The nightmare came only once.
Regina started shaking and quietly weeping, muttering incoherent words.
That woke Emma up nearly immediately and her gaze fell on Regina, who was a mess with beads of sweat on her forehead and pained expression on her face.
"Regina," she whispered tenderly. "Regina, wake up, it's just a nightmare. You're alright. You're not hurting. Regina, please."
She kept whispering Regina's name and she tried to sneak her hand through the fence to gently touch Regina, but she couldn't reach that far.
"Regina please, wake up. It's me, Emma. You're with me."
Regina stilled. Emma watched her worriedly, traced every feature with her gaze, followed the drops of sweat running from Regina's forehead, and ended up looking at her eyes, praying for her to wake up.
"Regina?" she whispered once more.
"Emma," Regina mumbled and pressed the eyelids tightly together before slowly opening her eyes. "Emma?"
"I'm here," Emma said in relief and waved her hand, which was now stuck through the hole on Regina's side of the fence. "You had a nightmare…"
Regina nodded, painfully aware of it. She looked at Emma's hand, not pulling away, so she interlaced her fingers with Emma's. Emma smiled and soothed her by running her thumb over Regina's fingers, over and over until she fell asleep again.
The morning came sooner than expected. After that one nightmare, Regina was in peaceful sleep, and woke up with Emma still holding her hand. She smiled softly at the blonde, who was snoring lightly. As if she felt Regina's gaze on her, she cracked one eye open.
"Morning," she smiled sleepily.
"Good morning." Regina replied and it was a good morning indeed. She didn't even remember when was the last time she woke up feeling like this. Happy. Even after sleeping on the cold hard ground in pine needles. But holding onto what mattered the most. Or who.
"Thank you for staying with me," Regina whispered sheepishly.
"Ditto." Emma replied with a smile and squeezed Regina's hand. Only then they realized they still hadn't let go of each other.
"I hate to say it, but I will have to go… Judging by the sun, Morgana is already awake and probably looking for me…" Emma groaned and wished she could curse the woman who held her captive.
"You should go then. I don't want any more injuries to happen to you." Regina said in serious tone and reluctantly let go of Emma's hand.
"Believe me, me neither." Emma grinned.
"So, tonight again?" Regina asked hopefully, picking herself up from the ground.
"I prefer to say 'today', because we'll come earlier, right?" Emma asked, hoping for positive answer.
"Definitely."
They both appeared at the same time, when the sun was still high up. They settled on their usual spots, just a little bit closer than before. So close that they could just reach out with their hands and they would touch.
"So how did we start getting along?" Emma started with a smile.
Regina smiled at Emma's straightforwardness. "We went through a lot. We had to save Henry, because he was kidnapped by Peter Pan to Neverland."
"And we saved him." Emma said with absolute certainty.
"Together, yes. Because our magic was stronger-"
"OUR magic?" Emma jumped into Regina's speech.
"You discovered you have magic too. And you asked me to help you and teach you. Maybe that helped us bond as well." Regina said and when she looked at Emma, she found out that the Princess had been staring.
"What is it?" Regina asked and couldn't control her lips spreading into a smile.
"I don't have magic." Emma stated and her voice was strange, as if she distanced herself.
"You do."
"No, I don't. Morgana tried to make me do magic and I couldn't. You've made this up."
"Emma, please, listen to me. It happens sometimes that you lose the ability for a period of time, after a big change, trauma or so. I've been there and you helped me to get it back." Regina explained in pleading voice.
Emma eyed her suspiciously, but she couldn't not trust the woman, no matter how she wanted to. There was something about her, some kind of bond drawing them together and something was telling Emma that she isn't lying.
"How did I do that?"
"You… you touched me." Regina said almost shyly and averted her eyes.
"Just that? Touch me then," Emma said and pushed her hand through the fence.
"I don't know how it works Emma, maybe this won't work. Magic is emotion…" Regina said, but touched Emma nevertheless.
Both of them felt warmness spreading through their veins after the touch. But no magic.
Emma sighed in disappointment. "I will never get out of here."
"You will, I promise." Regina said nearly desperately, but she was sure about that. She would never leave her there.
Emma nodded and got lost in thoughts.
