"There doesn't appear to be any extreme damage," Whale commented while looking at Regina's chart. "You're dehydrated, so I'm recommending you take at least one more IV bag before we release you. You are most certainly to the point of exhaustion. I'd recommend you get plenty of rest and try to take it easy for the next few days, and," he scowled, "I really wish you'd allow us to at least do an EKG on your heart. Based on what I've been told, I find it hard to believe some damage wasn't done to Emma's heart during her encounter with Cora, and, if you took Emma's damage as your own…"

"Would it just be easier, less troublesome, and make you stop being so pesky if you could simply look at my heart," Regina asked in a highly irritated tone. Sitting upright in the ER bed in which she'd been placed earlier in the day, she was beginning to let her annoyance with being trapped at the hospital for so many hours play over the fatigue she had coming into the hospital.

"You sound like he can just pop your chest open and take a look." Emma gave Regina a disapproving glance. "It couldn't hurt for us to be sure you're okay, could it?"

"As a physician, I'd feel better knowing your heart was fine." The doctor tried not to roll his eyes, though his body language screamed that, as a person, he'd rather the former mayor was hurt. "So, yes, I would in fact feel better if I could examine your heart, which is why…"

"Oh my God, Regina, what are you doing?" Emma lunged at the bed, arriving too late. In empathy to the self-inflicted pain the brunette was doing, the sheriff gave a strangled cry, gripping the side of the hospital bed to keep from falling over.

Regina grunted as she plucked her own heart from her chest and held it out for all to see. "You see? It's fine."

"Holy hell," the blonde muttered, eyes glued to the heart. "I can't believe you just did that. Why would you do that?"

Doctor Whale stared down at the heart in Regina's hand and watched it for a moment. He reached a hand out to touch it, thought better of it, and retracted it. "It doesn't look like the other I saw."

"No, I suspect not," she answered in an eerily cool tone. "The one before was not darkened as mine is." She tilted her head in consideration. "Will this do?"

Whale's eyes flipped between the two women. Emma stared wide-eyed at the heart while Regina continued to watch the doctor with a chilly stare of her own. A thousand considerations ran through his head, but he rejected them as each outcome had him at odds with the sheriff, which was the last thing he wanted to do. Sighing, he nodded and turned to leave, stating he'd start work on the release papers.

"Seriously, you really just did that?" Emma's voice was fully of confusion.

Regina rolled her eyes. "Yes, Ms. Swan. Why do you keep asking that question? You watched me do it yourself."

The sheriff finally looked up at the other woman's face. "But why?"

"Because you should know what you're considering getting yourself into. It's only fair. You may know my history, Sheriff, but you don't know my heart." Regina nodded to the organ in question. "Now you do. Do you see all of the black spots?" Emma simply nodded. "Those are places I've blackened myself because of the things I've done. Knowing what I've done and understanding it are two different things. You need to understand because I will not go further with this," with her free hand she motioned between them, "until you do."

Slowly licking her lips as her eyes darted back to the darkened heart, Emma reached out and touched it. Much to her surprise, the places that were blackened were cool to the touch while the bright red places were warm. She slowly ran her finger around the organ, feeling the hot and cool of Regina's heart and only stopping when she realized the sensation was causing the older woman to shudder. "Does it hurt?"

"No," Regina answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Can it go back?" The blonde's face was a torrent of concern and hope. "Can we fix it?"

"Once a heart starts to darken, I've never known of it 'going back'. I've only known it to get darker and darker until it's fully consumed," came the answer, still in that same matter-of-fact tone.

Emma shook her head. "I don't believe that. People can be redeemed." She looked up again, eyes earnest. "You can be redeemed. You're already starting."

Regina slowly shook her head, pursing her lips in thought. "Do you really think that's possible?"

"I think," the younger woman quietly began as she gently took the heart out of Regina's hand, "that, once something happens to a person, it will always leave a mark." She moved closer to the head of the hospital bed, heart in her right hand and her left hand braced against the side rail to steady her. "But a mark doesn't have to be a bad thing, Regina. It can sometimes be a good thing if you use it to learn and become a better person from the experience." She moved her right hand closer to Regina's chest. "You know what I think?" The question was clearly rhetorical, and the other woman only blinked and waited for the answer, not taking her eyes from Emma's gaze. "I think that these are only marks left behind, and you're already starting to move on, and I, for one," she pushed her right hand forward and grunted in unison with the former queen as the heart returned to its rightful spot, "am very proud of you for it."

Breathing uneven, faces now mere inches apart, they stared into the other's eyes for what felt like an eternity before Regina reached up to cup Emma's face. Her voice was so quiet it was barely audible above the sounds of the room surrounding them. "Thank you."

Emma's smile was gentle and reassuring. She tilted her head and leaned down closer still. "You're welcome. Now," she said in a quiet, breathy voice, "don't ever do that again. You scared the hell out of me."

Regina laughed, and the sound broke the building tension in the room. "Are you always this good at breaking up a moment, Ms. Swan?"

Emma's eyes sparkled with mischief, and she shrugged though didn't move back. "Probably. I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience with whatever this is we have going on between us."

Her own smirk growing on her face, Regina moved her hand from Emma's face to tangle in the sheriff's hair, pulling her down for their first kiss. Simple, steady, and a play between them with neither trying to be the one in charge, just a part of the whole created by the experience, the kiss seemed to be a unpretentious extension of what they already had. It was as if they'd always had this level of intimacy. Though strange, it felt oddly right for both of them, and, when they broke, Regina murmured in an amused tone, "You're incorrigible, Ms. Swan."

