Emma wasn't sure how much longer she could take of this. Trapped in Regina's subconscious she had been forced to watch as Regina had been attacked – like how Regina had explained to her the attacks had happened before – but also she witnessed more of Regina's "deaths."
The worst so far was seeing some version of herself attacking Regina – hanging her from that window at the mansion. It was exactly how Regina had described it to her, but seeing it actually take place in front of her made Emma want to vomit.
Now she understood better why Regina had been afraid of her. Even though she knew it wasn't her, it was still scary believable.
Some of the attacks had taken place in the Enchanted Forest and some in the real world.
Each time she was too late to save her. Each time she was able to get Regina to acknowledge her, she couldn't seem to convince her that none of this was real and she needed to wake up.
Nothing was working.
She didn't even know how long she had been trapped here but it felt like days. She was beginning to worry that not only would she fail in bringing Regina back, she would fail in bringing herself back.
The problem was every time that the scenario would reset it was hit or miss if Regina remembered anything of their previous talks. For the most part, she didn't remember but a few times she had.
They had now been through so many that Emma had begun to recognize a pattern, but again she didn't know what to about it. Every time they had ended up at the mansion there would be a moment where Regina would look off toward the kitchen. She never made a move to go to the kitchen, but she always looked there. And never had they ever entered the kitchen.
It had taken many times for Emma to notice that it had happened every time they were in the mansion, but there was definitely something about the kitchen that was getting Regina's attention.
Emma wondered what if anything it had to do with Regina having been found unconscious in the kitchen that last time. Maybe a part of Regina remembered it and that is why she looked toward it – and if so maybe Emma needed to get Regina in the kitchen at the next opportunity. At least that was her current plan as she really had no idea what she should be doing.
There was only one other thing that was standing out in Emma's mind. Whether they were in the Enchanted Forest or Storybrooke, Henry was never there among the people.
A part of Emma was thankful for that as she didn't want Henry having to see any of this – even if it wasn't the real Henry.
Emma had been sitting on the sidewalk outside of City Hall waiting for everything to reset. This last one had been fairly straight forward as a mob had dragged Regina from her office and executed her. Emma hadn't even gotten the chance to get close to her.
She watched as the scene faded around her and she hoped that it would be back to the mansion, but even as the scenery around her began to come into focus and she knew it wasn't going to be Storybrooke.
As it finally formed around her, she had no idea where she was.
"This is new," she said, looking around her.
It had to be the Enchanted Forest though based on what she was seeing – wide open fields, a homestead of some sort and a stable.
The stable is what caught her eyes and she began to walk toward it, hoping Regina was there, but at the same time sort of hoping she wasn't. Standing at the threshold, she said a young woman and she did a double take as she realized it was Regina. This was Regina before she became queen.
She was standing in front of one of the stalls, petting the horse inside of it.
She's beautiful, Emma thought. The scene was peaceful, almost perfect and Emma didn't want to interrupt but she knew she had to talk to her.
"Regina?"
Regina turned and smiled, "Emma."
Good, Emma thought, at least she remembers who I am.
What she wasn't expecting was Regina coming up to her, pulling her further in the stables and kissing her.
"Wow," Emma said after Regina pulled away.
"We really should be more careful," Regina said looking around. "If my mother finds out about us … I don't want to think about what she might do."
Shit, Emma thought, Cora was here in this scenario – that was a first. And given where they were at in the stables, Emma could guess what role she was supposed to be playing – Daniel.
"Maybe we should just get out of here," Emma said, taking Regina's hand and heading back the way she came in. But Regina forced her to stop.
"You know I would love to be able to spend more time with you," Regina said. "But we can't risk it. You know this Emma. My mother will never allow us to be together."
Yep, Emma thought, just like Cora wouldn't let Regina be with Daniel.
"I really don't care what your mother thinks," Emma said. "We need to get out of here now. Regina, listen to me, do you remember earlier me telling you that none of this is real and it's all in your head. I need you to really listen to me right now because I need you to stop all of this. None of this is really happening. You need to wake up."
Regina took a step back from her. "Emma, is there something wrong? I don't understand what you are talking about."
So much for the direct approach, Emma thought.
"Look, do you trust me?"
"Of course, I do."
"Good, then I need you to take my hand and come with me," Emma said, holding out her hand.
Regina hesitated only a moment before taking her hand and Emma immediately turned to lead her out, but she no sooner got to the entrance when Cora was suddenly standing there in front of them.
"And where do you two think you are going?" Cora said, taking a step toward them.
Emma put herself between Regina and Cora. Even if she was playing the love interest role in this scene, Emma knew that like always Regina would be the target. Cora took notice of her actions.