"But breaking the curse reunited you with your parents." Regina jumped back into the story telling to distract the sadness in Emma's eyes. "You already knew them, Mary Margaret – Snow White - was your friend and you lived in her apartment, so you-"
"Why did you try to kill my mother?" Emma asked out of nowhere, as she put another puzzle pieces together in her mind.
"I was angry and thirsty for revenge, because… she told my mother about Daniel. That I loved him. And my mother appeared the night we wanted to run away together, and she-… you know the rest of the story…" Regina said apologetically.
"Makes sense." Emma nodded. "Sorry, you can continue. So I was reunited with my parents and?"
"Well, you continued being the sheriff, dealing with whatever fairy-tale catastrophes fell upon us… You crushed my relationship with Robin Hood by bringing back his dead wife-"
"What?" Emma asked with confusion.
"Zelena – yes, THE Zelena – opened a time portal into past, and you wanted to save Marian from being killed by Evil Queen… So you brought her with you to the present."
"I'm sorry…" Emma cringed and dedicated Regina a puppy eyed look.
"You apologized enough…" Regina sighed and smiled encouragingly. "And then you told me you just wanted to be my friend. And that kind of settled the things between us."
"But what about Robin?" Emma asked, digging in the dirt with the tip of her shoe.
Regina sighed and hid her face in her hands. "It's complicated. Marian was actually Zelena undercover and he… got her pregnant. And then we started to figure things out again but in the end… I broke us."
"Why? Wasn't he enough?" Emma lifted her gaze to meet Regina's.
"Oh Emma… If you remembered, you probably wouldn't ask like this… You never said anything, but it was obvious you didn't like us together. Which is alright, because I didn't like Hook either." Regina scrunched her nose at mentioning the pirate.
"Who?" Emma asked, confused about the new character in the story.
"Your boyfriend. Pirate. Killian Hook." Regina said and resisted to sarcastically add 'handless wonder'.
"Do I love him?" Emma asked and kicked into the pinecone on the ground.
Regina shrugged. "You told him so."
"But?" Emma raised her gaze to Regina's.
"Why do you think there is a 'but'?"
"Because you said it like that, I can see that you're not saying everything." Emma explained with one shoulder shrug.
Regina remained silent. And she was sure she wouldn't voice those theories and assumptions forming in her head.
"Does it have to do something with why and how I ended up here?" Emma pressed on.
"Yes. There was a curse, coming for me… But you sacrificed yourself. For me." Regina whispered sadly.
"Why are you sad about it? I probably didn't think you deserved this." Emma said soothingly.
"You didn't know what would happen, nobody did. You could have died. All for the Evil Queen who ruined your life." Regina said in a low voice, avoiding Emma's eyes, not wanting to let her see it all – all the emotions, all the pain and despair when she saw Emma disappear into thin air and no one knew if she was alright let alone alive.
"Don't say that. If I felt like that, I wouldn't do that. I might be the Saviour but I wouldn't sacrifice for someone I hate. You've changed Regina, I know that." Emma tilted her head and watched the woman in front of her shifting from the ball she curled up into.
"Thank you…" Regina sighed and after a pause she added: " But that's the last thing that happened."
"You can tell me more about the things in between, about the fairy-tale catastrophes you mentioned." Emma smiled encouragingly, because she knew what Regina meant. She knew what she felt. She had explained Emma everything, and she still didn't remember. There was hope that she would remember the sacrifice or the recent events, but now that this was over, the hope was fading too.
"But what if you still don't remember?" Regina whispered anxiously and searched for Emma's eyes.
"I will." Emma said and finally, finally took Regina's hand into her own again.
They stayed like that for several minutes, in long, yet comfortable silence, caressing each other's hand with their fingers.
"It's getting late," Regina whispered in low voice.
"I don't want you to go." Emma said quickly before she realized she was speaking and her cheeks flushed into light tone of pink.
"I don't want to leave." Regina smiled and brushed her thumb over the back of Emma's hand. She let go of her and lay down on the ground, Emma mirroring what she had done.
"Goodnight Emma," Regina smiled as she watched the green eyes closing under the heaviness of sleep dawning on the blonde.
"'Night Regina. And sweet dreams."