A/N: Hello dears! I must apologise for the wait on this chapter - I've been incredibly sick over the past week and a half, so I haven't been up to writing, so as an apology, this chapter is the longest chapter to date. There isn't much progression in the storyline, but there are two rather important conversations that needed to be voiced. Hopefully you will all enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! All mistakes are mine, so I apologise if there are a lot!
Chapter nine:-
By the time Regina, Emma and Henry made it to the apartment building's foyer, Emma had flinched a grand total of seventeen times. Regina had been discretely holding the blonde's hand in the tiny space between them and felt her tense every time she heard a noise, saw someone unfamiliar or when she wasn't prepared for someone to say something. Every time Emma would tense up, Regina would instantly give her hand a light squeeze while rubbing gentle circles with her thumb over Emma's hand. It wasn't much, but the light and comforting gestures were somewhat reassuring to Emma that someone was there and they actually cared.
Seeing Emma so vulnerable kept triggering things in Regina's mind. 'What if her actions towards me are only because she's so scared? What if Emma's last words to her were empty words that she felt I needed to hear? What if, when she recovers, she doesn't want me anymore?' Regina questioned herself several times before expelling the thoughts from her mind and concentrating on getting Henry and Emma home to Storybrooke. If Emma didn't love her, True Love's kiss would never have worked. That was the only thought that Regina couldn't expel from her mind. In fact, it was the only thought that actually kept her from breaking down at the thought of was ahead of the three of them.
After leaving the apartment building's stairwell, Regina stopped for a moment to adjust to the scenery around her and set out again. Before either Emma or Henry could ask what Regina was doing, she stalked over to the large reception desk in the foyer whilst dragging Emma behind her. Little did they know, Regina was about to extract every piece of evidence of Emma and Henry's existence in New York. She muttered a few words under her breath and plastered a false smile over her face.
"Hi, could you tell me if an Emma Swan lives here please?" Regina asked, hoping that her curse worked.
"I'm afraid not. There are a few other apartment buildings on this block, it seems as though you have the wrong one." The receptionist said after typing Emma's name into the computer's database, sounding completely disinterested.
"So it would seem." Regina pursed her lips in annoyance at the receptionist's ignorance and gave Emma's hand a light squeeze. "Thank you,"
Regina spun on her heel and walked straight out of the apartment building without another word with the blonde and their son in tow. Emma and Henry shared a few confused looks as to what Regina had just done, taht was until they realised that the woman had no idea where she was going and was heading in completely the wrong direction to where she was intending to go.
"Mom," Henry addressed, hoping to pull her out of her deep thoughts, or whatever it was that caused her stalk along the sidewalk. "The car is this way." Henry pointed over his shoulder with a small smile.
He knew Regina was worried, but he also knew that she was determined to get them both home as soon as possible. Henry had never seen his mother look so anxious. With his free hand, Henry took Regina's in his own so that the three of them were linked as they walked. The gesture was something Regina needed. She needed her rock, and Henry had always been that rock. On noticing the other hand in her previously free one, Regina looked over to Henry in surprise and gave him a gracious smile.
"This is the car," Henry explained when they approached a black Volkswagen, breaking the silence that neither of his mothers was willing to break. "Ma, do you want to sit in the back? You look exhausted."
Emma gave Henry a sad smile and a weak nod before walking towards the passenger side of the car. Henry unlocked the car and waited for his blonde mother to slip into the back and shut the door before turning to Regina with tear filled eyes. He threw his arms around her dainty waist and let his forehead rest in the crook of her neck. Regina couldn't help but smile at the fact that he still wasn't tall enough to properly lean his head in the crook, but she wrapped her arms around her son as tight as she could and let several tears fall down her cheeks. It had been merely two weeks since she had seen Henry, but for him, it had been two entire years and it did nothing but cause her heart to ache heavily in her chest.