"Step aside," Cora said. "Better yet, leave. I must have words with my daughter."
"That's not going to happen," Emma replied, backing up a step.
Cora waved her hand and Emma went flying into the wall. She was momentarily dazed but looked up to see Cora approaching Regina who was backing up. There was an unmistakable look of fear on Regina's face.
She couldn't help but wonder how many times had Regina been in fear of her mother growing up.
It wasn't fair.
"No!" Emma growled as she pulled herself up. She had had enough of seeing Regina hurt over and over again. This time it wasn't happening. She felt the magic build up inside of her and she unleashed it at Cora.
This time it was Cora who went flying and Emma wasted no time grabbing Regina's hand once more and running with her from the stables. They didn't stop until they were in the woods. Emma was bent over trying to catch her breath and she was about to ask Regina if she was ok but looked up to see it was Regina as she was supposed to be not as the younger version.
"Emma, what just happened? Was that my mother?"
"Yes, sort of. First off, are you ok?"
"I think so," she said, looking down at herself which made Emma wonder if Regina knew she had been in her younger form. "What's going on? Why are we in the Enchanted Forest and how did we get here?"
So much for remembering past conversations Emma thought but she needed Regina to remember and she may not have the time to do it. So far there had been no fading of the world around them.
Emma came closer to her, putting her hands on each of Regina's arms. "I need you to listen to me, please. What I have to say to you is important. This … nothing of this is real," Emma said. "All of this is in your mind, it's not real. You need to put an end to all of this because I can't, believe me I have tried. The only person who can is you."
Regina shook her head. "What do you mean?"
Emma sighed and let go of her. "I need you to trust me. I need you …" She paused, not knowing what to say or do. She felt like she had tried everything. "Close your eyes."
She waited until Regina did – and thankfully she did it without questioning it.
"Ok, now I want you to picture being at home. Picture everything you can about being there," Emma said. "Now use your magic to take us there."
Emma hadn't even realized she had closed her eyes until she opened them and saw she was standing in the main room at the mansion. Regina had done it.
"Good," Emma said, giving what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "Now, I need you to think real hard about what you remember about being here last."
Regina stepped away from her. "What is all of this about?"
"I don't know that I have enough time to explain it, so please just trust me," Emma said. "Can you tell me what happened the last time you were here?"
Emma watched as Regina seemed to be thinking about the answer to that question and then it happened – Regina glanced over in the direction of the kitchen.
"What happened in that kitchen the last time you were here?" Emma asked.
"Nothing happened," Regina said, taking a step back.
"No," Emma said, grabbing her hand. "You can't keep running away from this. Regina, we are trapped here and we can't go home to our son if you keep running. Now tell me what happened."
"Nothing," Regina said again, trying to pull away from her but Emma wouldn't let her go.
"Not good enough," Emma said. "Something happened to you in that room. And I get it, it wasn't pleasant, but ignoring it will not make it magically go away. I'm sorry about this, I really am, but we have to get out of here."
Emma started to pull Regina toward the kitchen door and made it a couple of steps before Regina escaped her grip.
"Nothing happened," Regina said. "We just kissed and that's it."
"We kissed the night before," Emma said. "And it was wonderful and I want to be able to do it again, but I can't because neither of us is awake right now. You and I are both lying in hospital beds and my parents and our son are waiting for us to wake up, but we won't wake up if you don't face whatever happened to you in that kitchen the morning after we kissed. Something happened in there, I know it, because I found you unconscious on the floor and you wouldn't wake up. You still haven't woken up. The only clue I could find was an apple that was on the floor. You had taken a bite out of it."
The scene around them suddenly blinked – not faded – a quick blink and the mansion interior disappeared only to be replaced by the hospital room where the two of them were lying in the beds. It lasted only a few seconds before they were again in the mansion.
"Did you see that?" Emma said. "That is the real world out there, this, this is nothing more than your mind telling you that we are standing here in the mansion. It's not really where we are at. I don't think we can get home if we don't walk through that door first."
Again Regina backed up from her, the confusion clearly written across her face.
Emma looked over at the kitchen door and then back at Regina, holding out her hand. "Whatever it is, I will be with you every step of the way. I won't let you get hurt, not anymore. I love you Regina, I love you and I want to be able to tell you that, to show you that, but not here, not in this fabricated world. I want to do it out there in the real world. Please take my hand."
There was hesitation, major hesitation, but Emma felt relief as Regina gripped her hand. Moving slowly, Emma led them into the kitchen.
And it was empty.
Emma wasn't sure what she was expecting but this was certainly anti climatic. Maybe it just needed jump started, she thought.
