped headfirst into the relationship that had been fated to be hers.
Robin is still talking, and she focuses on him again. "And when I saw you with Emma, I knew again. But I kept pursuing you, remained with you even when I could see that you weren't happy. I attributed it all to your love for her and forced myself to ignore the signs for as long as I could, persuading myself that I would win you over in time." He sighs. "I should have tried to make you happy instead of attempting to make you love me."
"I wanted to love you," she tells him. "I think…" She remembers the lion tattoo again, remembers the hope surging in her chest that there would be someone who could love her. Even if Emma had had men hurling themselves at her from all sides, even if Henry couldn't remember who she was. There had been the man with the lion tattoo, and he'd been her final chance. "I got so caught up in what we were supposed to be that I never thought about what we actually were."
"And what were we?"
"Rushing," she admits. "Taking our cues from pixie dust and falling into a relationship that neither of us were ready for. There was so much about who I'd been that you'd never truly experienced, and I would never wish that upon you."
"And you still haven't come to terms with some of it yourself," Robin says gently, a shadow crossing his face. "I would fight for you."
She laughs, close to bitter. "Please don't."
"I would," he continues doggedly, "But I think back to last night and I know that you wanted Emma. That you'll always go to Emma when you need that support. And I'm never going to be that person for you, am I?"
There's pain on his face, a silent plea still there, and she whispers, "I can't apologize to you for loving Emma. I can't."
He's quiet, and she tightens her grip on Daniel's ring. "Loving Henry brought me back to life after I'd spent eighteen years asleep, drowning in my own bitterness. He forced me to find goodness in myself, to find those parts of me that I'd thought I'd locked away forever."
"And loving Emma?" Robin asks tiredly, like he doesn't want the answer at all. "How did that change you?"
"It didn't," she says, her lips curling into something between smile and grimace. "I wasn't changed. I was the same woman who'd hated her and the same who'd worked with her anyway. The one who'd been trying to be Henry's ideal, the one steeped in darkness. Bitter and angry and selfish and in love with a woman who listened to me when I spoke and believed in me, for all my faults. And I…" She closes her eyes, thinks about Snow's earnest eyes and You're enough, Regina and for a moment she can almost believe it. "I never want to lose hold of that part of myself, regardless of how many pirates Emma Swan dates. That part of the evil queen that can love."
Robin watches her intently, like he's about to suggest all the ways that he can do the same, and she shakes her head, almost imperceptibly. "Please don't," she repeats, barely audible.
"I suppose I'll return to the building being converted for my Merry Men's use," he says instead. "Aurora and her child have been staying with Mulan while we continue to search for her husband and she's offered to look after Roland while I'm working. At least I'll be supervising the Lost Boys at night now." He rolls his eyes. "Emma's been suggesting that I'm not fully committed to my work if I don't live with the rest of them. It's all quite passive-aggressive."
She smirks at the image, Emma and Robin tramping through the woods, muttering insults better suited to someone half their ages. Emma snippy and hostile toward Robin on her behalf. "Sounds like." She grows serious. "I would still like to be a part of Roland's life, if you'll allow it." She's treated him as her own child these past few months, loved him without abandon in the way she reserves just for children and had warmed each time he'd accidentally called her mama.
"Of course." Light eyes search her own for a moment, seeking out some inner thought that she refuses to speak aloud, and he says, "I think it would be best that we remained friends, then. For Roland's sake."
She flushes and warms and feels another load roll off her shoulders as she agrees, "For Roland's sake."
He leans over to press his lips to her forehead, and she lays her head against his arm, grateful for this, at least. For Robin, who's become important to her even if she's certain that she would never again want him as anything more than that. "What does it mean, if we're soulmates but not together?"
"It means we search for happy endings elsewhere," Robin says simply. "I don't put much stock into magic and pixie dust and instructions of who I might be."
"I do. I did," she corrects quickly, not entirely sure that the latter is true. She's known too much of magic, too much of fate in the past to believe that straying from it is as easy as a breakup. She knows better than to shrug it off even now.