"I've missed you so much," Henry said through a series of racked sobs. "It's been so hard without you, and Ma has missed you too, I'm sure of it. I saw the way she looked at you when we had our memories back. She looked at you as if you were a miracle. And you are, but for her to see it too; that's a lot."
"I know, Henry." Regina sighed and dragged her fingers through Henry's hair, refusing to let go of her little boy. "I missed you too. I am so proud of you; you have been so strong over the past two years and you have grown so much! You're defiantly not the little boy I said goodbye to two weeks ago, that's for sure."
"Hey, I'm only thirteen," Henry smiled into Regina's chest and squeezed her waist tighter. "I'm still your little boy and I always will be."
"Good." Taking a deep breath, Regina moved her arms to Henry's sides and held him at arms length. "Come on, let's go home."
With a weak smile and a nod, Henry made his way to the passenger side of the car after throwing his and Emma's belongings into the trunk and slipped in, leaving Regina alone with her thoughts that were too busy tormenting her to register the fact that she was crying. As she stood alone at the back of the car, Regina constantly questioned herself why she had let all of this go on for so long. Of course, it hadn't really been two years for her; but two weeks was long enough. But Emma and Henry had been living with that bastard for almost two years without knowing of the family they had in another world. The family that were going through hell to get them back.
Before Emma and Henry could become concerned about the brunette, she joined the pair in the car and let the engine roar to life. The sound of the rattling engine was the only sound to actually fill the car for a few minutes. It wasn't an awkward silence, but it wasn't a comfortable silence either. With Emma sat in the backseat, Regina felt almost anxious that the blonde would suddenly have a breakdown during the long journey ahead of them, so she tilted her rear view mirror to allow her to watch Emma as she fell asleep across the backseats of the car. Regina knew the action wasn't missed by Henry, even if he didn't mention it until after his birth mother had fallen asleep.
"If I ask you a serious question, would you be completely honest with me?" Henry queried in a quiet tone after he noticed Emma had finally fallen asleep.
His question had broken the long and overdrawn silence that had filled the car and partially, Regina was thankful for it, but another part of her fought for her to remain silent and not answer Henry's question. She knew exactly what his follow-up question would be, and Henry was a stubborn child, just like his mothers, so there was no way to beat around the bush in this scenario.
"Of course, dear." Regina replied, hoping that her son wouldn't notice the slight nervous hitch in her voice. "What is it that you want to know?"
"You and Ma." He stated bluntly. "I saw you kiss back at the apartment."
"Henry, that wasn't a question; that was a statement."
"You know exactly what I want to know, mom."
Regina let out an overdrawn sigh of frustration and dragged her fingers though her hair. She did know exactly what Henry wanted to know, but it was a question that she wasn't really prepared for, especially due to the fact that even she didn't know what was going on between herself and her son's birth mother.
"Do you remember our goodbyes at the town line?" Henry nodded lightly, "I was the last person to say goodbye to your mother, but our farewell didn't exactly go to plan." Regina was stalling and she knew it. The events of that day was something she still hadn't come to grips with. "When I saw the pain and fear in her eyes, I knew it was time to tell her something I had needed to tell her for such a long time, and I did. I told Emma that I had fallen in love with her."
As if to wait for Henry's reply, Regina gripped the steering wheel of the car tighter and refused to let her eyes drift from the road. She desperately wanted to see Henry's reactions, but on the other hand she didn't want to see the look on his face if he disapproved of the two of them. Disapproval from her son wasn't something that she wanted. This was her chance at a happy ending, so for her to have her happy ending, she needed Henry to be happy and supportive too. After a long and pregnant pause, Henry actually decided to talk.
"And she told you that she was in love with you too?"
"Yes,"
"Did you mean it? Every word you said to her; did you truly mean them?" Henry was concerned and worried and honestly, he had every right to be, especially after what he had been witnessing his birth mother go through over that last two years.