"So are you," Emma answered while going in for another quick kiss before standing up again. "And you could call me Emma. I think we've officially moved past the point of addressing each other by titles, don't you?"

Regina raised an eyebrow. "Probably. I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience with whatever this is we have going on between us."

Emma snorted and fell down into the chair set next to the bed. "Cute." Regina shrugged. "When we get out of here, why don't we get Henry and go to Granny's for dinner? I'm starving, can't cook, and I don't think you should tonight."

Regina gave it a moment's thought. "We could do that, or we could leave Henry with his grandparents tonight, order pizza, and go to bed early."

"I like that plan better." Emma pulled her cell out to make the necessary calls to setup proper arrangements but stopped before she made the first call. Letting out a heavy sigh, she commented idly, "It'd be nice to pretend to be normal, even if it's just for a night."

The brunette allowed both of her eyebrows to rise in surprise. "Are you calling our… whatever this is something normal?"

The younger woman rolled her eyes. "No, I said pretend. Nothing about my life has ever been normal, and let's stop with the beating-around-the-bush stuff here. I think you and I both know what's going on. We might as well go ahead and say it."

Not falling for the trap, Regina asked, "And what would that be?"

"God, why do I have be the first to say it? Come on, Regina," Emma whined, "I just spent a couple of really weird days trapped in the Enchanted Forest and in the past where I was nearly taken out by your mother. Cut me a little slack here."

"I could argue the finer points of your argument, but fine." Regina rolled her eyes and squared her shoulders as if she were preparing to do business with someone she'd prefer not to. "But, if I say it first, then concessions elsewhere will have to be made."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "Really? Like what?"

"You and Henry come home to stay." The brunette crossed her arms and tilted her head in a defiant gesture.

Giving a little laugh, Emma shrugged. "Honestly, that's not much of a concession, but, hey, if that's what we have to do and you insist on twisting my arm about it, then, okay, you have a deal. You say it first, and, after tonight, Henry and I will pack our stuff and move home to stay."

Again pursing her lips in thought as she narrowed her eyes, Regina allowed her thoughts to roll around while she considered her options on how best to word her next sentence. There were several factors at play. She neither wanted to sound vulnerable nor weak, and she had no desire to seem as though she was insincere because they both knew that wasn't the case.

Sighing and uncrossing her arms, she finally spoke. "I believe it's safe to say at this point that you and I are each other's true love, as painful as that may be to your parents, the town, and each other."

"Literally," Emma mumbled while she rubbed at her chest at the remembrance of the last empathetic pain she experienced.

"Yes." Regina paused, a pained expression crossing her face. "I am sorry for that. It will take some time for me to adjust to the idea that we share each other's physical pain."

"Does that cross over to other things? Like, if we can feel each other's pain, does that mean we feel other things?" The sheriff waggled her eyebrows and gave a cheeky grin.

Regina hummed in thought. "I'm honestly not sure. There aren't many documented cases of this level of connection between true loves. I suppose we'll simply have to experiment and find out."

Emma's cheeky grin turned devilish. "Let me make those phone calls."

"Hey," David sat down on the stool next to his wife, who was staring into her cup of hot chocolate. "You going to be okay?"

"I don't know," she answered in a muted voice. "Eventually?" She managed to give him a quick side glance.

He nodded. "It's a lot to take in. I can't say I'm happy about any of this, either."

"How can you be so calm about it? This is our daughter we're talking about, and Regina…" She trailed off, shaking her head in dismay. "I can't believe this is happening."

"I learned a long time ago," he said, voice gentle and eyes soft as he looked at his wife, "that you can't help who you fall in love with, and, if it's really meant to be, you'll find a way to be together." His smile was small and a little sad. Memories of all they'd been through briefly crossed by his mind's eyes. "If it's true love, there's not a lot we can do to stop it."

"It just doesn't make any sense, David." Mary Margaret groaned. "I think I'd have preferred it if Regina had cast a spell on Emma."

He couldn't stop the grin. "She sort of did."

She glanced at him and gave him a scowl. "David!" Slapping him on the shoulder, she allowed herself to give a little chuckle. They settled after a moment. "It's going to take some time for everyone to adjust to this."

"They'll get there, and so will we. We just have to take it one day at a time, and," he shrugged, "maybe this is exactly what this town needs? If Emma and Regina are together, then our families' conflicts with each other are sort of moot, aren't they?"

"I suppose that's one way to end a feud," she conceded with a sigh. "Is Henry asleep?"

"Yeah, and he's still got Hulk and Dino safely guarding him. What do you say we take a hint and get some sleep ourselves? I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a long day." He scooted from the stool and helped to guide Mary Margaret to do the same.

She groaned but allowed herself to be moved about. "We're going to have to call another town hall meeting, aren't we?"

"Yes, but not tomorrow." He thought on it. "It'll have to be the next day."

She looked puzzled. "Why not tomorrow?"

"Because tomorrow I'm pretty sure we'll have to help Emma and Henry pack."

Mary Margaret stopped and stared at him. She was intently quiet for almost too long before she said in a very grim voice, "I don't know if I can handle this."

David gave her a sympathetic look. "We'll make it through."

Oh man, now all I want to do is write a whole bunch of Swan Queen/ Swan-Mills Family Moments. But, alas, I have to do this whole "wait, wtf just happened" scene coming up next first. What? You didn't think the rescue scene was the climax of the story did you? ;-)