Chapter 12

When the family got home Emma could see the clear agitation in her son's mother and did what she thought was what she ought to do, comfort the woman.

She crawled over to where Regina was laying prone, scowling into a sea of lego blocks next to where her son was making a tall tower. She kissed her son's head and then turned to his mother and reassured, "It'll be okay. We'll find another way."

"Not without looking into dark magic," Regina grumbled.

"Will using dark magic hurt him?"

"Not necessarily."

"Okay then, so you use dark magic. What's the big deal?"

The Queen's features hardened and she barked, "The big deal? The big deal is I haven't used dark magic in decades, Emma, and asking me to do so would be like asking a recovering alcoholic to take a sip of a drink!" Regina looked towards the toddler version of her son and remembered the promise she made to herself and him. Resisting the use of such dark magic was difficult, but she was winning the fight. The idea of jumping into the deep end of that madness again made her stomach roll.

"So you were addicted to the darkness?"

Regina scoffed and snapped, "You have no idea how good that unbridled power feels, it changes you, and you'll do anything for it," dark eyes looked up and met green, "And I did."

Emma looked thoughtfully and replied, "So magic addiction is a thing. Alright. No dark magic then."

The Queen, frustrated over her own weakness, spat, "We can't just leave him like this!"

"Regina, look at me. I'm not suggesting we leave him this way. I'm simply saying we come up with another way."

"Your naivety is astounding Miss Swan." The Queen rolled her eyes and then moved onto her back and covered her arms over her face.

"Don't get bitchy, just hear me out."

When the Savior didn't elaborate she lifted her head and demanded, "Well? I'm listening."

Emma crawled around their son and laid down next to the agitated woman and said, "Teach me how to unbind the spell."

Worried dark eyes looked up and asked, "Do you have any idea how long that will take?"

"No. Do you think I can't learn?"

Seeing the masked pain in the Savior's eyes, Regina chose to soften the point, "Of course you can learn it Emma, but it took me years to reach that level of magical understanding."

A worried brow furrowed when the Savior asked, "Years?"

"He'd be middle school aged by the time we could do this safely."

"Well, there's gotta be another way. The only person I trust to perform magic on him is you, and you're not strong enough without roiding up on dark magic."

The Queen sighed and admitted, "I'm not entirely certain going dark would make me strong enough." She bit her lip and considered what the blonde just admitted then asked, "You trust me to use magic on him?"

Emma leaned in and cupped her cheek. "I trust you."

"There might be another way," Regina alluded and broke eye contact. This was a last-ditch effort she had no intention on gaining any further knowledge on, but it seemed as though they'd hit an impasse.

Emma waited until she saw the brunette had no intention on elaborating and goaded, "Such as?"

Regina rolled onto her side, facing the blonde and asked, "Remember when we made Jefferson's hat open to suck the soul-sucking wraith into the abyss?"

"I remember you making Jefferson's hat open to suck the soul-sucking wraith into the abyss, yes."

Regina looked up and admitted, "It wasn't just me, it was our combined magic."

Emma shook her head in disbelief and said, "I didn't use magic to open that hat, Regina. I didn't even know I had magic to use."

"Yet you still did, and it… combined… with mine," the Queen said carefully.

"Magic users can combine their magic?"

"No. Not… typically."

"Well, that sounds a little ominous."

"It's only under very specific, and extremely rare conditions that witches can draw upon one another's magic."

"And we fall into that 'very specific and extremely rare' condition?"

"Apparently," Regina rolled her eyes and amended, "Possibly."

"Okay. Will combining our magic make you powerful enough to break the spell?"

"Most certainly."

"So how do we do it?"

Regina looked into hopeful eyes and didn't want to disappoint. She wasn't positive about Jefferson's hat, and she didn't want to get the woman's hopes up if it turned out she was wrong. "I don't know. The hat situation was unique. We were under pressure. Many factors seemingly streamlined the process."

Emma smiled and moved closer to the Queen daring to rest her hand on the woman's hip and asked, "So this is good right?"

"I suppose. Yes."

Her answer was lackluster, and the Savior noticed. "Why don't you look like it's good Regina."

"It's nothing dear, it's just been a trying day," the brunette waved off her worry and melted into the comfort the younger woman was providing.

"Okay well I'm taking this as a win," Emma said as she wrapped her arms around the Queen and tried to ignore the anxiety she felt off of the woman. She simply wanted to feel as if everything was going to work out even if she knew something bigger and potentially disastrous was just over the horizon. For that moment, laying on the living room floor holding the Mayor to her, everything was okay.