"Yes. I meant every single word, and I still do." Regina admitted. It wasn't something that she wanted to admit out loud, however, it was something she had to do, not only for Henry, but for herself too. "Henry, I love Emma with all my heart. It may be black, but together, you and Emma are changing that. I don't believe that it is entirely black any more. As much as we fought in the past, it was nothing more than denial and misunderstanding. The first time the two of us met, my heart constantly fluttered. At the time, I thought it was just gratitude that she had returned you to me, but now I've realised that it was so much more than that. It had been, for me anyway, both love and denial at first sight. I really wanted to hate her and push her away, mainly because I knew exactly who she was, although, there was something deep inside that I needed to dislike her because there was a possibility that she would take you away from me."
Henry remained silent and fidgeted in his seat until he was facing his brunette mother. He watched her sit in silence while she internally battled with whatever she was feeling for a few moments until she looked at him with an honest smile. It was obvious that this admittance was difficult for Regina, but Henry had known her long enough to know that she would continue if he gave her a few moments to take a breather and to relax.
"Emma is the only person that has ever matched me. She has challenged me, fought me and even defended me; which is so much more than any other person has ever done for me. I know that you would, Henry, but with her it's different. She fought for me because she wanted to - not because it was the right thing to do. She even ignored her parents because she wanted to save me. For the majority of my life, people have wanted to kill me; but not her." Regina's voice hitched several times and her eyes continued to refuse to meet Henry's. So far he had been understanding, but his silence nerved her more than anything else.
Before continuing, Regina looked up to her rear view mirror several times to watch Emma's chest rise and fall rhythmically. Her body looked at peace, whereas her face begged to differ. Emma's newly restored features were scrunched into a frown and her bottom lip was upturned into a little pout; the sight made Regina desperately want to stop the car and soothe the blonde. However, the thought of waking Emma from possible memories made her continue to drive straight. She remembered Archie telling her, merely days after her curse broke, that his dreams were filled with flashbacks and memories from his life in the Enchanted Forest. She just hoped that Emma was remembering the life she had before, rather than the life Regina was rescuing her from.
"Your mother has done so much for me, Henry, and she is probably one of the only people in this world, or any other for that matter, that I actually trust with my heart." Regina continued, hoping that Henry was understanding everything that she was saying. "She knows who I am, what I have done and what I am capable of, yet she has refused to run, and instead, she has fallen for me as much as I have with her."
Regina contemplated on continuing until she saw Henry's mouth open in hesitation.
"Wait, mom, how did Ma and I get our memories back?" Henry asked as if her had just had a brain-wave.
"I...Uh...I kissed her." Regina stuttered, still unsure of how Henry was taking the news.
"Oh my god. True Love's kiss. You broke the curse with True Love's kiss?"
Letting out a small sigh of relief, Regina knew Henry was pleased with his new findings. She didn't even need to look over to know that he was beaming in the passenger seat. When she did look over to her son, she couldn't help but join him in expressing how relieved she was.
"I had no idea that it would work, let alone believe that Emma was my true love. She has always been my forbidden and hidden love, which I guess is quite poetic..." Regina let herself trail off into her thoughts without saying anything else to Henry, eventhough he watched his mother smile coyly to herself.
Henry had never actually seen his mom look so happy; so smitten. The thought made Henry laugh inwardly - the Evil Queen had become smitten for the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. The image was actually as insane as it sounded. But Henry couldn't help but feel pleased for his mothers. They had both spent so long being tortured and alone that their broken personalities actually fit together perfectly, even if none of them saw it beforehand. They were each other's missing pieces.
"So does this mean that the three of us are going to be living together like a family?" Henry's childish tone brought Regina back to reality with a pang.
"I don't know, Henry," she let out a long sigh and continued to stare at the road, once again. She really didn't know what would happen. Regina had no idea what they would be going back to when they got home to Storybrooke. For all she knew the town could be either completely unpopulated or the complete opposite. Little did she know that her idea of the latter was correct, apart from one little glitch. "After what your mother has been through over the past two years, I can't imagine what she's going to be like when we get home. She may adapt well, but you and I both know what your mother is like; Emma is the most unpredictable woman in all the realms."
