Hello my beauties! Just FYI, the song that I was listening to while writing the majority of this chapter was 'Bleeding Out' by Imagine Dragons. Fucking cracker of a tune. Go get it.

Love and hugs xxx

Chapter Fourteen

The arrow whistled through the air, sailing towards the broken branch that Henry's narrowed eyes had spotted. A moment later the sharp tip was buried deep in the hard knot of wood that scarred its surface. Henry watched as it juddered to a halt, vibrating amongst the surrounding leaves. He didn't smile. Looking about him, he counted each of the arrows that he'd shot in the last half an hour; every one of them reaching an increasingly smaller or more challenging target without difficulty. His arms didn't even shake any more. He knew that he should be pleased, that he should be proud of what he could do with his new weapon – but his heart was heavy, and his bones ached with a miserable exhaustion. The sight of an arrow easily reaching its target had already lost all of its former joy.

He dragged his eyes over the surrounding trees and sighed. Inside the house, he felt suffocated. Out here, however, it was even worse: loneliness was creeping in on him and every branch that hung down seemed to point at him, sneering at his awkwardness and the fact that the very world that he'd been dreaming of being a part of for years had already let him down. Instead of finding out that there is no Santa, it felt like finding out that there is in fact a Mr S. Claus, but who is overweight, crabby, hates children and smells faintly of stale alcohol. A whole world that he had been imagining and doodling and pining after was fake and disappointing, and walking through it was becoming physically painful to him.

Tearing each and every one of those arrows down from where they had landed, Henry hung his bow back across his shoulders and began to trail back towards the dwarves' cottage. His heavy footsteps echoed his mother's. He kept his head down.

'Jesus. He is good at that, isn't he?'

Robert rolled his eyes, not looking over at where Arthur was perched in the branches next to him. The boy passed directly below them, his forehead creased as he looped his thumbs beneath the string of his bow.

'He's the grandson of Snow White and Prince fucking Charming,' Robert muttered in response, watching as Henry clambered over a log and broke out into the clearing that encompassed the nearby cottage. 'Of course he's good at it.'

In the tree next to Robert's, another voice spoke up. 'You're still sure that someone's going to come looking for him?'

Adjusting the green peaked hat that he had rammed onto his head that morning, Robert nodded. 'Positive,' he said. He continued watching as Henry walked with his shoulders slumped forwards, a single blot on the otherwise deserted ground. 'Look at him, boys: he's depressed. And anyone who knows him at all will realise that he needs someone besides that batty old woman and a bunch of midgets to make him happy again – so they'll be coming soon. They'll want to make sure he's safe, and they'll come for him. I'm sure of it.'

A pause followed his words before Arthur spoke up again. 'And how will you get him away from the cottage at the right time?'

Robert motioned around him, at the tall trees where three of their company of nine sat watching the boy. 'We simply need to stay alert. I've got the others stationed further into the forest: the rest of us will keep an eye on the house. Rest assured, the moment that someone else enters these woods – we'll know about it. And then we'll go and get the child.'

Arthur nodded, looking back to Henry just as he reached the cottage. Struggling with the heavy door, he hefted his body forwards and then finally disappeared from sight. A smirk came over Robert's face.

'Make sure that you've got all of the weapons ready,' he said in a low voice, holding an arrow between his knees and slowly running a thumb over the glowing tip. 'And the ropes. There's going to be a struggle.'

The afternoon came and brought a greyness with it, the clouds hanging low amongst the trees. Emma and Regina rode side by side, the silence that they had woken up in following them all the while. They didn't look at one another. Regina instead cast her gaze across the surrounding trees, taking in various landmarks and eventually tracking their whereabouts to being less than a day away from the dwarves' cottage. She didn't allow herself to consider that their journey might end there – a heavy sadness was already thudding against her chest, one that she felt more so now than she had done when they had reached Granny's the day before.

They stopped for lunch later than they normally did, and Emma quickly found that she still wasn't hungry. Pushing her food to one side, she leaned forwards with her green eyes pinned onto Regina's expressionless face. When the brunette looked up at her, Emma forced a smile.

'Do you remember the first time that we met?'

The question was abrupt, and Regina blinked uncertainly. 'Of course I do,' she said slowly. 'How could I forget?'

The corners of Emma's eyes crinkled slightly.

