"Sheriff Swan, Henry is asleep." Regina crossed her arms as she spoke. Emma nodded at her, she had known that information already. It was, afterall, past his bedtime. She shoved her hands in her pockets. Not knowing where to start, not knowing what to say.
Silence percolated into the air, clogging it with it's toxic particles. Surrounding itself around both woman, it was like the wind itself did not dare rustle a single leaf in fear of what would happen. Birds did not chirp, dogs did not bark, and not a single cat meowed. The silence was like a venom, dripping, seeping itself into everything. And Emma Swan could not take the deafening silence anymore.
"Why do we fight all the damn time?" Emma blurted out, wincing as she did so. That was not how she had planned this conversation. Regina raised one perfect eyebrow as Emma advanced towards her. The ex-queen did not know how to answer such a question.
She came closer, and closer, until there was barely a foot between them. Emma stared right into Regina's eyes, and the Mayor had to stop herself from grabbing Emma by the collar and smashing their lips together. But she didn't, wouldn't, couldn't ever do such a thing again. She could not lean back either, that would seem as if she was backing down.
"We fight because we simply have nothing in common. You are nothing more than a fool born of the charming line" Regina paused, she needed to hurt Emma. Even if she didn't mean it. "Thankfully I got the charming who was actually born with a working brain" She snapped, her voice filled with venom, like that of a rattler.
Regina could still not move back, nor forward. Both would end badly for her, and the way that Emma was looking at her, even with the pain that now plastered the saviour's face she was sure now, more than ever, that Emma would just follow her inside to further their conversation. Forced as it might be. No, Regina was trapped right where she was.
"Why do you hate me? I know I broke this curse, but, didn't you help me with that? They all say that you saved me, that without you I would have surely died." Emma glanced at her hands. "I still have scars from that day"
Once more silence creeped into the conversation. Emma staring down at her hands. Regina staring at them as well. Memories of finding Emma beating at the invisible barrier coming to the forefront of her mind. The blood running down her fingers, over her wrists, and down to her elbows. The blood that had splattered across her face and chest as she punched harder and faster. Not giving up in her endeavor to escape the town. Regina hated that memory, and scowled harder, if that were possible that is.
Hate Emma? Regina could never do that, and she was rendered speechless. She could lie about many things. She could twist facts into angry, hurtful things that she used as barbs against the Saviors psyche. All a ruse to keep the savior from getting to close to her. But she anything but hated her. She loved her with every microfiber of her tortured being. Her silence was taken as there was just too many things to list, and Emma sighed. It killed her inside to know that Regina hated her, and she just didn't know why.
"Tell me why, tell me. Tell me why is it, that whenever I see you, that I just. That I just want to" Emma stopped and stared unto the ground, tracing her shoes with her eyes. She couldn't finish her sentence.
Emma had long since tried to figure out who she was. She just didn't know. She'd managed to get some information. She was rich, she had become pregnant with henry when she was young. She had given him away. She'd made her money bounty hunting, and she had been damn good at it. Beyond that she didn't want to know, she found no point in learning about what felt like someone elses life. And the life she led here still didn't feel right. Her mind was always plagued with Regina, even when she had Ruby. But she knew she didn't have a chance with her sons mother. Never would. It had been why she had tried to keep Ruby for so long.
"Want to what Sheriff?" Spat out Regina, fear coursing through her veins like liquid magma. Burning her inside out. She knew what she wanted to hear, but she also feared that answer. That answer could be her undoing.
No answer was to befall from the saviors lips. Tears had formed in the corners of her eyes, and she didn't need Regina to see them. So Emma shrugged, turned, and walked away as fast as she could. She knew that Regina would never, in a billion years, allow Emma the tranquility of even one kiss.
Regina slipped inside, she felt bad for Emma. Losing Ruby like that, she supposed she had better let Belle out soon. The two women were not getting back together, and she had disliked keeping true loves apart. Even if for as good of a reason as she had. She leaned against the door, wrapped her arms around herself, and let a few tears fall. As she let the fact that she would never have Emma in her arms again consume her. Usually she fought it, but after having Emma so close, she just needed to let some of the pain out.
David, Charming, paced the floor of Rumplestiltskin's shop. Fear, and pure joy battling it's way to the surface. He had waited since the moment Emma had woken up with no memories for the once reptilian appearing man to finish with the spell or potion he would need to bring back her memories.
"You are completely sure this will work?" David asked as a vile of purple-ish liquid was placed into his palm. He had waited, for what seemed like a millenia, for this. Sneaking around with Rumple behind everyone's back.
"Absolutely. Remember, you owe me one favor, no questions asked" Said Rumple, who had an agenda of his own. Not that David was smart enough to realize that. After All, it had really only taken Rumple six months to create the potion. No, he had a different goal in all of this.
"And I will deliver whatever you need of me" Promised David, staring at the small vile as if it was liquid gold that would make him the richest man on the planet. "Soon, everyone will see the truth" He said happily.
A smile crept onto his lips. In his hand was the answer to everything. Once he slipped this into his daughters drink, she would awaken. With all of her memories. And she would tell the world that Charming was right. That Regina was lying. That she hadn't tried to stop the curse. That she was still Evil. And then she would beg his forgiveness for her stupidity, hand him the rights to rule, and kill the evil bitch. David could not wait for the potion to take effect.
His smile was sinister, but no one seemed to notice. He hadn't even complained when Snow had took baby Eva over to Reginas around noon. Because he had known that soon enough the truth would be known, and then Regina would get what was coming for her. All he had to do was wait for Emma to come over for lunch.
He gleefully started warming up the leftover lasagna like his wife had told him too, so it was hot and ready by the time his daughter walked through the door the smell of one of her favorite dishes hit her full force. He slipped the potion into her drink. Once Emma drank it she would regain her memories, and everything would be perfect. Rumple had given him the key to cure everything.
