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Song: Clarity by Zedd


Every muscle ached. Every movement felt like she lugged a hundred pounds of weight on each limb. But Emma moved. She dressed in a pair of loose shorts, an oversized shirt that she'd received for volunteering with one of Henry's afterschool programs in Salem during the six months between Pan's curse and her return to Storybrooke. Her eyes fixated on the dark red around her fingernails, imbedded in the cuticles. Blood from her chest. It didn't matter. Her hand slapped her thigh, too heavy to hold any longer.

Everything seemed clearer. But duller. The images played in her mind clearly, but the emotions attached to them eluded her. Her eyes fixated on a spot outside their room. Suddenly, falling onto the balcony from their room in a panic made sense. She'd begun recovering her memories for the first time in that moment. She'd accused Regina of murdering her mother, discovered that she'd been the woman Regina spoke of so fondly who had abandoned her with the child they conceived together. Before the previous night, she only remembered the blind panic and Ruby coming up the stairs, concerned. On the other side of that coin, the moments before that one stepped from behind the frosted pane the potion induced. She'd just shaved Regina's legs for her, prepared a bath for them to share.

Duller but clearer.

Her head swam.

Emma closed her eyes and steadied herself on the railing before the wave of dizziness sent her toppling down the stairs.

Coffee.

Coffee made everything better.

Her fingers gripped the banister until they ached as she descended the stairs. The cool hardwood at the bottom surprised her, and she gasped to find her surroundings different, not recollecting her knees bending and stepping from each platform. She wavered again. Everything felt different, looked different, but the same. She felt different but better… no, not better. She felt like herself. She felt completely like Emma Swan again, but her magic remained locked in the heart surrounded by icy walls of devastation and suffering. Why had everything changed overnight? She was happy without her memories, but… she'd seen Annabel on the sonogram machine, felt her kick in Regina's stomach. Precious moments that her soul savored, but she'd been happy without them. She'd had Regina without them. But she'd not been whole, a part of her identity had been missing. But she'd been happy.

Emma gasped when strong but small hands touched her shoulders, stabilizing her. Bright blue eyes searched hers, and Emma realized how silent the house was.

"Where are my kids?" She asked, voice raspy and strained.

"Katy is still with Batch and Lauren. Sherri said she didn't mind keeping Henry for the day. He hasn't asked to come home yet, so he doesn't know. Ruby took Annabel and Alex to Bethany. She's going to look after them for the afternoon and tonight if you need her to," Belle explained quietly. Tears burned Emma's eyes. She tried to focus on Belle's words, but so many facts and anecdotes about her friend rushed into her mind. She knew once more exactly the type of evil her wife capable of, and this resilient creature had found forgiveness for the woman who tortured her for 30 years. It gave her hope.

"We're not leaving you, Emma," Belle added firmly, redirecting her attention. "Your kids are safe, and Ruby and I are going to be right here all day. Just tell me what you need." The conviction in her voice pulled at Emma's heart. She wanted to believe in her friends, her family.

"She poisoned me," Emma whispered without actually meaning to utter anything. "She would have left me forever if we hadn't stopped her." Was that her voice? Broken and distant?

"I can't justify her actions, Emma, because I don't understand them. I'm not sure Regina understands them." Belle took her hand as she stepped towards the kitchen, stabilizing the disoriented woman. The words glanced off her, like she'd not heard them, or she simply hadn't cared about Belle's opinion. She'd opened up to her because of the shock, not because of a need to purge the grief or a desire for emotional support. Emma was broken.

She slumped into a chair at the breakfast table, hands limply in her lap. Belle left her there and poured a cup of coffee, fixing it close to Emma's specifications. Green eyes focused when she sat the mug in front of her, like she only just realized where she was. Belle grimaced, fighting her emotions in order to put Emma's first. She retreated to the island and laid her arms over the giant tome she'd been reading, nails scratching at the edges lightly.

"Where is she?" Emma asked.

"My room. She got drunk and passed out sometime last night on the couch. Ruby carried her up there. She's not been down yet," Belle answered honestly. "She didn't leave you, Emma."

Emma sipped her coffee, ignoring the uncomfortable burn of the steaming liquid. "What are you reading?"

Belle's gaze dropped to the book, telling Emma her frustration with it before she ever answered the question. "The chronicle of Furhan's seer. If I knew her name, I might be able to find other works penned in her hand. As it stands, searching the hundred or so books currently in my possession with Amkharian Dialect and Furhan's language is proving fruitless. Bethany is as frustrated as I. This may be the only one that exists with both written so fluently."

