A/N: And we're back, still on schedule! And still super weird to actually keep an update schedule, even for a couple of chapters. Pretty sure I've never done that before. I like it, though.

Anywho, time for some actual Swan Queen interaction. (also don't worry if this didn't fully satiate your needs, there will be more SQ stuff in the coming chapters as well) Thanks for reading and thanks, as always, for all the comments!

Emma couldn't decide if it felt oddly familiar or just plain odd to be sitting in Regina's living room again, a glass of cider in her hand and a tension in the air she couldn't quite place. Besides her usual snark, Regina hadn't been particularly hostile since Emma had arrived; in fact, she hadn't said much at all, ignoring Emma in favor of spending most of her time tending to the fireplace. Whether she was avoiding Emma or trying for some elaborate power play, Emma had no idea. Either way, it was getting on Emma's nerves, and the fact that she was still tired enough that lifting her glass felt like a serious commitment definitely didn't make the situation any better.

"It's just a fire. It's not the end of the world if it isn't perfectly aligned in the center or whatever."

A month earlier, the scathing look Emma got in return would probably have been hilarious. "I'd rather not have my house burn down just because you couldn't wait a few minutes after showing up here without warning, Sheriff."

"I'm not here on official business, Regina, so cut the shit and just tell me what's going on."

Rolling her eyes, Regina nonetheless finally left the fireplace and sat down on sofa the opposite her. "You'll have to be a bit more specific."

"Seriously?" Emma held up her arm, letting her sleeve fall back to show the bracelet around her wrist. "Then start with this. What does it do? Specifically."

"It limits your magic. Your magic tried to... escape your body, somehow, and that bracelet keeps it inside you."

"Why did it do that? You knew how to fix it; you've got to know what's wrong with it."

"Well I don't." Regina busied herself with the cider carafe. "More?"

Emma wordlessly sent her glass sliding across the table with a rough shove, leaving a trail of wetness on the pristine surface in its wake. As petty as it was, Regina's momentary flash of irritation was worth it.

"Distract me all you want, but we both know that's bullshit. My magic started acting up just after the missing month, then it freaks out completely, and you just happen to know a way to fix it, just like that."

"Yes, how strange it is that I know of a way to dampen or hinder magic usage," Regina drawled. "When could I possibly have learned such arcane knowledge? I'm sure the fact that I was locked in one of those when that pirate left me to be electrocuted has nothing to do with it. Such a strange coincidence." She cocked her head to the side, eyes suddenly wide in mock surprise. "Maybe I'm actually working with him, as another part of my master plan! It can't be that magical beans are notoriously unstable, especially in the hands – I'm sorry, hand – of some lunatic stalker?"

"Look, my magic was acting up long before Hook attacked me." Leaning forward, Emma reached over to pull her glass back across the table, making sure to only lift it at the very edge of the table. The pettiness tasted even better than the cider. "Or what, are you saying he was doing something to me before that?"

Regina rolled her eyes again. "I'm saying I don't know what happened to your magic."

"You can see how I'm having a hard time believing that, right? You've spent your whole life studying magic and you've never seen anyone's magic blow up or their smoke turn pink – or hell, my heart glowing purple – anywhere, not even in some old book or whatever?"

"Thankfully for all involved, you're not a common occurrence, Miss Swan."

"Yeah, that does make it harder for me to figure out what actually happened, doesn't it."

Regina's expression hardened in an instant. "I've spent two days trying to get to the bottom of whatever is going on with your magic. Regardless of... this," she made an annoyed gesture at Emma, "between us, I want to know what happened, just like you. The property values are low enough without people's magic exploding all of a sudden." After a few seconds, she continued in a quieter voice, "and you know I wouldn't risk Henry for this. For anything."

Emma gave a slow nod, studying Regina for a moment. She didn't really think Regina had suddenly turned all Evil Queen again, and there were few things that were more unlikely than Hook and Regina teaming up. Keeping information from Emma, though? She wouldn't mind betting on that.

But even if Regina was hiding things from her – even if Regina knew exactly what had happened to Emma's magic – the big picture still didn't make sense. Regina didn't seem to be able to decide if she was slowly warming up to Emma again or if she was just allowing a few exceptions for the greater good. Sometimes she was back to being the ruthless mayor hellbent on throwing Emma out of her life, other times she seemed strangely worried, and sometimes Emma didn't have a clue what was going on with her. That time when Regina had made the tracking potion for them especially stood out.