Henry let out a little chuckle before continuing his questioning. "So now that you know you love each other, does that mean that you guys will stop fighting and trying to kill one another?"
Now it was Regina's turn to let out a chuckle. "That is something I definatley can answer. No, Henry, we probably won't stop fighting and trying to kill one another because that's who we are. Emma and I are incredibly headstrong women that like to have our own way, so if this does work out and we decide to make a relationship out of True Love, undoubtably we will continue to fight. Okay, maybe we will ease off on trying to kill each other..."
"But you will try to make her happy though, won't you?"
"Of course I will, dear. Whether Emma wants to try this relationship or not, then we will still be friends and that means that I will always care for her no matter what. Besides, true love doesn't always mean a romantic relationship, you know?" Henry raised his eyebrows at his mother as if in question for her to continue. "True Love is the same thing as soul mates and soul mates are people that have lived several lives together, whether or not they're in a relationship, or whether they're siblings or even best friends, but somewhere in their life times they find each other. Your grandparents, for example, take that idea far too literally for my liking. But you see, True Love doesn't always start out with love. The first time Snow and Charming met, Snow was a bandit and just so happened to steal Charming's treasures from his carriage. He hit her clean off her horse and onto the floor after he found her and from then on they disliked each other but kept on finding each other."
"How did they fall in love if they hated each other so much to begin with?"
"I know your book wasn't clear about everything, dear, but that is something you will have to ask your grandparents. Emma and I, for example, we're expected to hate each other right from the beginning, so with the perceptions and influences of other people, we did. We truly hated each other. However, your mother, being the White and honourable Knight that she is, stopped listening to what everyone else said about me and saw me for who I am and I her."
"Is that when you fell in love with her? When she saw who you truly were, I mean," Regina could tell by the look on her son's face that he wanted to know everything that he could about the love his mothers shared for each other.
"Honestly? The first time we met, when you dragged her from Boston, and she turned out outside our home, I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And then it dawned on me. The more I looked, the more I pieced together exactly who she was and from then on I disliked her; that's why I wanted her to leave and never come back." Regina stopped for a little while and looked up to her rear view mirror once more to get a glimpse of the peacefully sleeping blonde, who's face was now as calm as her breathing. "But I'd like to think that I fell in love with Emma that day at the mines. That was the day she proved her worth to me. She was willing to put her life on the line to rescue you and made sure that I was still safe. Even during the curse, no one had ever been willing to risk their life for me and from then on, she has been my Saviour."
Henry smiled at his mother once again and glanced over his shoulder to his blonde mother in the backseat. "I think she will want this," He said, still looking over his shoulder, "I think she wants you. I mean, before all of this happened she really liked you; I don't know if she had a crush on you, but I know that she secretly wanted to be around you all of the time."
"Do you think so?" Of course, Regina was hopeful that Emma would at least want to try a relationship between them, but the thought of putting Henry through such high hopes and for it to only fail made her shudder with anxiety.
"I do. But I also think you should both wait, and I know that you will, but it's going to take a while for her to want to be in that situation again. Ryan was such a jerk to her all the time and whenever I tried to defend her, he would send me to my room and they would fight. Well, he would fight her."
The image of a very timid and vulnerable Emma Swan was something Regina still had trouble picturing, even after what she had already witnessed that day. Emma had never backed away from a fight, she always attempted to instigate one, and she was most certainly not a coward.
"Henry, did he ever hurt you?"
"No." His voice was stern and left no room for hesitation. "Ma wouldn't let him anywhere near me – that's why she was always so badly hurt. Any anger that he had or couldn't control he would take it out on her and use her as his personal punching bag."