He smiles down at her. "Well, if we find that that happiness is impossible, you know where I'll be."
She sighs against him. I'd rather be alone, she thinks but doesn't say. She'd rather be happy with Henry than trapped again in this prescribed future, imagining Leopold's face on Robin's and hating him for things done to her by another man.
He puts a hand against the center of her back, between her shoulders. "Do you think it could have been different? If there had been no pixie dust and you'd never known that I was your soulmate? Could you have stayed with me?"
He's looking for comfort but all she can think about is Emma, whom she'd loved all along in a way that stops up her heart and throat and she can't dream of anyone who could be more than her. And she doesn't want to lie to him, so she remains silent and curls in closer.
He smiles, and it's with more contained sorrow than he's had all afternoon. "It's only that…you never made yourself small around me before."
She hadn't. She looms, she challenges, she stands with her head high as though surrounded by enemies at all times. She remains larger than life and unquestioned by force of habit, and she thinks for a moment of the comfort in being gathered in another's embrace last night, of feeling warm and surrounded and tiny in Emma's arms. Of willingly making herself small for a moment, of No wait, I'm sorry and Let me die as Regina and I'm talking about our magic. Of being just Regina instead of a queen so immense that no one can see beyond that.
She closes her eyes and says, "I'm supposed to meet Henry at Granny's after school. Why don't you come along so we can talk to him about all this?"
Granny's is at its height of business during the first hour after school lets out, when students stop in with their parents for an after-school dessert or in a gaggle of classmates, crowding in for some cocoa and settling in to study together. It's not a surprise to see Emma there, leaning against the wall in the outdoor seating area like she's waiting for Henry too, and Regina turns to Robin to excuse herself for a minute. She hasn't seen Emma since the night before, and knowing Emma, if she doesn't say something now she'll be avoided for another week.
But Robin is staring at Emma with a furrowed brow and vague distaste, and when Regina turns back she sees what she'd missed. What she rarely notices until he makes himself known- Hook, leaning in to kiss Emma, all facial hair and lips and the smugness in his eyes that he has every time Emma Swan looks at him the right way.Fuck, she thinks uncharacteristically, and her heart abruptly stops beating.
She can't tear her eyes away from them, even when Roland tugs at her hand and whines about ice cream, studying the way Emma tilts her head back and waits for the kiss. At the way that her hands remain at her side and her eyes are closed, unresponsive in any way but in the kiss itself. There's something familiar about it, and she struggles through rage and confusion and hurt to try and pin it down but comes up short.
Is this how Emma had felt, her feelings for Regina clear and rejected and Regina's attention on someone else? Unable to rightfully be angry at Regina because she doesn't belong to her, because they're nothing more than friends who've dared to have feelings one won't express?
Roland pulls away to run inside and she's still staring, her eyes boring holes into Hook's back as he puts a hand on Emma's arm, as Emma's hands remain at her sides and she angles back to put more distance between them. And abruptly, Regina knows exactly what that kiss is, because she'd done the same dozens of times. She'd done it because Nothing Was Wrong, because she was exactly where she'd been trying to convince herself that she wanted to be. She'd kissed like she was dreading it, and Emma kisses the same way.
And because Regina's not Emma, because her impatience lies in far more selfish places than Emma's and her hurt tends to supersede everything else she should be feeling, she says loudly, "There are children here," and stalks past them.
Emma jerks away from Hook, catching her eyes before she can fully make her way inside. Her cheeks are red and she bites her lip and says, very coolly, "Regina. Robin. And how is Storybrooke's First Couple today?"
"Oh, don't be obnoxious, dear," Regina snaps, annoyed at the dismay on Emma's face. As though she has a say in who can be hurt right now. "We're explaining to Henry that Robin will be moving out. Not everyone sends their ex to jail after a relationship ends."