"What do you remember about the morning after we kissed in here?" Emma asked.
"How did we get here?" Regina asked suddenly.
"What do you mean?"
"If what you say is true and this isn't real, how did the two of us get here?"
"I found you unconscious in here," Emma said. "You've been asleep ever since in the hospital. This is your mind."
"Then how did you get here? Are you just a figment of my imagination?"
"No," Emma said. "This is me, the real me. I came in here to get you, to get you to wake up because nothing we were trying out there was doing anything. I had to do this."
Regina shook her head slightly. "To get you here, that would take advanced magic, magic you don't have."
"True, which is why we sort of outsourced that job to Gold."
"You did what!" Regina said, moving away from her. "Of all stupid things you could possibly do you do the most stupid one. Just when I came to terms with the fact you are not an idiot you do the most idiotic thing."
"Hey," Emma interrupted. "I'm not going to apologize for doing everything I can possibly do to get you to wake up."
Even though she was firing back at Regina, she also felt much better that the fire she had always secretly been turned on by in the other woman was emerging once more. This was the Regina before all of this had happened.
Regina appeared to be trying to calm down. "Don't you see, Gold only has one type of magic, and it's not the good kind. You have endangered yourself by coming here that way."
"I don't care," Emma said. "To me it's worth it to get you out."
Regina started to pace a bit, speaking softly to herself. Emma heard words like 'to pull this off,' and 'dark magic' and 'blood.' Finally, Regina faced her.
"You don't understand. Whether you realized what you said earlier to me was the truth or not – you really can't wake up from this. There is only one way out of this for you if we are indeed in my mind – if I don't wake up, you don't wake up," Regina said. "Gold would have had to use a binding spell to get you here. He bound you to me with dark magic."
"Again, I don't care," Emma said, emphasizing the words. "I don't because you and I are going to get out of this. We are going to go home to our son who is waiting in that hospital room for his mothers to wake up."
"Henry," Regina said softly and she turned from Emma to look again at the kitchen.
Then it happened again, there was another blink and they saw the hospital room once more. Emma hoped this meant that whatever was happening in Regina's mind, it was progress toward waking up.
This was the most positive progress they had made and Emma hoped they had enough time to complete it. There had been no hint of fading into a new scenario and she wondered if that was due to Regina apparently remembering some things of what happened. She knew she had to steer the conversation back to what happened here in this room though.
"We found you over here – my dad and me," Emma said walking over to the spot. "Your secretary had called when you hadn't shown up to work and I knew immediately something was wrong. We called the paramedics while we tried to wake you, but nothing was working and so they transported you to the hospital. There was nothing out of the ordinary here at the house except for one thing – an apple that I found over there that you had taken a bite out of."
"I'm under a sleeping curse?" Regina asked.
"No," Emma shook her head. "There was nothing magical about the apple and no poison either. It was just a regular apple. Whale and Gold, they could find no reason for why you were asleep. That's when Archie approached me with what he thought might be going on. Believe me, I was skeptical when he told me his theory and I'm still not 100 percent sold on it, mostly because I don't want to believe that this – all of this here and the attacks that happened to you back in the real world – it's all happened because of you. You're doing it to yourself that is why there have never been any real evidence, no witnesses and no magic beyond your own."
Emma wasn't ready to bring up the point of why she had been doing it to herself.
She had watched Regina throughout, trying to gauge her reaction to all of this and she knew right away that she didn't believe her. When she saw the background start to fade she knew Regina wasn't ready to accept it, but Emma wasn't ready to go through yet another scenario, so she grabbed Regina once more, forcing her to look at her.
"Stay with me," Emma said. "Please, whatever you are thinking in that beautiful head of yours, just stay with me. Don't go." She kept her eyes locked on Regina's, refusing to even glace to see if the world around them was disappearing again. She needed Regina to stay with her.
Leaning in, she kissed her.
When she finished the kiss, she allowed herself to look in the background and she saw that the fading had stopped.
"You remember, right, that we shared our first kiss here in this room, that we admitted that both of us had been wanting this for a while now," Emma said. "I wonder if you realize how happy it made me in that moment to know that you wanted this too. I thought we were finally getting on track, but something happened here that next morning. I went to work, Henry went to school and you stayed behind as you were going into work a little bit later. You never made it to work though, why?"
Regina looked at the floor where Emma had told her they had found her.
"Henry didn't go to school."
Regina spoke so softly, almost in a whisper that Emma wasn't sure she heard her right.