Regina bobbed her head lightly and looked towards her son with tear-filled eyes. "I'm so sorry, Henry. This is all my fault."
"This is not your fault. No way. This is Greg and Tamara's fault for being stupid enough to trust Pan. If that hadn't happened, I never would have been taken to Neverland, you never would have had to risk your life to save me, Pan never would have replaced my shadow with his and his stupid curse would never have been cast. So don't blame yourself for this because we don't blame you." Regina had never felt so proud of her son. He was wise, yes, but he was also as stubborn as herself and his birth mother.
After Henry's valiant and stubborn speech, the two returned to sit in silence once again. Nevertheless, the silence for Regina was deafening. Without any distractions, Regina's mind couldn't help but wander into thinking what her son and Emma had gone through. It had been a reoccurring thought ever since the day Emma drove away in her bug and headed towards New York City.
Dragging her mind away from Emma, Regina let out an audible sigh. "Henry, would you tell me about your life in New York?" As the question left her lips, even Regina reacted to how timid her voice sounded. "Even though it's only been two weeks for me, each time I look at you it's a huge reminded of how much of your life I have actually missed."
"Well, for me it has been two years, so will you tell me what happened to you in the Enchanted Forest for all of that time?" Henry pulled his knees up to his chest and leaned his head on the window. Regina could spot the sadness in his eyes, even though he was trying so hard to hide it.
"Of course I will."
"Ma and Ryan met in a coffee shop after she found herself a new job as a bail bonds person and I started at a new middle school which was a few blocks away from our apartment. It was okay, but compared to the education system in Storybrooke, that one sucked. It took me a while to make friends and even when that happened it was pointless in having friends because Ma was worried that I didn't know the city well enough and then Ryan got involved. When he moved in, after six months, he didn't like me going anywhere without him and Ma. He never thought it was safe, so the only time I left the apartment was for school or to shop. I hated it. Mom did too. Not long after he moved in, he kinda forced her into quitting her job to make sure that she stayed at home all of the time."
Regina scoffed at the thought of someone forcing the Emma Swan that she knew into doing something she really wouldn't want to do.
"She refused." Henry continued, acknowledging his mother's scoff. "She would have put up a better fight too if he hadn't hit her. It was the first time he showed her any violence since they got together and honestly, she was so scared. Ma would deny it, of course, but I could see how scared she was every time she looked at me after that day. Sometimes he would flirt with her afterwards and if she didn't like it, he would always say he would 'talk to her later'. I don't know what that meant, but the next day she would look worse than she had the night before, or she just wouldn't get out of bed. When he wasnt there and it was just the two of us, she would promise to get us out of there. Then he would go weeks without fighting her and it would feel normal, and we would watch movies together and laugh and it was really weird because it felt nice. Ma seemed happy, Ryan wasn't hurting her and it just felt peaceful. He sold her Bug soon after he made her quit her bail bonds job and from then on she purely detest him.
"My grades in school were always high, mainly because I was always sent to my room so Ryan could take his anger out. Ma really pushed for me to be top of the class; I eventually had the highest grades in all of my classes, so she was pleased. Apart for that, life in New York was pretty boring. Well, boring compared to Storybrooke, anyway."
"I'm glad that she's actually capable of doing something's right," Regina chuckled to herself as she tried to imagine Emma limiting their son's sugar intake and actually scolding him for flunking a test. She tried to hide how much she was hurting for the blonde by trying to skirt around what Henry had told her. "Well, I actually hope that Storybrooke will be boring for a little while. It's going to take a lot of recovery time for Emma to get used to the way things were, especially after what happened. Even though our Saviour remembers everything, she still lived through all of that in New York and that's not really something you forgive and forget overnight."
Henry nodded in understanding and remained silent. What Regina had just told him was something he had figured out immediately; it wasn't hard to piece together that Emma would need to build up her trust again. Hell, he even knew that for the next couple of months, Emma was going to be freaking out at the sound of his name.