Emma's jaw clenches and Regina knows instantly that she'd gone too far, that in her hurt she'd crossed the line between playful and painful in their never-ending banter. "Emma," she tries, stretching out a hand to grasp her arm. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah." Emma looks down, biting her lip again like it hadn't just been thoroughly debauched by Regina's least favorite person in this town. "I know." The anger is gone as quickly as it had come, replaced by a smile so false that it's laughable on Emma Swan. "So what are you going to tell him? This is going to break his heart."
She squints at Emma, relieved when her heart rate slows down to normal levels. "You think so?"
Emma nods to Robin. "He worships you. Always talking about how badass you are, how you once stole a wand from the Dark One, how you took down ten of the queen's guards once mid-bath." She sounds sour about it, and Regina bites back a smile. Apparently, Henry's gone for a more subtle maneuver in his attempts to win Emma over to his cause. Simple jealousy for a wholly simple woman. "I slayed a dragon for him."
"You do talk about that dragon quite a bit," Robin notes. "Is that all you've ever done?"
Emma gasps in outrage as they make their way over to the table Roland's picked out for them, Emma sitting opposite Regina and beside Roland in his booth. "I've done plenty! Right, Regina?"
"Right," Regina says indulgently, pushing thoughts of that kiss from her mind. If she dwells on it too much she can't stop wanting to hurt them both for it, to lash out and say things she shouldn't. And Hook's words from weeks before ring through her mind.And now she's running again. To you. The most unavailable person she cares for.
And now that she's available, that they'd spent a night wrapped together and she'd bared so much of her soul to Emma, is this it? Has Emma stopped running and returned to the one she'd wanted all along?
She hates not knowing but she's far too proud to demand answers, especially when they're to questions that she'd already rejected outright. Nothing has changed, she reminds herself. She's still a liability to Emma, someone bound to cause her more pain than good. She's still the one destined for another, even if they're apart forever, and Emma has her own destiny beyond Regina.
They stare at each other from across the table, hardness in their eyes as they offer false smiles, and Emma tears her gaze away first to say, "Actually, Robin, I wanted to talk to you."
He raises his eyebrows at her. "Oh?"
"You've been working with me free of charge, but if you're on your own now…I do have space in my new budget for a second deputy sheriff. It's more of the same work, just now you get money for it." She grins, and it's nearly genuine. "How about it?"
Robin looks startled. "Me, a sheriff? I can't say it's much of a fit. I am an outlaw, after all." His brow crinkles. "My greatest nemesis was a sheriff, actually."
"Yeah?"
"We were…" He blinks, looking suddenly discomfited. "We were romantic rivals as well."
"Imagine that," Emma says, deadpan. She leans forward, elbows on the table and fingers tucked under her chin. "So who won?"
Regina purses her lips and ignores them both determinedly, even when Emma's knees accidentally bump hers under the table. Robin raises his chin. "Well, I married her and we had a child together before her death."
"Huh." Emma's face is still for a moment, and when Regina glances at her, there's something dark and very young in her eyes, bare to the world. She tosses her hair to the side and her expression smoothes over. "Well, it's legal now if you really want to take Hook down to town hall. But I think it might break my dad's heart if he married someone else."
Robin barks out a laugh and Regina decides that she's had enough of this conversation. "I thought you were going to use that money I'd allotted to you for your raise?" she inquires. She'd set it aside for her before the weekend, acknowledging that, yes, the sheriff's department does considerably more than it had under the curse, and they deserved more funding.
"Oh, I don't need it!" Emma's eyes light up. "Killian bartered some of Neal's old stuff with Gold in exchange for a rent break, so I've got the apartment as of this morning. I'm moving in next weekend."
Maybe it's just the happy "Killian," tossed out as though Emma's finally fully embracing her relationship with Hook. Maybe it's the fact that after all their discussion, she hadn't even gotten to look at the apartment that Emma and Henry are planning on spending their lives in. Maybe it's that she'd been the one who was going to help them with it, who'd wanted to give Emma this new happiness when her last happy ending had been cut short so abruptly. But she's suddenly angry, eyes flashing and straightening in her seat, and she says, "You rented the apartment without checking with me?"
