This is a new update! I also updated yesterday, so be sure you read that first.
"Ah, good. You're awake." Zelena is standing over her when Emma's eyes open, the beginnings of a headache blaring a greeting with consciousness. "I was beginning to think you were going to sleep the curse away." She laughs as though there's a private joke in that, and Emma squints around the room as she sits up.
She's been laid out across a couch in the center of a vaguely familiar castle, one overgrown and abandoned, and she recognizes it after some inspection as King Stefan's. They're under the umbrella of Cora's magic, the places Regina should be able to protect.
"Not this time," Zelena says, a smile playing at the edges of her lips. "Let's call on Little Sis now, shall we?"
It's only then that Emma notices the mirror hanging in midair in front of them, the surface of it smoky and shifting, and when Zelena waves a hand, it clears and shows Regina.
She's got her hands stretched out over the ground where they'd found that geyser of magic, brow furrowed and mouth tight; and when Zelena calls, "Reginaaaa," she whirls around as though she's been slapped.
Her eyes fall upon them- or their heads floating in midair, whatever piece of them is being displayed by the mirror- and her mouth tightens some more. "Zelena," she says. "I've been wondering where you've been." Her eyes flicker to Emma only once before they return to Zelena.
Zelena wraps an arm around Emma's shoulders. "Well, now you know." Emma elbows her in the ribs and gets a shock of magic down her spine for her trouble. "I'm surprised you didn't anticipate this."
"Anticipate it, yes," Regina says coolly, and Emma's eyes widen in surprise. "But you overplayed your hand. Lady Swan and I aren't exactly close these days."
Zelena scoffs, unimpressed. "Please. I know you." Regina sags, just like that, and Emma tenses. No. Regina wouldn't be so foolish. "I'm in a castle north of you now. Your heart for Lady Swan's life."
Emma finds her voice. "Don't do it, Regina. Whatever you think you're going to do…it's not worth it."
"For your love," Zelena says, stroking Emma's hair.
Emma can't move her body with magic immobilizing her, but she manages to yank her head away and snarl, "The whole kingdom. Your life. I'd rather die than see you lost." Regina's gaze is impossible to interpret, cool and assessing them both. She'd given up her father for a curse; given up Henry for another, and Emma might not rank quite as high as them, but she hurts for Regina anyway. Regina, who feels so deeply and still must care for her, no matter how much those emotions have lessened. Regina's going to have to make this decision when there's only one decision to make.
Emma's going to die. She's calm with that understanding, resigned to it from the moment she'd seen Zelena in the poppy field. She won't be used as leverage for everyone else's freedom, and Regina will make the right decision. She'd thought they'd had time, but even that is gone. I love you, she thinks at the figure in the mirror, whose eyes still blaze with hatred toward Zelena. She doesn't dare say it, not now, not when it might tilt the scales in the wrong direction.
"Let me sweeten the pot for you," Zelena smiles. It's false and forced, and she yanks Emma back to her, fingers in her hair in a simulacrum of tenderness. "Your son."
They both freeze.
"Oh, don't look at me like that," Zelena sneers, but even she is beginning to quail beneath Regina's glare. "I know where he is. I can guarantee to you, Regina, that if you hand over your heart, I'll return him to Storybrooke."
"I'll be dead," Regina points out, lip curled like she's still not convinced. Good.
"She won't be." There's no question of which she Zelena is referring to. "Give me your heart, and I right the wrong you did to Emma ten years ago. I bring your son back to her."
Regina's eyes are suddenly open to them, grief and vulnerability warring within them. Emma is terrified. "I don't need Henry," Emma cuts in, frantic at the shift in Regina's expression. "I don't need anything but the safety of the kingdom. Regina, no."
"Regina, yes," Zelena mocks. "How much longer is Emma going to be a casualty of your dramatics? She deserves better than this. Do you know how much time she spent saving your life from that potion? How utterly devoted she is to you?" She laughs scornfully. "Don't you owe her this?"
"Oh, fuck off," Regina snaps, and the mirror abruptly goes grey again.
Zelena remains unfazed by Regina's rejection. "I'm afraid I will have to kill you if she doesn't arrive," she says, shrugging. "I did rather like you."