"So how did you come around to calling Emma 'Ma'?" Regina asked to fill the silence that was already building between the two of them.
"When we crossed the town line and our memories were lost, I called her mom like all the time and she hated it. So this one day, before she met Ryan, she came home from work and looked me square in the eye before saying 'Ma' with a straight face. I burst out laughing because I had no idea what she was talking about, then she continued and wanted me to call her that from that moment on because Ma sounded like an abbreviated version of Emma and I also know that it was because she didn't feel capable of being a mom after her childhood. I didn't say anything about it, neither did she, but we both knew her reasonings and I understood - understand - completely."
Before Regina could open her mouth to reply, a light gasp and several sounds of stirring escaped from the backseat of the car. Two pairs of brown eyes shot up to the rear view mirror that was still tilted towards the sleeping blonde behind them. Emma's face was scrunched up, her eyes squeezed shut and several tears ran down her face. Without hesitation, Regina abruptly stopped the car on the empty freeway and threw herself out of the car and towards one of the doors to the backseats. As she slowly opened it, she realised that Emma had began to scream and squirm in her dreaming state, causing her to thrash her body around in the small space. Before the blonde could hurt herself or scare Henry anymore, Regina slid onto the seat and attempted to gather Emma in her arms as tightly and reassuring as she could.
Comforting someone other than her son was never a strong suit for Regina, but as she held and soothed Emma in her arms, the feeling was strangely natural, and even through the thrashing and squirming, Regina could feel the blonde begin to relax in her arms. As Emma's breathing slowed and regulated from her series of hyperventilated shrieks, she began to open her eyes to glimpse at the world around her. On seeing Regina, she jumped and completely forgot about where she was and who she was with.
"Hey," Regina smiled and brushed a few strands of hair behind Emma's ear as she received a confused look, "it was just a dream. It was just a dream." Emma relaxed even more into the embrace and let out a sigh as her eyes filled with tears. "Emma, I've got you, it's okay."
The blonde continued to weep uncontrollably, making Regina scoop her into her arms and closer to her chest. With a light rock and a series of sweet nothing's that turned into a calming mantra, Emma began to relax again and wrapped her arms around Regina's waist, grateful for the strong grasp around her own body. The three sat in silence for the better part of ten minutes, with only Regina's soothing hum to fill the air.
"We only have an hour left until we get back to Storybrooke," Regina began, taking into Emma's hair as she continued to hold the blonde tight against her chest. "Do you want to swap seats with Henry?"
It was clear to Regina that Emma didn't want to be alone in the backseat anymore. Just the thought of being alone at all made Emma sick to her stomach - she had spent far too much of her life alone, and now she had her son, her parents in a quaint little town and her True Love to keep her from being alone ever again. But of course, with the insecurities that had built up in Emma Swan over thirty years of her life, she couldnt help but feel anxious all the time that her 'family' was an illusion that could fade at any moment. All she wanted was to keep everyone close as a reminder to herself that they weren't going to leave out of their own will.
Emma gave a light nod in reply, receiving a kiss on the top of her head from Regina in understanding. Regina hadn't meant for the kiss to mean anything more than an acknowledgement of Emma's nod, but to the blonde, it meant so much more than that. The small gesture was enough for Emma to feel safe; to feel like she was being protected by the woman that held her close.
When Emma and Henry had switched seats, it had only taken the teenager five minutes to fall asleep. The car had barely started moving when Regina noticed his eyes beginning to droop in the rear view mirror and couldn't help but smile at the innocence her son was willing o show through sleep.
"He hasn't changed much," Emma said when she noticed Regina watching Henry fall asleep. "He's grown exactly four inches, his weight hasn't changed much, he has been sick once - he caught a cold when we got caught out in a storm, and he really excelled in school."