Emma frowns. "You knew I was looking at it. We've talked about this."
"I haven't even seen it. How do I know that it's suitable for y- for Henry? What sort of taste does a woman who's been forcing my son to sleep on a mattress for months have? Does he even get his own room, or is there just one for you and your Killian?" she spits out. Her chest feels tight, like everything inside that's been straining to break free is finally coming to the fore, and she knows she's snapping again, being abrasive to someone who's given her far too much, and she can't stop. "Has he had any choice in the matter?"
Emma doesn't look angry as much as she looks weary, exhaustion settling her eyes, and Regina remembers that she hadn't slept all night and had spent far too much time taking care of her. "Okay," she says slowly, standing up. "I'm gonna–" She flees for the back of Granny's in a flash of blonde and red, leaving Robin and Regina staring at each other.
"You really haven't been secretly with her all this time, have you?" Robin says, shaking his head, and she gives him a dirty look and follows Emma.
She's standing in the back hall in front of the bathrooms, leaning back against the wall and breathing hard, and she doesn't look up when Regina arrives. She doesn't know how to apologize for something so petty, how to discuss this without the unfair jealousy that accompanies her frustration, and she doesn't speak until Emma does. "I wanted to give you a break," Emma says, staring up at the ceiling tiles above. "You've had so much going on and I didn't think my apartment was so important to you."
"It was," Regina admits, wrapping her arms around her waist. "Helping you was." Emma's done so much for her, been so much for her that she finds that all she wants to do is give, is grant Emma every happiness in the world.
And it's as simple in that moment, Emma's head tilting down so her eyes meet Regina's and Regina taking a step forward to reach for Emma's hands. It's as simple as the moment she'd looked into an infant's eyes and determined that she would do everythingin her power to make sure that he'd be loved and safe and happy for the rest of his life. It's the moment she decides that she can give Emma what she deserves, even if she's selfish and unworthy. That she will love her, that this is worth pursuing even after all her doubts.
She takes another step forward and hears Emma's breath hitch, feels hands reach up to grasp her elbows and Emma leans inward and then they're kissing, Emma holding tightly to her and Regina's eyes wide open as she catches sight of blonde hair and bright eyes and lips that pepper her face with more kisses as she moves closer still, pinning Emma against the wall as Emma tugs her against her torso, as tightly wrapped together as they'd been in her bed the night before.
And then it's Emma who pulls her lips away from Regina as Regina lets out a muffled protest, and Emma who sighs and says, "I am so bad at impulse control," into her shoulder.
Regina's smile drops. "What the hell does that mean?"
They're still holding onto each other, tight enough that it's more than a hug and Regina can feel Emma as she pants against her, and her fingers splay out across the slight curve of Emma's rear and Emma says, "We can't be doing this. I can't be doing this. Not when…" She presses her face into Regina's shoulder again instead of finishing the sentence.
This whole afternoon has become some warped torture for Regina, just desserts for the past few months between the two of them, and she doesn't know if she wants to laugh or cry or demand more answers from Emma. She hadn't thought about how difficult it might have been for Emma because she hadn't owed Emma anything, had in fact been protecting her from the idiocy of ever wanting Regina. And now Emma owes her nothing but she's seething with frustration and suddenly desperate to escape this hall, to be away from Emma before she hurts anymore.
Instead she says, "You left this morning," and Emma says, "I'll need help moving in," at the exact same time and they stare at each other with mutual helplessness and Regina can't let go of Emma after all.
She says, "I want to help," and Emma says, "I'm sorry," and they hold each other tighter, arms wrapped around each other as though they'll topple down to the ground if they separate.
And when Emma finally lowers her arms, Regina does in fact stumble back against the opposite wall, feeling hopelessly adrift and very, very lost.
xxii. an exercise in self-control (trust a charming to be this bad at it)
"You're here!" David announces when he opens the door, relief on his face. "She's here!" he calls out toward the stairs and Regina watches, bemused, as there's a parade of feet down the stairs from Emma's bedroom to the door of the loft.