Belle scratched at the edges again when Emma simply stared into her coffee, disengaging again. She chewed her lip in gentle, nervous bites and wished for the millionth time since Regina's revelation as a divided entity that her knowledge or her books ensconced the cure. Rumpelstiltskin proved useless, never having met a sorceress strong enough in both types of magic to sustain opposing entities within one physical form. Furhan's seer only described how the boy lost his mind, which could have been attributed to anything since no magical properties were listed. Belle theorized that the thinly veiled experiment consisted of the seer splitting the boy while in the dreamscape. The strongest side won in the end and took his humanity. Regina's sides held an equal amount of strength. They both loved Emma and the children equally, maybe even her and Ruby, and certainly Granny. She required equal amounts of control and softness in order to function in the life she felt anchored to by her family.

"Emma?" The Savior snorted, acknowledging her name. "Last night you said that you'd lost your magic…"

"It's there," Emma clarified. "I just can't reach it."

"It originates in unselfish desires – your love and your desire to help others," Belle said mostly for her benefit. Emma nodded. "Wouldn't… Wouldn't thinking of your children spark something?"

A loud thump in the foyer distracted her from the question. They glanced out to find her father sprawled across the floor and Ruby tugging Snow by her hair. She stooped down and grabbed David's collar, dragging him to the kitchen. She released them both, crossed her arms, and snapped, "Now get over yourselves." Her eyes widened when she finally noticed Emma's presence in the kitchen, but Emma only stood and wrapped her fingers around the coffee mug, slowly hugging it to her chest.

She looked at Belle and shook her head. "That would require my love to be stronger than my pain," Emma answered the question presented before Ruby's entrance and then glanced between her parents. "It isn't." She left the kitchen without another word, retreating to the living room where she curled into a ball on the sofa and flipped through channels without actually seeing the moving pictures. At least they left her alone that way.

Belle looked expectantly at her lover and then flicked her eyes between Emma's parents. "Found them loitering outside too afraid to come in," Ruby clipped with a shrug. "Thought Emma could use all the support she could get right now."

An hour into her mindless flipping, Emma returned to the kitchen. Snow and David sat at the table looking positively miserable. Belle rubbed her forehead and leaned over her book. Ruby massaged her back and shoulders. Both of them looked ready to pass out, neither having slept yet. Emma ignored them, poured another cup of coffee that smelled fresh this time. Ruby must have made more for David. She pulled the giant crockpot from a cabinet beside the stove and plugged it in.

"Emma, we can make dinner," Ruby offered helpfully. Emma severely lacked culinary skills, but she'd mastered the art of crockpot meals. She usually started them around noon to be completed by six or seven. Omelets or pancakes or waffles and some type of meat for breakfast; sandwiches for lunch; crockpot meal for dinner. It wasn't the huge variety that her kids were used to, but it worked for Emma and they seemed happy to have food that wasn't take out on the table every night.

"I can take care of my kids," Emma snapped and slammed the refrigerator door, a bag of chicken breasts in the other hand. She dumped them into the pot, more than enough for all of them – which would provide the filling in the sandwiches the following day once shredded – and switched the setting to high. Three cups of pineapple juice, two cups of brown sugar, half a cup of soy sauce, and some fresh pineapple chunks. She added carrots next, leaving them to glaze all day in the marinade she'd learn from some Internet recipe.

Ruby rubbed her face in frustration, silently cursing Regina. Belle covered the other hand on her shoulder. Emma finally stopped to face them as she stirred her coffee. "Go home," she directed to Snow and David. "Go to bed," to Ruby and Belle. "I'm not a child. I don't need supervision to watch t.v." The words weren't spoken in anger. Their savior sounded defeated. She retreated to the living room again.

Ruby nodded to Snow and David and watched them depart. Belle leaned into her sturdy chest and sighed. She almost preferred puking 10 times by noon to the knotted tension in her gut. Ruby kissed her neck, hands running down her sides. "Go to bed, Baby. I'll keep first watch. I'm still ramped up from the full moon anyway." Belle never argued. She simply kissed her fiancée and wavered towards the stairs, almost too exhausted to make it to her room where Regina still slept.

The wolf sat on the still-warm stool and leaned over the island, hiding her face in her arms. An inner ear muscle moved as someone approached, and she lifted her eyes above her arm, mouth and nose still hidden. Regina stood in the doorway in the t-shirt and shorts she'd forced her into earlier that morning. Old liquor and perspiration tickled at her nostrils, only adding to the horrific sight of a hung over Regina.

"Would you possibly make that hangover smoothie miracle elixir?" Regina asked, still in her light side if the kind request indicated anything.