"Or you could just skip this whole curse and be happy," Emma fires back. She's been locked into one of the rooms in the middle tower, nothing more to it than a bed and a toilet, and she's already calculating just how far she'd have to fall if she jumps out the tiny window by the bed. If she can fit through the tiny window by the bed, which…unlikely.
Zelena watches her with distaste and Emma says, "You love Regina. You love her more than anyone in the world. She loves you. There's still something worth saving. Don't kill me, or she might never forgive you. You can still find your happy ending."
"This is my happy ending," Zelena sneers, storming from the room, and Emma can hear her voice outside of it as the door slams closed, and then another. For a moment of tension she thinks it's Regina, but it's cloyingly sweet to Zelena's sharp words and only vaguely, vaguely familiar.
"Be strong, dear child," she hears, and then Zelena and her companion are gone and Emma is left in silence.
So she's going to die. She has regrets- plenty of them. Unfinished business, times when she hadn't managed to save people- Quinn. James. Snow. Henry. Regina. They line up like dominos, one to the next to the next, and when the final one falls, it's inevitable but no less crushing.
She dwells too much on her failures and they make it more and more difficult to see the moments when she hadn't failed, when there'd been hope and love and courage (where is your courage now? and it's like sludge in her veins, slow and useless and stoppered up somehow since Blue). She struggles to now, to remember victory. Surrounded by her men, exulting in food for the hungry. Surrounded by friends, Al and Mulan and Lancelot and Neal, Merry Men and more than that. David and Snow and hope and second chances. Wrapped in a blanket and Regina's embrace and a newborn baby in her arms.
And then that day out in the garden, lying beside Regina as she'd blown puffs of magic toward Henry, the three of them suffused with color. Emma clings to the memory with all the energy she has, suddenly determined that this one will be her last.
When the door slides open again, Emma barely notices, not until Zelena says, "You have until dawn." Her voice is almost regretful, tinged with panic, and Emma blinks away the memories and turns to the door.
Regina says, "You don't have to do this," and Emma gapes up at her in horror.
"I do," Zelena whispers, and the sisters are staring at each other with loss in their eyes. She clears her throat. "Once we're in Storybrooke, I'll let Emma go. I've already contacted someone who can get to Henry. I will keep my promises."
"No," Emma says loudly. Neither of them turn. "No!"
Zelena leans over and kisses Regina's forehead, gentle and regretful, and she slips out of the room and leaves them there alone, Regina watching her go with a hollow sort of understanding.
"No!" Emma says again. "No, no, no."
"Idiot," Regina says, crossing the room to her in three quick steps. "How did you get yourself captured? Didn't you know you were her target?"
Emma shakes her head wordlessly.
"Idiot," Regina repeats. "I love you."
Emma stares up at her. She's sitting against the wall on the bed, her feet up in front of her, and Regina towers over her with the majesty of a queen. "I love you," Regina says again, gathering her skirts to step even closer. There's an odd armband around her wrist, one Emma's never seen before. "Did you think I wouldn't come?"
"I hoped you wouldn't," Emma manages. "The kingdom…"
"The kingdom can burn in hell." Regina drops to her knees unexpectedly, down in front of the bed, and Emma is drawn forward as she does. A hand cups Emma's cheek and Regina says with force, "You are always going to come first, Emma Swan. You matter more than every single person in that godforsaken kingdom, do you understand?"
Emma's forgotten how to move, how to respond, how to do anything but silently shake her head.
Regina shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. "And maybe you're right. Maybe we're selfish and wrong because of that. But you know what? It's time that someone was selfish on your behalf. God knows that you've been suffering in all those insipidly noble ways for long enough." Regina slides her fingers over, drawing a stray lock of hair behind Emma's ear.
Emma opens her mouth and then closes it again. And then opens it, and she doesn't know if she's touched or horrified. "All those people…"
"Will wake up in their beds in Storybrooke with a real sewage system–" She wrinkles her nose at the toilet in the corner. "With their homes intact and Zelena appeased. They're going to be fine. And you're going to be safe."
Emma grasps her by the high collar of her dress and pulls her up, onto the bed, and kisses her hard. Regina melts into her and Emma tugs her closer, nearly sobbing at the taste of her. It's been…years, a decade, far too long since they've kissed. The world rights itself on its axis and turns to dust. Regina's lips are as soft as they've ever been, and she still smells the same, like gentle perfume and tears.