"Oh, thank god." Snow balances Leo on her hip and takes Regina's hand to tug her to the steps. "We've been- well, you'll see."
What they've been doing is attempting to bring Emma's bed downstairs in one piece, with typical Charming bullheaded impatience. And naturally now it's on its side and threatening to slide down onto all of them while Henry and Hook and Emma stand below, pushing desperately at it.
She quirks a brow. "It's been a half hour since you said you'd start moving Emma out, and you've already managed this disaster?"
"Shh. I can handle this." Emma's eyes are closed, her focus on the bed, and it lurches forward toward Henry as he shrieks and nearly falls down the stairs.
"You will not manhandle our son!" Regina says sharply, raising her hand to lift the bed. It soars through the air, separating into frame and box spring and mattress, and lands neatly on its side next to her.
Henry flashes her a grin while Emma pouts. "I was doing fine!"
"You were one magically powered shove from breaking Henry's leg!"
But Emma is smiling again, following Henry down the stairs to greet her. "Thanks for coming." It's almost shy, and then she swipes her tongue over her lips and Regina knows exactly what she's thinking about.
She bites her own lip and Emma watches it for a moment before she tears her gaze away. "Yes, well, someone has to make sure you idiots don't kill our son." She's been dragging her feet all morning, reluctant to come here and watch Emma with Killian all day. It had never hurt quite this much before, when Emma had been reluctant and Regina had been distracted, and now she finds herself scowling at every light touch of his against Emma's arm, every time she tosses him a grin and every time he kisses her. It feels like…
It feels like Emma's been lying to one of them all along, like she's said things she'd never meant and reconsidered them all, and Regina loathes her a tiny bit for it.
But then she'd thought about Emma lying facedown on her bed and her first choices for an apartment and how alone she'd feel after pushing her parents away, and she hadn't been able to stay at home and let Emma go through that alone.
It's strange, caring more about Emma than about what Emma can do for her. She wonders if this is what it's like to be a Charming, annoyingly simpering and always giving, giving, giving to the people they'd taken so much from in the past. If this is how she makes amends. You don't need to keep trying to die for us to prove you're enough.
And maybe she has nothing to prove anymore to them, but Emma needs her.
She follows the other woman up the staircase to where there are three large boxes piled up in Emma's now-bare room. "You've already moved everything else?"
Emma shakes her head. "Henry's stuff is mostly at your place, anyway, so he only had a box. The rest of this is mine."
"This is it?" Regina says, eyeing the two boxes marked with Emma's name.
Emma shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. "Mary Margaret folds things really well. And I don't really have much more than clothes. There are a few things from New York and my laptop but I travel light. The apartment is fully furnished aside from the second bed."
It just seems sad, somehow, that this is all Emma has from years spent in this town, from shaking so many people's lives to their roots and getting nothing in return. There should be at least a few keepsakes. Maybe a sword.
"A sword?" Emma echoes, and Regina realizes that she'd spoken that last thought aloud. "Well, if you have one…"
"Maybe for your next birthday."
In the end, the boxes are too bulky for Henry or Hook to balance well, and the rest of them file down the stairs to David's pickup truck as Regina is treated to the rather delightful image of Leo teething on the pirate's hooked hand. "Don't say a word," Snow whispers when she brushes past. "It calms Leo down and if we laugh he might stop doing it."
Then they're all piling into the back of the truck, Regina sitting primly on one edge of it with legs crossed and magic keeping her balanced. "I'm fairly certain that this is illegal," she says primly, and Emma rests her head against Regina's knees and says, "Maybe the sheriff will arrest you."
"Mm. She's been trying for years." Emma's hair is flying to one side from the momentum of the truck, and Regina catches as much of it as she can, winding it between her fingers. "This might be her big chance."