Once Henry was bathed and put to bed, Emma made her way down to the home office where Regina had been hiding since dinner. The few times Emma disturbed her she was met with irritation and sass, so she mostly left the woman alone. She speculated the shift in the Mayor's mood was due to perhaps fear, and she was pushing the blonde away as a result. She wanted to give her the space she needed, but not the rope to hang herself, so she poked her head into the Mayor's home office.

Regina was set up on the couch bundled up in the corner, nose in a book. Her black rimmed glasses were too heavy for her face and had slipped down to the tip of her nose, and she fiddled with a pen in her hand as she read. The look of focused concentration was etched on the dark features of the Queen and Emma admired her genuine beauty before disturbing her.

"Hey. Hen is settled. Do you need anything before I turn in?"

She lifted her wrist and looked at her watch before asking, "You're going to bed now?"

Emma stepped further into the room and got closer to the brunette seeing as she wasn't being snapped at and took it as a sign that maybe the woman needed a break. "No, I was just gonna watch some Archer on Netflix."

"Isn't that a cartoon?"

Emma shifted under the scrutiny, "Yeah?"

"You are a child."

"It isn't for kids, Regina. Have you seen Lana Kane? She is… well, I mean…" A guilty smile crossed the blonde's mouth at the thought of the cartoon vixen.

"She is what?"

"Really really hot for a cartoon," Emma admitted sheepishly.

"Really," The brunette deadpanned.

Emma smirked and nodded before asking, "So do you need anything before I head up?"

Regina turned back to her research and dismissed, "Nothing at all. Go get your rocks off over some fictitious woman. I'll just toil away here looking for a way to restore our child."

Emma's smirk grew in the face of blatant jealousy. She walked closer to the brunette with purpose and grabbed the book from her hand, tossing it to the table, shocking the older woman.

"Miss Sw..."

Emma leaned over the Queen, taking possession of the older woman's mouth, swallowing the feeble reprimand in the process. She deepened the kiss until her lungs were screaming for air then released her captive and slowly rolled over her body. Regina's chest was heaving, and her dark eyes were pits of black. Emma knelt on the floor next to the Queen and raked her fingers down over the woman's body, pulling her closer. She kissed over dark cotton covered thighs as her fingers began to unfasten the Mayor's pants. She shimmied them down mid-thigh before her mouth found its way back to the satin patch at the woman's apex.

"Emma…" The cry started as a scolding, but when hot lips pressed against the crease of her thigh, it quickly turned into a plea for more.

Fingers found their way up under the band of Regina's underwear and carefully rolled them down over her hips and thighs, down to the woman's pants just below her knees. This hadn't been the blonde's intention, but the agitation in the Mayor coupled with the obvious jealous snark lit something within the Savior. She needed the intimacy and felt the older woman needed the reassurance.

Emma pressed her lips against the Queen's warm center, kissing the woman's mound before opening her thighs for more intimate access. Forceful fingers found their way into her blonde hair as the older woman started to guide her lips to where they were needed. She licked the desire she discovered up along Regina's sex causing her to buck her hips, begging for more.

It didn't take long before the Mayor was a panting and writhing mess under the skillful hands of the Savior and when she slowed her pace, Regina tightened her grip on blonde hair and hissed, "Don't you dare stop."

Emma chuckled and looked up from between the Queen's quivering legs and said, "Yes, Your Majesty."

The sentiment rolled over the dark woman, and she felt the weight of her heart fill with affection for the Savior. She was brought to screaming heights, and when she was spent, Emma sat back and laid kisses along her abdomen.

After the Queen caught her breath, her mind filled with all of the uncertainty and horrors of what she's discovered about her connection with the Savior and her fear returned. She was feeling closer to the blonde, and that has never bode well for the Queen in her past. There was a tiny hope that combining their magic wouldn't end in destruction, but that hope was tainted by the Queen's inner feeling that this thing they were doing was just something that had the blonde preoccupied and when their child was back to normal she, and he would disappear leaving her alone once more.

"I think I'll need a day or two before we can attempt to undo your spell."

"Alright," Emma said absently pecking her way around the woman's hip.

"You'll go home then… Once we return him to his proper age."

Emma's attention was lifted to worried dark eyes. "I suppose."

Dark features pinched in her perceived rejection and she snapped, "Fine."

"Fine…" Emma responded with confusion.

"If you don't mind Miss Swan, I still have much work to do tonight, and I haven't the time to waste with your frivolous distractions."

Emma watched as the woman detangled herself from her grasp and angrily redressed herself before picking up the book she'd been reading before the intrusion and settled behind her desk to read.

"Alright. If you need anything, you know where to find me I guess."

"I need nothing from you," the Queen said in disinterest without looking up from her book.

Emma wasn't sure what the brunette wanted her to say, but whatever it was, it hadn't been said. Now that the woman was pissed, there would be no rational conversation until she worked out her upset. She would have to wait until Regina came to her. So she got up, quietly exited the Mayor's office and went to her room.