"I love you," she breathes against Regina's mouth. "I love you and you gave her your heart, you…you…" She surges forward and kisses Regina harder, pinning her against the wall. Regina lets out a muffled sigh and slides her fingers down to dip under Emma's vest, digging into her tunic. "We have to…" She struggles to think, tearing her mouth from Regina's, but it seems to have a mind of its own, peppering kisses along her jawline and down to her neck. "To save you…"
"There's nothing to save, Emma. This is it." She's tangled in Regina's skirts, knees bent on either side of her so she's settled on her lap, and Regina's still holding onto her like she'll never let go. "I can't think of a better reason to die."
"Fuck that." Emma pulls herself from Regina, breathing heavily, and rests her forehead against hers. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't." Regina's voice is hoarse, her breath tickling Emma's lips as she raises the hand with her armband. "I don't even have magic right now. Emma, it's done."
Emma's already thinking about how to get out of that window, about rescue attempts and what magic Regina still might access, and Regina holds her tighter. "I want you to know…you were the only good thing in my life for a long time."
"Regina–"
A finger lands on her lips. "Listen. We don't have much longer. I want you to know that…I don't think I ever would have had a chance at escaping from myself if not for you. That everything I did– I don't know what I would have done to myself or to Henry or to the town if I hadn't seen your face in that book." Regina laughs, uncertain and shaky. "I think it was meant to destroy me, but it only gave me hope."
She kisses two fingers and then presses them to Emma's lips and Emma is very still, listening. "I know you think that you weren't enough to change me. You weren't." It's gentle but it still lands like a slap, and Regina shakes her head with exasperation when Emma recoils. "God, Emma, no one could change me when I didn't want to be changed. Henry had to threaten his own life for me to get my head out of my ass. I changed me. I made myself better." There's a tinge of pride in her voice, and it's almost shy and plaintive and Emma is breathless at its brightness. "I did it for Henry. And I did it for you."
Her fingers run across Emma's skin like a balm, and Emma sags. "What…what were you going to do to me during the curse? Why won't you tell me?" She knows about Snow's punishment and David's, and even Maleficent the dragon's. She knows that Regina had sown unhappiness and been gleeful when it had been reaped and she knows that the curse had made all of them miserable.
"I didn't think you'd want to know," Regina murmurs, and she kisses the edge of Emma's jaw once, nuzzling against it. "You were so angry and then so…You didn't need to hear any of it."
"I do now," Emma says firmly, raising Regina's chin to meet her eyes. "I need to…" She doesn't know what it'll prove, what bitterness could have been, what she'd lost this time. But it's been a hollow beat in time with her heart for too long, an admission of how deeply Regina's hatred had gone. She'd clung to it as reason why they'd been doomed from the start, transient love weighted down by hate, and it bites at her corners even now.
"There was a two-family house two blocks from Main Street," Regina says, ducking back into her neck. "Close to Granny's and just far enough from the school that you'd be eligible for a bus stop at your house. I didn't have much control over the curse, but when I saw that house, I knew. That's where you and Henry were supposed to live."
"And Henry," Emma repeats, dubious.
"And Henry," Regina says firmly. "We would have shared custody, of course. You'd be the sheriff of the town and save cats from trees, mostly, because there were no people to save. We'd work together closely and you'd have your Merry Men as deputies and you would have lacked for nothing."
"What would you have done to me?" She doesn't understand where the punishment is, where Regina's vengeance would have manifested. She remembers rage and a thousand blows at her and Regina shouting after her, I'll destroy you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you! from her prison cell. None of this lines up with what she'd known of Regina near the end.
Regina leans back, her fingers releasing Emma as she gazes up at her. "I would have loved you." She laughs. "Do you see why I didn't think you'd want to hear it? I'm not…I can't sustain hate against you. I was never any good at it. I tried for so long and then I saw you on that final night before the curse and I loved you again, very nearly forgave you."
"I don't understand."
"Don't you?" Regina's eyes are knowing, and yes, Emma understands how grudges begin to feel exhausting around Regina, how hate is easily put aside, how they keep trying to move past the baggage of the past, inexorably and unconsciously. It isn't about weakness as much as it's just simple, inalterable love.