"Moms," Henry hisses from Emma's other side, glancing significantly at Hook. Hook's eyes are on Leo, the two of them sprawled out on the opposite side of the boxes and bed, but he's smirking like he hears them and isn't very threatened at all.
Regina scowls and turns back to Emma. "And what would you do with me if you had me in your cell, Sheriff Swan?" she purrs, and Emma lets out a strangled choking sound while Henry wrinkles his nose and Hook glances up, eyebrows raised.
"We're here!" Emma says loudly, pointing in the general area of the next block over. "Right there. That's my apartment. Let's talk about that." But her hand is sliding up the back of Regina's legs, squeezing her calf warningly when she smirks and opens her mouth again.
And then squeezing it again. And again, kneading her leg with such ease that Regina isn't sure if Emma's trying to catch her off guard or if she doesn't even notice what she's doing. It's very, very nice, and Regina's folding her legs together all the more tightly and swallowing hard.
"Emma," she says finally, catching her arm.
"What? Oh." Emma's eyes widen and she snatches away her hand. "Oh." She stumbles forward into the bed as the truck turns, sitting down on it and flushing bright red. "I warned you about my impulse control," she mutters as Henry eyes them curiously. "Can we just…pretend this didn't happen?"
The truck jolts to a stop and Snow pops out of the front seat to poke her head over at them. "Regina, any chance you'll magic that bed into the building?"
"I'll have to take a look at the apartment first and get an image of the surroundings or I might just crash the bed onto your new sofa." She stands up, a little shaky, and Emma follows her from the pickup truck to the house in front of them.
"It's the top floor," Emma says, pointing to a side door and taking the lead. "Come on, I'll show you."
There are windows everywhere, and it's bright and sunny and painted in light purples and beige. There's a large main room with a low couch and a round table, a smaller kitchen to the right, and one small bedroom across from it with a master at the end of the hall. It's oddly homey even without Emma's and Henry's possessions moved inside, and she'd be glad if she weren't so off-kilter from the ride.
"Do you like it?" Emma asks her, eyes bright and a little desperate, and she knows suddenly that it's very important to Emma that she does.
She answers truthfully, "It looks like home," and Emma's face crumples, just like that. "Emma…"
"Sorry. I'm- I'm sorry. I'm happy that it passes muster." She bites her lip and walks quickly down the hall.
Regina follows her into the master bedroom. It's large and open and there's a little loveseat against the wall next to the door that Emma sinks into, knees up against her chin and staring out the window beside her. She looks small, suddenly, a child without a home, and Regina sits next to her and waits.
"Did you know that I stayed with one family until I was three?" Emma says suddenly, tucking her knees even closer to her. "They were planning on adopting me, that's how I found out what happened. I saw the paperwork years later and asked my social worker about it."
"What happened?" She hates thinking about Emma's childhood almost as much as she hates thinking about her younger self. There are too many terrible things she can't regret, and the pain she's inflicted on Emma tops the list. Because of Henry. Because Emma spent eighteen years suffering so that Henry could be hers. Even for Emma, she can't compromise that, and she knows that Emma would feel the same.
"They had a baby," Emma says, and turns her face back to Regina. Her eyes are red-rimmed and there are shadows beneath them that Regina hadn't seen under the false smile and forced excitement. "They had a baby and they wanted her so they sent me away."
Regina reaches out a hand and Emma moves to sink into her embrace without a word, knees still up and her head resting on Regina's thigh. "Your parents don't want to send you away," she murmurs, her fingers stroking the side of Emma's neck. "As irritating as they can be, I've never doubted how much they love you. They would keep you in their house forever if they could."
"And yet." Emma curls closer to her. "Here I am."
"By your own choice."
She shrugs like it isn't, like she's been acting on others' expectations again, and Regina's heart tightens in her chest, compacting and compacting until there's only a dense little ball of pain at the center of her. "I'm so tired of being everyone's second choice, Regina. I'm so tired of never being enough for anyone."