Emma frowned. Come to think of it, Regina had been acting more than a little odd that whole time. The almost friendly bickering, the weird look she gave Emma, the–

She stopped herself mid-thought. Her frowned deepened as she thought back on what she remembered. Over and over, she went through every detail she could recall, again and again until she was sure she hadn't missed anything.

Looking up, she found Regina looking back at her. "When Mulan and I were here before this whole deal with Hook, you had a lot of books lying around," Emma asked slowly, her eyes never leaving Regina's. "Were you researching something then, too?"

Regina frowned, then shrugged. "Nothing particularly interesting. I was just going through what I had about fairy dust, for the library fire."

"Almost two weeks after the fire? That's pretty late."

"I had some free time over."

Seconds rolled by as a smile began pulling on Emma's lips. The casual way she said it, the vagueness, all of it told Emma she was finally on the right track.

"You had some free time over," Emma repeated. "The biggest neat freak in Storybrooke filled every flat surface with books and scrolls because you didn't have anything better to do, and didn't even poof it away when we came along. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were panicking."

"Well, you should know better," Regina muttered, but that casualness from before was gone.

"You know what, I think I've been going about this all wrong. For weeks, I've been trying to figure out your plan and how everything fits neatly together, but I haven't gotten anywhere. Because that's the thing, isn't it? You don't have a plan. You've been making it up along the way the whole time, maybe even when you decided to take my memory." She paused, but Regina stayed silent, her expression unreadable. "Here's what I think. During that month, something happened – maybe something I did that got you all pissed at me – that got you so freaked out that you've just been winging it ever since. Spending way too much time trying to fix whatever happened to come up with a decent cover story. This is all way too sloppy and rushed to be planned by you.

"The thing is, If I fucked up and you really wanted to get back at me, you could just let the whole town know, and take all the glory for yourself. 'Local dumbass almost blows up half the town, ex-mayor saves the day'. The headlines basically write themselves," Emma continued. "But you haven't done any of that, which means you really don't want anyone to know about this, because either you fucked up as well, or whatever happened is bad enough to send the whole town into panic mode and a couple of angry mobs to your porch again. Even bad enough to use my own magic against me. The easy explanation would be that you've just fallen off the wagon and are back to your old ways–"

"I'm not! I'm trying to fix–" Regina's eyes widened instantly and she cut herself off mid-sentence.

"Fix what?"

Regina stared back, mouth hesitantly open as if to continue, but after a few excruciating seconds had passed, she merely shook her head and looked away.

Grunting in frustration, Emma leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, staring down at the carpet. What could she even do to get Regina to talk when she was stonewalling her like this? If whatever Regina was trying to fix was as bad as Emma had guessed, Emma probably wouldn't want it to get out either. Using Henry as a bargaining chip was, of course, also out of the question and if she wanted to keep it quiet, there weren't a whole lot more options to choose from.

She fiddled with her bracelet a little, trying to get it to fit her wrist better. Her arms were warmer than usual, which definitely wasn't helping with her comfort, and her palms had begun to itch again as well. It was all eerily familiar.

"You're sure this thing works?" Emma muttered, opening and closing her hands to try to get a better sense of where that weird itch was coming from. With her luck, though, the bracelet would probably blow up in her face right as Regina was finally going to tell her everything.

Suddenly, Regina was standing in front of her, eyes wide and worried as she held Emma's wrist, her fingers hovering an inch over Emma's palm enveloped by a faint purple light.

"Uh," Emma said, looking up at Regina in bewilderment. Before she could figure out what to say, she noticed her arms and hands getting warmer, pulling her attention back to her bracelet. There was an odd undertone to the feeling, too – some kind of humming or buzzing – that she hadn't noticed before, and it was stronger in the arm Regina was holding.

Regina mumbled something unintelligible and took a step back, swallowing and crossing her arms.

And with her, the humming died down and the warmth lessened.

Emma looked up at Regina, then down on the bracelet. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together, and it took even less to realize it would probably be a terrible idea, but Emma was tired and frustrated enough that she didn't really care. Before she could have time to second guess herself, Emma yanked off the bracelet in one swift motion. The magic quickly came bubbling up to the surface of her skin, but wasn't quite as furious as before, and it didn't exactly hurt either. It flowed across her arms, just under her skin, and streamed out through her palms...