And now agony. She slides her hands through Regina's hair, loosening it and framing it around her face. "We wasted so much time," she breathes. "So much that could have been…I love you."
"You said that before," Regina murmurs, her eyes alight with laughter.
"I'm going to keep saying it. Not because you handed over your heart to your evil sister. But because…I don't know. I love you." She groans. "How's this for insipid?"
"Come here." Regina's already breathing hotly against Emma's skin, her tongue tracing a path down her tunic. Emma promptly forgets her frustration with herself. She's better at actions than words anyway.
She's tugging at Regina's clothes a moment later and kicking off her own with Regina's assistance, shirts and vests and bodices all gone and only the two of them naked together and Emma still on Regina's lap. She pushes forward, pressing wetness against Regina's skin, and they both lurch into each other.
There doesn't seem time for foreplay, time to enjoy at last, not when they only have this one night before the curse breaks. They'd done this before with the understanding of an end, but never one so dire as this, and Emma chokes back her hopelessness at the idea of losing Regina at dawn and buries herself in her, in her taste and touch and skin, and Regina presses ever closer to her.
Regina is laughing softly when she comes, relief on her face as Emma cries, and she strokes the back of Emma's neck. "It's going to be okay."
"Like hell it is." Emma lays her head down against Regina's shoulder, her fingers still playing with wiry curls between Regina's legs. "She has your heart."
Regina presses a kiss to the top of Emma's head. "I know." This is different than the other times they've been together, somehow. That feeling of impermanence lingers, but the rest…Emma finally feels like she can breathe, like this could have been something that could stay. That it finally isn't the two of them who are keeping them apart.
It's almost like they have a future together instead of just a past; except for that part where one of them is going to have a crushed heart at dawn.
Emma sits up, a sudden idea occurring to her. "My heart," she says, sliding her hands to Regina's cheeks. Even when her mind is working furiously, she can't seem to let go of Regina for a moment. "You can take my heart and put it in your chest."
"It doesn't work like that," Regina lays a hand on Emma's breast, drawing absentminded circles around her nipple. "You need your heart. We could both die if you tried that."
"I'm willing to risk it."
"Of course you are." Regina rolls her eyes. "Emma, I didn't give up my life to watch you sacrifice yours. Let me have this one."
"I just found you again," she says miserably, and Regina gathers her into her arms and trails kisses across her eyelids. Emma curls up against her, drawing the blanket around them both. "I'm not going to give you up now."
"I do love you very much," Regina murmurs, and over her shoulder, the sky outside is beginning to turn orange. Emma hisses out a curse and Regina tucks her chin onto Emma's head. "Tell Henry that I love you both."
"Take my heart out," Emma says instead, a new idea flickering in her mind. It's wild, it's impossible, and she feels more like Snow's hopeless optimist than she does herself in that moment. But she's just desperate enough that she'll take any chances. Regina narrows her eyes at her. "Please, Regina. Trust me."
It's strange that now this is about Regina's trust in her when it had once been the thing to destroy them in the first place nearly two decades ago, but Emma can't help but feel like they've come full circle. Regina is curled around her and they aren't girls anymore, drunk on their own immortality and the power of new love, and her hand slipping into Emma's chest is warmth and safety and trust instead of devastation.
Regina had taken her heart from her the first time they'd kissed and Emma had begged her to return it, had vomited on the floor and felt her loss of freedom and known then that they'd lost a piece of themselves together. Today Emma begs for her to take it and she thinks they've finally found themselves, picked up the pieces they'd left in each other that day and loved them, too.
There's only faint pain when Regina pulls out the heart, and then peace with her decision. "Split it in half," Emma whispers.
"Emma."
"I can run on half a heart." It isn't the real organ, it's some symbolic enchanted heart, and if they're true loves…if they do have that kind of shared heart… "I want to try."
"You'll die. You can't just invent new rules for magic," Regina murmurs. Her hand is wrapped around the heart and Emma feels safe and warm and protected. She sags back into Regina's embrace, burrowing against her skin. "Hearts don't split."
"Then we'll both be dead." Emma clenches her fists. "I don't want to have to choose one of us or the other. We've fought too hard for this to end here." Here, in a room in a tower, with the sunrise glowing at the horizon. They're out of time. "You said I could be selfish. So let me be this time. I don't want to live without you."