And there it is, the same answer that she should have anticipated all along. It's not Emma running back to Hook, the one she's always wanted. It's not Emma retreating because Regina had never been more than a game to her. It's been about Regina all this time, about Emma and Regina and never enough. "Except for Hook," Regina whispers. She thinks about the night of Emma's last birthday, of standing outside as Emma admits, It's nice to have someone who puts me first, right? like it's her most shameful secret.
"Except for Hook," Emma agrees. She laughs bitterly. "I thought you might have…I thought you might have felt like me, back then. Like maybe all those dumb cues I kept reading from you were real."
Regina traces a path from Emma's neck to circle her lips. "They were real," she admits. "It was all real. I didn't want you to get hurt."
"You say that." Emma purses her lips against Regina's finger. "But it took a panic attack for you to even consider leaving Robin. And now suddenly you're flirting with me and we're making out like you've always wanted me."
She doesn't know how long she's been in love with Emma. It's never been a real awareness as much as something tugging at the seams of her consciousness, reminding her that Emma is different than the others. That Emma she can trust, Emma she can respect, Emma she'd care about if she were gone. And then she'd held her hand in hers and said goodbye and wanted so desperately to give her happiness, to give her all she has to offer, and she'd stood between the curse and a little yellow car and loved Emma Swan with all her heart.
"I have," she says slowly, touching her finger to the tip of Emma's nose. "I always have. If I hadn't believed that there was no other option than Robin–"
Emma cuts her off. "No, you wanted to believe that. You wanted to believe in a happy ending with him because it was easy and guaranteed and he seems like an okay guy, and I was…what? A distraction? Someone to talk about boys to?"
She can only shake her head. "You said you didn't want to be the reason Robin and I ended things."
"Yeah, well, I lied." Emma stares straight ahead, her head pressed to Regina's thigh. "Of course I wanted it to be for me. I wanted to be…" She blinks twice and when she looks back up at Regina, her eyes are watery and tired. "I wanted to be your first choice. God, Regina, do you have any idea what you mean to me?"
"I love you," she blurts out, and it's not nearly as collected as she'd been with Snow, not nearly as designed for a response. It's nothing but her heart growing in her chest, expanding until her ribs can't hold it and her lungs can't breathe and she feels as though she might explode.
Emma stares at her, her eyes very wide as Regina speaks. "I love you like I've never loved anyone. Not since Daniel. Maybe not even him. It's different. I don't know." She's babbling now, uncomfortable and baring far too much of herself, and Emma hasn't said a word. "I didn't think you'd be happy with me. I thought I'd destroy you. I didn't want to hurt you," she says again.
Emma takes in a shuddery breath, rising and falling against her lap, and she bobs her head from side to side. "You don't get to make decisions for me," she says softly. "And now… regardless of what you might feel…I can't do this now. I can't be with you and know that you picked someone else. That I'm just your rebound. Your second choice. Every second I spend with you is just gonna be a reminder of that and I don't want to hurt all the time, Regina. I don't want to hurt when I'm around you." She's crying now, and Regina doesn't think she's ever seen her like this, red-faced and scrunched up and miserable.
Snow walks into the room and Regina notices suddenly the sound of voices nearby, of Henry talking about his room and Hook responding and Snow's mouth is open like she's about to say something, too. Regina glares sharply at her and she gets a sad smile in return as her former stepdaughter backs out of the room and closes the door.
"I don't want to hurt you," Regina agrees, and that tense little ball within her is tightening again, twisting and wrenching at Emma's tears. "I never did."
Emma sits up, her eyes still bright with fresh tears. "So what am I supposed to do? Does it really matter how I feel about Hook, as long as he makes me feel wanted? As long as he tries to make me happy?"
She kisses Emma again, this time fierce and uncompromising, twisting to climb onto her knees, pressing her back into the soft cushion of the loveseat and pressing her hands to her cheeks. Holding her tight, kissing her until Emma's mouth opens and she can explore it with a questing tongue, until Emma's hands touch the hem of her dress and creep under it, until Emma is lying on her back across the couch and Regina is on top of her, her lips still on Emma's with determination.