"Yes, he did, I dropped him off myself," Emma said, but then she paused. She knew she had dropped off Henry that morning but if Regina was saying he hadn't then maybe … no, she thought, please not Henry. "Are you saying Henry was here that morning after we kissed?"
"He came back," Regina said, still speaking softly and looking at the spot on the floor. "He came back because … because he saw us kissing and he said I ruined everything. He said you are the Savior and I'm … I'm the Evil Queen and that I don't deserve happiness after all I have done."
Regina looked up at Emma. "He was right. He offered me the apple and …"
"No!" Emma interrupted. "Don't say that. That's not true."
"Yes, it is," Regina said, stepping away from her. "I have killed, I killed my other father. I have ordered others to kill, I have lied, I have manipulated everyone I have ever been close to even my own son. I would have ruined you."
"No, no," Emma said. "That wasn't Henry. Listen to me, Henry loves you. He loves you so much and he would never say that you don't deserve happiness because it's just not true. You have to know this."
"You said this wasn't real," Regina said.
"It's not. The real world is one where our son is waiting for you to wake up."
"But what happened, the apple, it wasn't here, it was back there in a real world," Regina said. "It happened."
Again, the background began to fade – quicker this time.
"Not really," Emma said. "The attacks, you getting hurt, those things didn't happen like you think they happened. My parents didn't hurt you, Ruby didn't hurt you, I didn't hurt you and Henry did not. He would never do something like that. It was you Regina. You were hurting yourself with your magic."
Upon hearing this, Regina backed up again and she was only a couple of steps from where things were fading. Emma was going to lose her again as the fading got closer. She needed to do something – she rushed over to Regina embracing her just as the fading hit her.
Emma had closed her eyes when it happened but when she opened them, she again found herself standing in the stable with a young Regina.
"Emma," Regina smiled at her before kissing her. When Regina pulled away, she looked around them. "We should really be more careful. "If my mother finds out about us … I don't want to think about what she might do."
This time it was Emma backing away. "Déjà vu," she said.
"What?"
There was something wrong about all of this, Emma thought. But she wasn't sure what. They had been making progress yet, Regina's mind had brought them back to this place, this scenario but why? Was it because she had gone with Regina into the fading?
"Regina, do you remember me being here before?"
"Of course," she laughed. "We meet here all the time."
"No, Regina, we don't," Emma said. "I didn't know you before Storybrooke."
"Storybrooke, what are you talking about? Why are you being silly, we don't have much time you know this. If my mother catches us here …"
"I think she is about to," Emma said turning toward the entrance just as Cora seemed to appear out of nowhere. Again, Emma placed herself between Cora and Regina.
"Step aside," Cora said. "Better yet, leave. I must have words with my daughter."
Just as it was before, Emma thought. As soon as the thought hit her, another did – while this was the same as before, it wasn't the same as it happened in real life. In real life Daniel had been the target of Cora's wrath. And if Emma was the role of Daniel in this, why was she being told to merely leave?
"No," Emma said and this time she was ready for Cora's magic and she used her own to block it. "Run," she yelled at Regina.
But a quick glance behind her showed Regina was standing still, the expression of fear on her young face once more. Emma kept backing up as she fended off Cora's attacks, forcing Regina to also back up.
Again, Emma got the upper hand against Cora and again they escaped into the woods. But unlike before, she was still with young Regina who was now desperately pacing.
"What are we going to do? She'll come after us," Regina said. "She'll find us and when she does …"
"She's not going to hurt you," Emma said forcing Regina to stop by standing in front of her. "I won't let her hurt you."
"You need to go," Regina said. "Run from this place because if she finds you, she will kill you. I'll stay and I'll …"
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere," Emma said. "And I'm certainly not going to let you stay behind for my sake. Regina, we have to get out of here. We have to get back to Storybrooke."
"I don't know what that is."
Of course, you don't, Emma thought, because this is you before you ever cast the curse.
"Come on," Emma said. "Let's start walking and putting some distance between you and your mother. We can think about what to do next."
They walked for a long time, Emma lost in her thoughts about what to do. Finally, Regina said she needed to stop and rest so they found a suitable place to sit down. Emma was leaning against a tree with Regina nestled in next to her, her arm around the brunette. Emma saw Regina's eyes closing as if to sleep. That wasn't something she had encountered so far in this mind trip and she hoped that maybe it also meant that Regina's mind was tired of all of this and ready to stop.
She looked up and noticed the forest around them was beginning to fade. Good, she thought, maybe this time they would be in Storybrooke.
Once the fading hit them, Emma opened her eyes as the world rematerialized again.
"You have got to be kidding me," she said before Regina could kiss her once more. She spun around at the sight of the stables. Why the hell were they back here again?