"Idiot," Regina says again. She kisses her swiftly, lips on lips and hands locked together over Emma's heart, and daylight is beginning to fill the room when they pull apart.
Emma holds onto her heart, keeping it in place, and Regina twists. It's agony like Emma's never known, a bit like childbirth but even worse in the way her chest cramps up and she can't breathe, she can hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears, and she falls back against the thin pillow on the bed as the pain hits a peak. "Emma," Regina says, voice pitched high in panic. "Emma, are you with me?"
"Still breathing," she croaks, a moment before she actually does suck in a breath. Her cheeks are wet and she can't quite move, not until Regina's eyes are shining down at her. "Did we…?"
"I can't believe it," Regina says, looking dazed and breathtaking and there's…hope, shining in her eyes. Emma gazes at her in wonder. "I can't believe that worked." She stares at the two pieces of Emma's heart glowing red in her hands and Emma laughs out loud, the same hope filling her like a bubble in her chest in place of where her heart had been. "We did it."
"We did it," Emma echoes, and she manages to sit up enough to pull Regina to her, kissing her over the hearts. "Now we just have to see if they'll go into–"
She stops talking. Regina has begun convulsing against her, her eyes wide open in horror as her body goes limp. "Emma–" she begins, and then drops backward, so quickly that Emma barely manages to catch her in her arms and lay her down on the bed. All life has faded from her face and the two pieces of Emma's heart have fallen out of her grasp onto the bed.
"Oh, no. Too soon. Too soon." Emma's heartbeat is back in her ears, pounding frantically and driving her into panic. "Regina! Regina!" There's no answer from the body- corpse, oh god, Regina's a corpse- on the bed. She's on her own, no magic or experience in hearts, and Regina's life depends on her.
Carefully, carefully, she lifts the first half of the heart and presses it into her chest where Regina had taken it, and new terror floods through her with the returned sensations. Her eyes are clouding up with tears and her heart is aching and Regina, please, please be…
She lifts the second half and eases it gingerly into Regina's chest, dropping down to lie beside her and wait. She has a hand on Regina's chest and her head is against her shoulder and she feels it through her whole body when Regina sucks in a gasping breath and jolts. "Regina!"
"Emma."
She's crying again and maybe she's laughing, too; she's breathless and she's kissing Regina and Regina is kissing her back, wrapping her arms around Emma and biting her lip and her heart beating a steady rhythm against Emma's hand. "We won," she breathes, amazed. "We never win." She's felt sometimes like her entire life has just been her clawing at walls as she spirals downward, struggling to stay up for just a few moments before she loses her foothold. And today…somehow…even with a curse bearing down on them, she feels like the victor.
"We cheated," Regina corrects her, a sly smile curling onto her face. It pauses as it unfurls and Regina's brow creases with sudden concern. "And now we're going to forget all of this, aren't we?"
"Forget?" But yes, of course Zelena's going to make them forget. This is a curse that can trap them in time if she so desires, though Regina's been adamant throughout that Zelena won't write them into new roles. That requires no magic, she'd told them at the war council, And Zelena needs magic for her plans. Emma squeezes her eyes shut. "I don't want to forget this year. I don't want to go back to hating you."
"Have faith," Regina croons, her lips brushing against the shell of Emma's ear. "We're two parts of a whole now, aren't we? We'll break the curse. We'll find Henry."
"We'll still love each other," Emma agrees, leaning in for another kiss. She's drunk on Regina, addicted to her closeness and her lips and body on hers for whatever ephemeral time they have, and they're entwined again on the bed, sweat-slicked foreheads pressed together as they struggle for friction and their hands wander back to each other.
And Emma feels only this uncharacteristic peace and faith as green smoke rises around them, pouring in through the windows and doors and enveloping them in its curse.
END PART III
ANOTHER PART DOWN. There's one more part to this fic, and I estimate it to be 8-9 chapters total! I'm going to go on hiatus while I organize it and take some time for other projects, but I should be back to heartlines soon with an interlude and Part IV (which will be the second half of this fic! this fic is not complete.)
Thanks so much for all your continued support and feedback. Y'all are the best readers a writer could ask for tbqh :3