"Let me make you happy," she whispers against Emma's mouth. "Let me love you." It doesn't matter that she isn't good enough for Emma anymore. It doesn't matter that her heart is black and her love is too dangerous. All that matters is Emma in her arms, saltwater on her lips and a wandering touch that seeks more and more of her legs.
It's selfish. It's so much less than Emma deserves. And yet she thinks of Snow in that instant, of You're enough and it doesn't matter that Snow is an idiot because maybe she can be enough for Emma. Maybe she isn't who Emma deserves, but she can love her like she should be loved. Can treasure her the way she should always be treasured.
Emma sits up, their lips barely coming apart for an instant before she latches onto her again, shoving her back and kissing her just as hard. "I don't want you to love me," she sighs, their teeth smashing together and coming apart. "It feels like a lie. Like pretty words you're giving me to make reality not matter."
"It's not a lie," she insists, sliding her hands up Emma's arms to squeeze her upper arms.
"I know. I know when you're lying." Emma tears her mouth away, pressing one last kiss to Regina's lips before she falls back, leaning against the opposite arm of the sofa. "I know you believe it, but does it change anything?" She puts her hands to her side helplessly and blinks up at Regina. "They all say they love me, but somehow I'm still alone until it's good for you."
And there's nothing she can respond to that, nothing to disprove it when here she is, finally free of any attachments and ready to fight for her love. When Emma's right and there's no way to spin this into anything else for her, to explain again about pixie dust and soulmates and the rut she's been in since.
Emma doesn't believe in fairytales.
She says nothing and Emma slides off the couch, ducking into the bathroom to wash off her face. "I'd better go help them unload. You should supervise Henry or he'll stuff his drawers with comics and dump his clothes on the closet floor."
"He would." They smile at each other, hesitant and pained, and Emma darts forward and kisses her again.
"Really terrible impulse control," she breathes against Regina's lips, and then she escapes the room as quickly as she can.
Regina sits in silence, hearing the sounds of what is, in fact, comic books being organized into drawers in the next room. (And no, her son doesn't stuff them into drawers, he neatly arranges them by title and issue in alphabetical and numerical order.) She wants to get up and help, to prepare Henry's new room for him and to transport his bed inside already, but she can't quite move yet, can't shift from this couch and from the realities revealed on it.
Every time she kisses Emma, it feels like a gift, like all she's ever needed. Like she could starve for a month and live only on Emma, only on this treasure she's been able to hold for only a minute (never possess, no one can possess Emma. She's a force of nature, a whirlwind who blows through all their lives and saves them and demands nothing in return. You can't possess the sun). And she's still stunned at the memory of it and she's afraid to talk, to move her lips and lose the last impression of Emma's against hers.
No. Enough.
She rises, pressing her lips together and removing the final sensations of Emma's kiss, the smear of her own lipstick on her face. Her eyes narrow and she walks into the hallway, light magic dancing from the tips of her fingers.
She's had enough of being told what to do, being told how to react and what choices she can make. She could sit back and accept them when they'd been about her soulmate and her future and she'd just been hopeful that she'd had one.
But she's Regina Mills, and she's tired of following paths set by other people when happiness is so close within her grasp. She's tired of being held back because she's glad to get anything more than she deserves.
Her eyes dart to the end of the hall, where Emma is leaning into David's side, shamefacedly murmuring words Regina can't make out. Regina refuses to languish in misery anymore, to build new walls of her making and struggle within them to be content. She's had enough of being trapped by her own decisions, and she's positive that she doesn't want the same for Emma.
If Emma's going to settle into a relationship, then she's sure as hell going to get a choice in the matter. And Regina won't let her feel like she's unwanted anymore.
Emma frowns curiously at her from the living room and she smirks, long and slow, a resolute queen with a new battle to fight. With a new long-term goal in mind and a new target in her sights who's already halfway hers.
And she's nothing if not very, very persistent.