...directly to Regina. It even looked like the purple of Regina's magic flowed out to meet it, intertwining and–

"Don't do that," Regina bit out as she shoved the bracelet back into place.

"Want to explain what just happened?" Emma asked, her voice dangerously calm.

Backing away, Regina crossed her arms. "It's magic, it's unpredictable–"

"Fuck it," Emma grunted. She got to her feet and pushed past Regina towards the front door. "If you're just going to play dumb, I'll go to Gold."

"Emma, wait– just–"

She was a few feet away from the door when Regina appeared in a cloud of purple smoke just in front of her.

"I'll tell you!"

Emma scoffed. "Really."

"Yes!" Regina licked her lips, a wild look in her eyes. "If you stop looking into what happened during that month for now and what I'm trying to fix, I'll tell you everything I know about your magic and why it's acting strange. I just need more time."

"More time for what?"

"That is exactly what I'm telling you to please stop asking!" Regina exclaimed.

Emma considered it for a moment. On one hand, making deals with anyone in this town was generally a recipe for disaster, but on the other hand, it was a chance to finally get some answers.

"Fine, but this better be something real, Regina. No fine print bullshit or blood pacts or technicalities. If I don't like your info, the deal's off."

Regina crossed her arms, looking half ready to blow Emma to bits with a fireball, but eventually gave a stiff nod. "Alright." She took a deep breath and looked away for a moment. "During that month, we... we joined our magics."

"Sorry, but if that's supposed to mean anything to me, I probably forgot it when you took my memory."

"Just watch this," Regina muttered and summoned an apple to her palm. "The smoke is purple." Then she sent it away and summoned it again, but this time with a very different magic smoke. "Now the smoke is white."

"That's..." Emma's words faded away as she stared at the apple in Regina's hand, then directly at Regina. "You have my magic." It had that same feeling as her own magic, but it wasn't coming from Emma. Strange and familiar at the same time.

Looking increasingly uncomfortable, Regina attempted a weak smile. "It's still in you, but I can use it, and you can use my magic. I'm guessing that's why your smoke turned pink. You were using a mix of our magics at the same time without knowing it."

"And that's how you took my memory, using my own magic," Emma said as an uncomfortable knot lodged itself in her throat.

Regina's smile faded away as quickly as it had appeared. "Yes. And I assume this is why your magic sought out me when you took off the bracelet. At least, why it sought out me, in particular. I don't know why it's shooting out of you like that, or why the bean triggered it like it did."

"But this isn't like what we did in Neverland, right? Or with the trigger?"

"What we did in Neverland was more along the lines of synchronizing our magics. Doing the same things at the same time and increasing the power of the spell that way. Like being part of a choir, I suppose, where all voices form the same words."

Emma frowned. "So this would be more like, what, having the same voice?"

"Not the best metaphor, but yes, I suppose."

"What about my heart? Glowing purple and everything?"

Regina shook her head. "I honestly have no idea. I would assume it's due to the joining, but there isn't a lot of information to find about this."

"Oh."

Looking down on her palms, Emma tried to make sense of how she felt. She had gotten a lot of answers, sure, but at the same time there was this nagging sensation of loss looming in the back of her mind. Even though she didn't remember what this joining had felt like – either going through with it in the first place or using their linked magic on purpose afterwards – she somehow knew she missed it. Maybe it was her magic itself that told her or just some more memories starting to surface, but the result was the same.

"Why did we do it?" Emma asked, looking up to meet Regina's eyes.

For a moment, Regina hesitated, a flood of different emotions washing over her face. She sighed. "At first, it just... happened. Magic isn't as predictable in this world, and ours sought each other out. The link wasn't particularly stable so after I found some information about it, we eventually decided to make it more permanent." She managed a faint, almost fond smile. "After all, our magics have always worked well together. Even when we haven't."

Although Emma felt there was plenty left unsaid, she didn't push it. It wouldn't be a reach to guess that more than cold logic had played a part in their decision, but that didn't really change anything in the end, at least when it came to her magic.

As the silence set in and all the adrenaline from earlier began to wear off, Emma realized just how tired she was. On top of that, she was feeling a headache forming, pressing against her skull. Maybe trading verbal blows with Regina and then standing up for this long hadn't been such a good idea.

Regina seemed to pick up on it as well. "You should probably get some rest. I can drive you home, if you'd like."

For once, Emma didn't argue.