With a weak smile of gratitude, Regina tried her hardest to fight away the tears that were building up aggressively behind her eyes. Emma had remembered all of the things that Regina would have remembered, and for that, she was grateful. Noticing the tears in the brunette's eyes, Emma placed a reassuring hand on the woman's leg; it was going to be hard for the two of them to come to terms with what had happened over the last two years, but with the two of them as bullheaded as they were, there would be nothing that would stop them from getting their Happy Ending.
"Thank you," Regina managed to mutter, though keeping her eyes fixed on the road ahead of them. "For everything, I mean. Thank you for breaking the curse, thank you for giving me Henry, thank you for showing me that if I truly fight, I don't have to lose anyone that I love. And most of all, Emma, thank you for being everything that you are."
Admitting and confronting emotions was something Regina was never used to. For her entire life, everything she felt, apart from anger, was concealed and hidden from the world around her. Often enough, Regina was able to hide her own emotions from herself, which eventually sent her deep into a pit of denial and caused endless amounts of difficulties with her mental health; none of had ever actually been dealt with.
Everyday was a constant battle for Regina between her emotions and her expectations. Throughout her youth, she had been held to a higher standard, she was always expected to act, feel and think like someone she wasn't, so the constant accumulation of confused and tired emotions slowly began to toy with everything that Regina was, had been and ever will be.
"What I said, before Henry and I left," Emma began, having removed her hand from Regina's leg and started to stare at the dashboard in front of her, "I meant it, you know. I am, and I think I always will be, completely and utterly in love with you. And you were right; we are cowards. I can't actually imagine what our lives would have been like if we weren't so stubborn."
A small smile quirked up on the corners of Regina's lips. "I'm almost certain that those little romance novel clichés would beg for me to say that I wouldn't have it any other way, but honestly? Seeing you in that apartment with him actually killed me. Because of us, you were hurt and trapped and I can't help but feel like it's all my fault."
"No, Regina," Emma snapped, replacing her hand on Regina's leg once more and turning in her seat thee way Henry had done whilst she was sleeping. "This is not your fault. None of this is your fault. Everything that happened, happened for a reason and you need to understand that. If Pan's curse had never hit, without a doubt, the two of us would still be living in denial, we would probably go back to trying to kill one another and I'm positive that my mother would have attempted to unite me with Neal or Hook."
Regina rolled her eyes at the thought. Emma was right. Of course she was right - she was the only on in their situation with a level head at the moment. She had two lives fighting for control of her mind and her sanity; she had two different versions of herself guiding her towards the way she needed to be going. Whereas Regina, she just had herself. The only self that had been hidden away behind a facade of an almighty powerful Evil Queen.
"When we get back, do you think we could try something between us? I know we never really spent any time alone together without at least one of us walking away bleeding, I just thought that maybe I could take you out for dinner or something?" This time Emma left her hand on Regina's leg and used her other hand to play with the hem on the bottom of her old, tatty white tank top.
"Emma, as much as I really want to, I don't think we should dive straight into this — especially after what you've been though. I mean, the last thing you want to be doing is putting all of your trust and love into someone so fast. I just don't want you to get hurt." Regina fought with everything in her being to not look at the blonde beside her, for if she did, she knew that she would have no problem in saying yes, but for their own good, Regina knew she had to say no. "If we even considered to attempt this right away it would damage us in the long run. Someday soon, you're going to wake up and panic because I'm asleep by your side and you're going to hate me for it. If we are going to do this, we should wait and I think you should visit Doctor Hopper for a little while."
"Wait, are you saying that through all of the shit I have been through over the past two years has messed up my judgement or that I should be locked away for a little while in Storybrooke's Asylum?" Emma's voice was harsh and barely above a whisper. The last thing she wanted to do was to wake Henry for him to hear his mothers arguing once again.
"No, Emma, of course that's not what I'm saying!"
"Then what are you trying to say, Regina?" Emma pulled her hand away from Regina's leg as if it was on fire and continued to watch the brunette's every move.