Ruby stood without responding and started pulling stuff from the refrigerator and pantry, revealing a few ingredients like kale, Greek yogurt, blueberries, and coconut water. A couple things she failed to recognize. She poured a cup of coffee as Ruby worked and sat at the table quietly. A hint of a smile tugged on Ruby's features when she grabbed her head while the blender chopped ice and mixed the concoction. She felt no sympathy for Regina's plight and only acquiesced to the request so easily for Emma's sake. The sludge looked disgusting, but it worked and tasted relatively digestible. Ruby sat it and a glass of water beside the coffee mug and then retrieved her own coffee before joining her best friend at the table.

"Thank you, Wolf Pup," Regina said graciously and sipped the smoothie.

"Why did you do it, Regina? Do you even realize what you did to her? You know Emma can't handle being left. Giving her the potion wasn't nearly as bad as trying to go through that fucking portal. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Ruby blurted everything at the sickly woman, uncaring of her discomfort.

"I wish I knew the answer to that question," she admitted honestly. "Archie calls it Self-Sabotage Syndrome. A disorder in which a person routinely destroys something that has the potential to be positive and lasting, relationships or careers, due to fear of failure. In my case, for fear of being hurt emotionally or being unloved."

Ruby rubbed her eyes with a thumb and forefinger, trying to understand. "Wait, so you're compelled to emotionally destroy yourself in order to actually function in said relationship or career? Is that what you're telling me?" Regina nodded and twirled the coffee mug. "You literally need a rift between you and Emma in order to function." She nodded again. "Why? To give you a common goal or… something to fix because you can't just be happy and let things be calm?"

"It's not an excuse," Regina murmured and then sighed deeply.

Ruby's heart reached out for her. "Any other diagnoses I should know about?"

"I'm sure there are. He's said as much but does not wish for me to become caught up in the diagnosis and risk my recovery." Regina glanced over her shoulder towards the living room. "I won't leave her, Ruby. I've been preparing for this moment since the day she first rode with me. I knew if she allowed me into her heart once more, I'd break the potion. I simply thought that my mind would also heal in that moment."

Ruby touched her hand, the wolf's palm warm and soothing, fingers strong and willing. "Maybe magic can't heal you, Regina, not even True Love."

"What do you mean?"

Ruby shrugged and stared at her coffee. "Everyone has a theory on how to make you whole. Dreamscapes and potions and whatever, but if you want my opinion as a non-magic-wielding creature, I don't think any of that is going to work. You split because of the two opposing forces within your soul. Before I accepted the wolf as a part of myself, I felt like my soul was being torn to shreds. Overcoming that fear of surrendering myself to the wolf as much as the wolf yielded to me was the single most terrifying moment of my existence, more than watching Belle take that magic blast that hit her neck.

"But once I accepted the darkness of my wolf as an inherent part of my soul, my identity, everything started making a lot more sense. I passed so easily from one to the other without losing any aspects of myself. I don't have to question if my humanity will remain when I change, and I don't have to search for the violence during day to day moments because I know it's right there for me. Not lurking, necessarily, but waiting or supporting, maybe. I'm not sure how to describe it except to say that every single facet of who I am is always present now, no matter what form I'm in or what I'm doing. Maybe…"

She raised her eyes to find Regina studying her intently. "You've already accepted the darkness, Mama Bear. Maybe it's time to accept your love and compassion, too. It's okay to be vulnerable and scared and hurt. Sometimes you have to close your eyes and fall backwards and trust that we're going to be here to catch you. That Emma will catch you. But right now, she needs to know that we're going to catch her."

Regina blinked once and then lowered her gaze to the green sludge that already made her feel better after two large swallows. Ruby finished her coffee and took her mug to the sink. "If you're going to stay with Emma, I'm going to go make sure Belle is okay. She's been pretty emotional recently, but I think it's her hormones. Yell if you need me. I'm a light sleeper these days."

"Ruby," Regina caught her hand as she passed and held it tightly. "Thank you." The wolf grinned and kissed her cheek, squeezing her hand one more time before sauntering off to find her lover. Her body coiled with sexual tension from the full moon and her run, but Regina knew from Belle's exhaustion that she only intended to curl into the bed beside her and watch her sleep.

Regina finished the smoothie, rinsed her glass, and then braved the living room with a cup of coffee and water. Emma curled into an arm of the sofa, eyes unmoving as Regina sat on the loveseat, close enough to touch if she reached out completely. She settled in to watch some sort of procedural show about serial killers apparently running a marathon that day and waited. Emma always spoke when she felt compelled and ready to do so. Anything asked or said before then only proved detrimental to the unstable bridge upon which they stood. She imagined shock played a large role in Emma's command for her departure the previous night.

So, she sat in silence and engrossed her brain in the numbing predictability of the television show and waited. Emma never looked at her that afternoon, but she'd also refrained from kicking her out of the room. It was still progress in the right direction and it was enough.