The Mayor laid in her large empty bed and stared at the ceiling. In order for the women to share their magic, they had to have a profound connection that was only afforded by being soulmates. Her mind raced with everything she'd learned about what precisely a soulmate entailed and how every volatile, symmetrical detail fit neatly into her relationship with the Savior. The fire and ice that was their interactions. How the woman made her feel simple emotions as if they were lava running through her veins. The unbound excitement she felt at her mere presence. The irrational way she felt towards the woman suddenly made perfect sense.

Soulmates didn't mean true love, even though the terms were often used interchangeably. During her reading, she learned that their connection didn't always necessarily mean romantical partners at all, but it seemed she craved the attention of Emma Swan's love, despite herself. This added a complicated layer to what was already an emotionally heightened relationship.

She'd heard the lore on soulmates before her recent research about how they never burned brighter than when in one another's midst and when that fire had magical attributes the result was often disastrous. Of course, there were the few accounts where the witches combined power did nothing but increase the base power for each witch, but most of the tales spoke of dark, twisted magic gone awry. Evil sorcery infiltrated the weaker of the two and infected her to the point of spiritual destruction.

Deep down inside she feared she would infecting the blonde with her dark heart to the end of Henry losing both of his mothers to the darkness. She tried to focus on the moment where the Mad Hatter's hat sprang to life and the feeling she felt when Emma's hand touched her arm igniting her magic. She struggled to remember what it felt like if it was dark and menacing the way she feared but couldn't recall the magic itself, simply the startled surprise when the vortex finally opened.

She did know at the time there was something strange with that incident and thought briefly of the lore that she'd heard as a child of soulmates, but quickly dismissed it when the chaos of the room quieted. When the blonde and her family took her son and left her alone. Anger and jealousy boiled that day and erased any notion of magical compatibility.

She turned and tried to get comfortable and closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. A montage of pained green eyes filled her memory of every single time she'd hurt the blonde, including that very night.

She didn't want the woman to leave, but she didn't know how to ask her to stay. What would asking her to stay mean? Did she want the little shark family? Henry was no longer a baby. He was almost a young man. Would he be able to accept the women if they decided to be with one another in a romantic capacity? Would he trust her motivations?

Did she trust her own motivations? What would she become if the Savior was infected by all of the worst parts of the Evil Queen? That power could destroy the known world. The mere thought of her darkness filled the Queen with a quiet longing and adding the power Emma Swan possessed would be irresistible. Could she face that power and resist the temptation as she's failed to do in the past? Would Emma think less of her for that weakness?

She ripped the sheets away from herself in an attempt to get out of bed, an attempt she resisted. She covered herself back up then turned onto her other side and buried her face into her pillow and let out a sigh and tried to will herself to sleep.

Her eyes popped open, and she was facing the side of her bed that Emma had slept the previous evening and she could almost see the ghost of the woman still in that spot.

"Let me enjoy my little shark family for a minute…"

That was the Emma Swan she wanted. The safety and contentment the woman made her feel was what drew her in initially. Her strength, not her power. Her tenderness, her compassion, her love. In every setting she's ever seen Emma Swan, the woman was as closed off as she herself has been known to be. In most cases more so. Emma didn't have secrets she was trying to hide; it was her true self she was hiding away. Protecting herself from everyone and everything around her. She felt the woman take off her armor and be real with her in a hundred different ways. Regina could do the same. Regina wanted to do the same.

She pulled the covers off of her form and didn't resist the urge to get up out of bed. Once she was standing, she took tentative steps toward her bedroom door and made her way out into the hall passed her son's room to the door of the guest bedroom that held the woman that's been on her mind all night.

She pushed the semi-ajar door open just enough to slip through and could plainly see the blonde was in a deep sleep. She willed her feet forward and stood at the edge of the bed and watched, and waited, uncertain as to what she was even doing creeping into the blonde's bedroom in the middle of the night. She took a step back and considered returning to her own room, her own bed, her own… life. A life alone without the warmth of Emma Swan.

Instead, she pulled back the woman's covers and slipped into her bed. The Savior was disturbed as much as one could be and resituated herself to accept the intrusion as she snaked her arms around her and coaxed her into the embrace; settling back down she laid a kiss to the brunette's forehead. "Took you long enough," her sleepy voice croaked.

"Yes well, I wouldn't want you to think I'm easy."

The blonde's chest bounced as she chuckled, "Rest assured, that thought will never cross my mind, Your Majesty."

The older woman's hands slipped over the trim form of the woman beneath her and let out a content sigh as her mind quieted in the blonde's presence.

"Good night, Regina."

"Good night, My Liege."