'I was so scared of you,' she said, almost laughing. 'Not because you were some big, terrifying Evil Queen. But because from the moment you came out of that house, you just were. I managed to forget all about Henry for that split second because you were right there, right in my face, and all I could think about was how good you looked in that damn dress. And that scared the hell out of me.'

Regina could feel her lips twisting into a smile without her telling them to. 'Oh yes?'

Emma rolled her eyes, still chuckling. 'You had me from day one, Madame Mayor.'

A short, wistful laugh escaped from Regina's lips and the pain in her chest momentarily subsided. Sitting amongst the greyness of the afternoon Emma's blonde hair glowed almost golden, and Regina found that she couldn't take her eyes off of it. Emma watched her in return, her young face breaking into a hopeful smile as she waited for the brunette to respond. But Regina only fell silent. She looked into those expectant green eyes, and she felt her heart shatter.

Because, ultimately, she knew that this wouldn't work: none of this could ever work. No matter how much she had grown to care for Emma, or how much she missed her when she wasn't there for five minutes, or how much she found herself wanting to tell her about the tiniest things that had happened to her in her absence; like how that morning she'd been so exhausted that she'd almost poured their horses wine instead of water, and how the day before she'd seen a flower that was somehow the exact same green-blue colour of Emma's questioning eyes and she'd so desperately wanted to pick it for her, but had lost her nerve at the last minute because she wasn't sure whether the broken foster child in Emma would love it or laugh at it.

Loneliness had followed Regina like a shadow for most of her life, and even when it had felt like it was about to smother her, she knew that it was safer that way. Because, before then, she had only ever had two experiences of real love: first with Daniel, and then with Henry. And all that she had learned from them was that she really didn't know how to love at all. She loved too hard and she pulled too hard, and she ruined everything. That was how she loved everything: completely, and aggressively. The blonde woman with creases between her eyebrows simply couldn't understand how dangerous that was to her.

'This…' Regina faltered momentarily, unable to look up as she spoke. 'This has to end, Miss Swan.'

Emma blinked. 'Since when did we go back to "Miss Swan"?'

'I mean it,' Regina said, pushing her own food to one side. 'What we're doing… it needs to stop. We can't keep going on like this, pretending that it's okay.'

'But it is okay,' Emma spluttered, leaning further forwards, waiting for Regina to meet her eyes. 'Regina. What the hell? What's going on?'

'I've just had time to think,' the queen said with a shrug that would have looked casual had it not been for the fact that Emma knew her better than she gave her credit for. 'And it's just becoming clear to me… What we've been doing was reckless and, yes, arguably, it was fun – but it was temporary. And it needs to stop now. For Henry's sake.'

'This has got nothing to do with Henry, Regina!' Emma snapped. She waited for a bitten response; a sign that the Regina she knew was still there – but instead, Regina gradually began to stand up and, without a look in her direction, turned away. 'Regina! Do not dare walk away from me! We need to talk about this.'

Not saying another word, Regina began to walk away anyway. She didn't know where she was going or what on earth she was planning to say to Emma once she returned. She just knew that she needed to get away from there, from Emma Swan's shattered expression, so that she could find somewhere quiet and cry and cry and cry until she was empty once more.

It didn't occur to her that Emma might follow her until she felt an angry hand on her shoulder only a minute later, spinning her around and slamming her body back against a tree. Emma's own face was streaked with furious tears, her blonde hair a crazed mess billowing down her spine.

'Miss Swan,' Regina spluttered, forcing herself to stop crying so that she could attempt to look outraged. 'Get off of me.'

'How fucking dare you,' Emma hissed at her, both of her hands clinging desperately onto the queen's forearms as she pushed her back against the tree. 'You let me fall for you – you let me think that you had changed.'

'I did nothing of the sort,' Regina replied. She wrestled with her own voice, trying to get it under control and regain the same cool disdain that the Mayor of Storybrooke had mastered so effortlessly. But she failed. Her mask was cracking. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes so that she couldn't see the tears that were streaming down Emma's cheeks any longer. 'Emma. I never meant for you to—'

'Regina! Stop it! Please, will you stop pulling away from me?' Emma demanded, taking hold of Regina's chin so that her eyes snapped back open again. 'Please - stop blocking me out!'