"What I'm trying to say is that…ugh…gods, Emma, how can you not see that all of that 'shit' is going to mess with you in the long run? You fell asleep in the back of the car and had a nightmare about it, for crying out loud!" Regina bit back on her quivering lip. As much as she didn't want to be so harsh on the blonde, she knew that Emma needed someone to tell her straight. "This isn't going to fade away like a little memory, Emma. You of all people should know that."
"Of course I know that, but Regina, I just want you to be the one to help me get through this! I need you and clearly you need me too. I don't know what happened to you when Pan's curse hit, and believe me, I really want to know because you're defiantly not the same person that I said goodbye to exactly two years ago. Regina, you've changed. You were damaged and tormented before, but now, every time I look in your eyes, all I see it hurt. Yeah, I saw it before, but now you're drowning in it. What the hell happened to you, Regina?"
"Elphaba. Elphaba happened."
"Hold on, Elphaba as in the green one from the Wizard of Oz? The Wicked Witch of the West? The woman that turned up at the apartment and attacked you?"
"The very same," Regina sighed, hoping that Emma wouldn't ask her anymore questions about her return to the Enchanted Forest, but obviously, with Emma Swan being Emma Swan, Regina was about to be bombarded with a million questions.
"What the hell did she do? Is everyone okay? She didn't hurt you, did she?"
"Emma, everyone's fine. She just so happened to have messed with Pan's curse, finding all of us outside my old palace. The palace that she decided to take over." Regina muttered the latter in a bitter tone and gripped to steering wheel a lot sighter as she exited the freeway and found herself driving down another empty road.
"What happened to you, Regina?" Emma pressed again, refusing to give Regina any form of leeway out of the conversation.
"She imprisoned and tortured us for information on yours and Henry's whereabouts. My torture was both physical and mental, whereas everyone else received a mental interrogation. Belle and Ruby's situation was completely different, however." Emma's eyes widened at the confession, pleading for Regina to continue. "She tortured Ruby to the point where she believed that Belle was dead, so when she was returned to the cell they shared, she was utterly confused. Ruby screamed at Belle all the time, arguing that she was nothing but a hallucination. The physical pain of a broken heart was enough for both Belle and Ruby.
"Your mother and father were actually quite lucky. She merely reminded them of the situation they put you through at the beginning of your life. She got inside their heads and they would both return to their cell in either fits of sobs or a murderous rage. The latter being something that only happened once."
Emma waited for a little while to let everything sink in. The thought of so many people helping her and refusing to tell Elphaba anything about her or Henry. The feeling of being a part of a large family was far too overwhelming for Emma to even stop her lip from trembling. "How did she find us? How did you actually find us?"
"I followed a gut instinct." Regina knew exactly what that gut instinct was, and undoubtably, so did Emma. "Something inside me was telling me exactly where you were. Her intentions were to get to Storybrooke. To get to you. Being locked in a huge cell on my own allowed me a lot of time to think and plan. Elphaba is incredibly predictable, so I devised a plan. A plan that actually worked and has everyone safe."
"So the whole 'I will always find you' thing with my parents is actually true?"
"Ironically, yes. But fortunately for us, it led me straight to you and Henry."
"Thank you, Regina, for finding us." Emma added. "I don't actually know where I would have been if you hadn't. I still don't understand why I stopped fighting."
"There was no way I could have lived another day without knowing that the two of you were safe, Emma. The idea of finding you was the only think that kept me fighting." Regina hesitantly stretched her hand out towards Emma and took the frail woman's hand tightly in her own. "That's the last time I'm going to be looking for the two of you, okay?"
Emma couldn't help but smile at Regina's attempt at a chastising tone — somehow the Evil Queen lost her bite when her heart was beginning to fill with both love and hope. "Okay."
The two sat in a comfortable silence whilst holding the other's hand for another half an hour of their journey. That was until they reached the infamous 'Welcome to Storybrooke' sign on the abandoned forest route.
They were home.