Wish you were here
Every savior needs a villain
As Regina looked at the kneeled woman in front of her she felt her insides twist and bleed, screaming in pain as she searched in the woman's face, trying to see anything that would call for the person she had so many times called stubborn and childish, for the woman that had burn gloriously. That woman, however, didn't appear and it was perhaps the striking realization of how different Emma was; the Emma that now looked at her for the woman she still had the memory of, the one who had looked at her and never consider her a queen but Regina, a mayor, a foe perhaps but never evil, what hurt the most. The realization of how Emma, the princess, had never needed to make the decision of being the savior, never needed to rethink how her future hung from one single string of fate, ready to be cut at any other given second, never needed to take upon herself the destiny of so many others who would never realize how a savior was born and burnt down. That was what made her pause for a nanosecond as she looked at the glittering key, at David's and Snow's panicked gaze as she feigned a scowl.
Because, who was she to make Emma turn back to a world in where nothing but her title as the savior seemed to matter? In where her days seemed to be ticking by with an already settled finish line and without a real solution for Regina to help her? Who was she, Regina, a woman that hadn't even existed on this realm for so long her sole remains were a run-down castle and stories that seemed more like folklore than anything else. What kind of power she possessed to make her worthy of making the blonde recognize her when here, without her, her live and the ones she loved were much easier, much more manageable, much more normal?
The thought was a difficult one to swallow and she could feel the old fears and toxic ideas slipping between her memories, poisoning her mind as they marched past her insides. Something that made her blink as she looked at the woman that had been beautifully courageous and stupidly kind, the woman who had saved her from a fire and the literal vortex of evil without a beat, without even considering any other thing. She could look at the woman now and saw another type of woman, one that seemed Emma but wasn't the one Regina was calling for and the sole idea of turning the blonde on that made her nauseous.
But, at the end, she thought thinking back on the woman she had learned to trust, that she had come to care about, that she herself had so stubbornly refused to embrace when there had been nothing but a ticking clock and a missing boy back in an apartment that only made her want to clench her teeth; who was she to not even give the blonde the opportunity to decide, to know that at the other side of a portal there were other people who cared for her. What was she then? Selfish, her mind supplied. She was selfish just like her mother had told her all her childhood. And she knew that, she may be selfish as well as she had been the Queen but if she needed to take Emma back for the sake of her own selfishness she realized that she would be okay with it. That's why she rose her arm, deciding on that very second that if there was a reason why she should truly become the Queen, the Evil Queen all over again, would be for the woman in front of her, not the one that now looked at her from behind glazed eyes but the woman who had fought her place on Storybrooke and the one who had told her time and again that she could take the next step, no matter how loud she screamed or how strong Regina refused to believe on it.
Because, if there was someone apart from Henry, from whom she would take any darkness, blackening her heart all over again, Regina knew who would be the answer, knew what she would say. Her job was being the equalizer to Emma's decision to be good just as she needed the Queen.
The corpses of the wished monarchs felt heavy on her fingertips just as the dust of their hearts settled on her nails, forever seeming to stain them in the same black and grey powder once upon a time had been as natural for her than her own face. It was easy to make the decision but not to see nothing but hatred on Emma's eyes, nothing but loss.
At the end, however, it wasn't her self-loathing and doubts what brought Emma back but Emma's own stupid, selfless courage, the one that made Regina tremble every time she saw the savior that waited underneath the blonde's exterior. Not the one she had needed to create in order to make the people in Storybrooke proud but the savior she truly was, the one that waited and shone through, the one who had descended down a rope without bothering to think twice on her own safety. The one who had pushed her away from a creature she didn't understand just because she had promised to keep her safe. The one who had offered partnership and friendship and whose eyes had shone brightly on a vault while making her forget why she was supposed to be even mad in the first place. And as the sword halted in mid-air and Emma's eyes twinkled with the same fire Regina felt herself unable to look away from her pernicious thoughts fade away.
Because that Emma, the one that looked at her with a lopsided smile and just a tad of smugness was that Emma, the one she knew, the one she truly had come to know. The one that had made her pause. The one she would call friend, no enemy, or opposite. Friend.
And she would be okay with that as long as she kept allowing herself to stare and wish. Wish for more, for much more.