Sure of the actions he had taken, sure of his supreme rightness, he watched as Emma drank the soda. Just shrugging at her when she said it tasted funny. And he actually smiled wider when his own daughter started screaming in complete, and pure, agony. Clutching at her head. David was sure that she would most certainly thank him in the end. He never thought for one second that someone as amazing and perfect as himself could be wrong.
Emma's body shook and limbs went flying in random directions as she lost control of her every action. She fell out of the chair, and onto the floor. Hitting her forehead on the way down, leaving a nice inch long gash on the left side. David didn't care. In his mind it was simply penance for disobeying someone such as himself for so long.
Memories of two lives were entering Emma's mind. The she had lived before the loss of her memories, the one she had lived outside of storybrooke. The one filled with only two true emotions. The need to run, and the need to forget everything and anything.
Two lives merging into one, a past, and the present. Meeting together like someone getting thrown down by a fucking linebacker. Nothing but pain was able to register in Emma's body. Emotional pain rang throughout her mind, memories she never wanted to remember playing out like it had happened just moments before. Her life was literally flashing before her eyes in a matter of minutes.
Painful, horrible, unimaginable minutes. Every wrong deed, every horrible action, every beating, everything. Not a single moment was spared from the replay through Emma's mind. And as it neared it's end, she began to be filled with hate. Unadulterated hatred for the man who had done this too her. The man who should have loved her unconditionally, her father. She could see him through her watery eyes, standing over her, smiling, like he was some sort of God.
As the reel of her new life ended, the one filled with trying to love a woman simply because she thought she should. Trying to truly Ruby like she deserved, but never managing to do that. A life with parents, one she didn't like, and now hated, and one she felt bad that she couldn't actually love, although she at least liked Snow. A sister. A life filled with love. Acceptance. Hope. A life filled with things she had never imagined she could have.
Colliding together, the lives fought and snarled as they continued to merge. Henry. Emma hadn't been able to love Henry, knowing he was the son of Neal. She had given him away so he wouldn't grow up with a parent who hated him. When she had lost her memories, she had grown to love him. But now, she feared she wouldn't be able to anymore. It killed her inside to know that now she might be unable to even look at him.
While David was standing over his convulsing daughter, smiling and waiting for the potion to wear off and her too finally remember the truth. So that everything would go just as he planned, so he could finally prove to everyone his worth. Prove it is he who should lead them, that it was he who was the ultimate perfection. While David stood there, watching his daughter in pain, Gold was cornering his grandson.
Slowly she stood up, wobbly on her feet. She glared at David, and she ran off. She didn't stop running until her body slammed into the barrier. She now remembered every moment, and she could feel Neal's breath on her body, and other's breath and sweat as well, all over her body. She wished to forget again, she'd give anything to forget again. But she knew she wouldn't be allowed the same miracle twice. For the second time in her life she started to beat the barrier with her fists as if her very existence depended on it.
Henry was scared, but not too scared. His grandparents were Snow and Charming, his mothers were the Evil Queen, and the Savior. Surely Rumplestiltskin would not be stupid enough to hurt him. Plus, he saw a sincerity in Rumple's eyes. He believed in second chances, so he tried to calm down, and waited for Rumple to speak.
"You mustn't trust your mother. She is worse than Regina. She played with my son's heart, she made him do things, and then she blamed him. She locked him away, and he died. She killed your father." Gold said. Pushing a crumpled picture of a young Emma with his son Neal into the boys hands.
Surveying the picture in his hands Henry could see some of both Gold, and himself, in the man. However, it didn't look like his mother and his father were dating. His mother were a few feet from his apparent father, if anything, they looked more like acquaintances than anything else.
However, what Rumple stated did not add up in his mind. His mom was the savior. She'd even saved the evil damn queen. She would never lock someone away just so they could die. She wouldn't force anyone to do anything bad, she simply wasn't that type of person. He didn't believe Rumple. Not at all.
"That's not true. My mom wouldn't allow anyone to day" Argued Henry. He could never think ill of his mother. Either one. Yeah, Regina had done bad stuff. But he was a kid, and that was his mom. End of story.
Gold let out a laugh, and conjured up a cloud that soon filled with the images of the past. Particularly the one where Emma showed up on Neal's doorstep. Where he had seemed so happy to see Emma, and Emma immediately started beating the crap out of him. He chose this moment so Henry would not see that Neal was actually the real bad guy. Gold had lost his son, but he wanted to gain his grandson. By any means necessary, it had been why he had slipped the potion to Emma.
Young Henry didn't believe gold, which Rumple hadn't anticipated. The elder man had been certain that between the picture and the cloud that showed the past that Henry would trust him. He was wrong. The boy called the man with the cane a liar, and ran away from him. Rumple sighed, he supposed now the only way to gain his grandson was to kill Emma. A smile splayed on his lips, she would be vulnerable now that she had her memories.
He had always planned on killing Emma for what she had done to his perfect child, but he had wanted to wait until Henry had been warped into seeing things his way. Unfortunately, his plan hadn't been as well thought out as he had originally thought it to be. He had been clouded by his need to have the little boy in his life, Rumple walked away. Vowing not to fall for the same mistake a second time.
Rumple would have his grandson, nothing would keep him from him. He had invented this curse to find his son, he had manipulated Regina into casting it to find his precious child. And then, when the curse had been broken, he had found out how Emma had teased him, and forced him to take her. How she had tossed him in jail, and how he had lasted no more than a year before he'd ended on the wrong side of a shiv. He clenched his fists, revenge, he would have it. That, and his grandson.
A/N: Thanks for dropping bye. Hope to have an update soon - but no promises.