'Emma, get off of me. I told you—'

'You didn't mean it,' Emma said, her face only centimetres away. The tears in Regina's eyes began to spill down her cheeks and she made no move to wipe them away. 'I'm not stupid. Everything that's happened here – everything – has meant something to you. And now you're trying to push it all away. Why?'

When Regina only groaned Emma suddenly thrust her face forwards, closing the gap between them and kissing the downturned lips before her so angrily that Regina's body visibly slumped back against the tree.

'Regina,' Emma bit out the word, releasing the mayor's arms and instead gently running a finger across her tensed jaw. 'Please. Will you stop being so fucking scared of me and just let me in?'

She paused, catching her bottom lip worriedly between her teeth as she watched the panic that was trembling across the brunette's face. 'You're... you are allowed to love me, you know.'

'No I'm not!' Regina suddenly exploded, tears and anger bursting from her as she pushed Emma away from her with such force that she stumbled backwards onto the floor. 'I'm not! I can't! Why the hell can't you understand that?!'

'Because it's utter horseshit and you know it,' Emma snapped, staggering back to her feet with her green eyes flashing. 'What the hell is this really about, Regina? Don't you dare lie to me again. I'm pretty good at spotting a liar, remember. And, right now, your nose could take out a window.'

'Emma, shut up,' Regina bit out, shoving her backwards as she approached once more and folding her arms across her chest. 'Just shut up.'

'Make me.'

'Get your hands off of me!'

'Regina, look me in the eye and just tell me—'

'I loved him!' Regina screamed, startling Emma into silence. Her forehead creased in panic as the words began to explode from Regina's lips. 'Daniel! I loved him! I created a whole fucking curse around him because I watched him die in front of me. He stopped breathing and his body crashed to the floor at my feet and I could do absolutely nothing to save him. I loved him and he loved me and he died because I was weak enough to love him. What about that don't you understand, Emma? What about that can your ridiculous little blonde head simply not comprehend?'

Emma's lips were set in a tight line, her eyes suddenly dry. The thick clouds above them had begun to flake away, raining down pathetic drops of water onto their skin.

'You're not a child anymore, Regina,' she said slowly, longing to reach out to the woman stood before her. 'And I'm not just some stable boy.'

'I realise that,' Regina replied, her voice cracking under the weight of the words that she was finally forcing herself to say. 'You're so much more.'

With that, she finally slid to the ground. As miserable raindrops fell down upon them, the queen wrapped her arms tightly around her knees and let her forehead fall forwards onto them, picturing Daniel's dying face in her mind and realising with a jolt of her heart that the image no longer hurt as much as it once had. Now, there were other things in her life that could easily hurt her so much more.

The corners of Emma's mouth spiked downwards as she stood over her, watching the tiny raindrops as they clung onto Regina's dark hair. Hot, furious tears slid down her cheeks. All she could hear was what sounded like waves crashing inside her head: she could only assume that that was the sound of her heart breaking.

'Regina,' she swallowed. 'I'm not…'

'Don't you understand, Em?' Regina asked softly, looking up at the woman who had destroyed her life and then pulled it all back together again, piece by piece. The brittle shards that made her up now were poorly sewn together, and they were jagged around the edges. She was almost whole again, and yet she knew all too well that it would take only the tiniest nudge to make her fall back apart. 'I loved him, and it nearly destroyed me. If I let myself love you… it would destroy everything.'

Emma crouched down before her, reaching out to take her hands without a word.

'I destroy everything I touch,' Regina said flatly, squeezing Emma's fingers between her own. 'I'm not going to let that happen to you as well.'

Robert heard the sound of panting before he could see the figure that had appeared at the base of his tree.

'Hood!' Little John shouted up at him, beginning to climb. 'Robin!'

'What is it?' Robert asked as the man reached his level, his face red even in the darkness that was falling around them.

'Two women,' the man said, choking out the words between each breath that he could catch. 'One blonde, one dark. They're riding royal horses, and they're camped a few miles away. I couldn't see their faces, but I heard names: I heard the name Regina.'

Robert blinked. Across his lap lay his cursed bow, his thick fingers clutched fiercely around its vibrating frame.

As he turned his dark profile towards the distant cottage, he didn't smile.

'Get some rest tonight, men,' he said. His voice was low and it didn't tremble. 'In the morning, we go and get the boy.'