Yep, Abigail has her work cut out for her...

Resistance and Crumbling Walls

Regina paced until every last bit of anger had seeped from her body. Something had to be done to repair the rift she'd created between her and Emma. She'd known exactly what she was doing but had refused to admit that she might be wrong. Allowing her possessive tendencies to make logical arguments for her was not the best idea in hindsight. Her selfish desire to keep Emma near had blinded her to her wife's needs and had had the opposite effect to what she'd intended.

Guilt-laden ultimatums had been one of her mother's favourite methods of manipulation and Regina well recalled how much she'd hated them. Had she really sunk so low?

Her thoughts were still too jumbled to face Emma and she really didn't want to listen to any more of Abigail's opinions on her love-life, so she climbed to the next floor where her father spent all of his time now. She and Emma visited three or four times a day when they were at home, which was another thing she had utilised to try to keep her wife from her trips. Henry loved his daughter-in-law like his own child and with increasing frequency, he asked the couple when they were going to find the magic to give him a grandchild.

Heirs were expected from every royal – it was how their political system survived, but with Regina's immortality, there was no rush for her to reproduce. This didn't prevent them from blushing every time it was mentioned though. She did want children and so did Emma, but it required a level of intimacy between them that became more daunting with each passing day.

Often, the dark queen wondered if she should have just taken Emma on their wedding night – it might not have grown into such an awkward and emotionally charged thing between them – but then she remembered how the blonde had trembled and held her dress tight to her body for protection. It could just as easily have ruined any chance of trust. Before Snow had placed a wedge between them, there were moments… Moments like Regina had never known. It was so different from the adolescent stirrings she'd felt with Daniel. She knew desire now. She knew why certain parts of her body throbbed and knew where she wanted Emma to touch her.

Physical desire was something she could deal with. After ridding herself of her husband, she'd taken her share of lovers and learned how to get the most pleasure from them. What made her hesitant with Emma had nothing to do with the physical act of sex and everything to do with the desire she had just to be close to her wife in any capacity. When she woke from dreams where strong arms were holding her in her sleep and found her bed empty, she felt equal parts relief and disappointment. Love had the potential to destroy her, perhaps for good this time, but like a moth to the flame, she couldn't help herself.

Feeling it, acknowledging it and acting on it were each very different tasks in Regina's mind. She felt it and her body acted on instinct, pulling her as close to Emma as she could be… before she had to acknowledge that what she felt went beyond lust and not wanting to be alone. If she acknowledged it, she would be tempted to act on it, leading her back to feeling – only this time, on a whole new level where the stakes were terrifyingly high.

It was simple really. If she didn't take part in the vicious cycle, she wouldn't end up once again in that vulnerable place where someone could so easily rip her heart out and crush it.

This plan wasn't entirely fool-proof though; her heart hurt now and had been hurting steadily on and off for months.

As her gaze landed on her father, who was sat on his balcony – bundled up into a blanket and enjoying the evening sun, she felt that same ache in her chest. She stood for a moment, just watching his profile. She ignored the maid, whose job it was to care for the ailing man in the afternoons, and took tentative steps forward. Not until she heard the closing of the door did she take a seat next to Henry. Unless her father was particularly ill that day, the carers left her alone with him, hovering on the other side of the door until the queen departed.

They sat in silence for a while. Him gazing out at the breath-taking scenery, soaking it up while he still had chance, and her doing the same with him. Eventually though, his eyes tired and drifted until they landed on the queen.

"Regina?" he asked, his face scrunching as he tried to decide if she was really there.

"It's me, Daddy," she replied and reached out to hold his hand.

"My little princess." He smiled as he patted her hand. "Have you seen the sunset?"

"Yes, it's beautiful," she agreed softly.

"Quite a romantic evening, don't you think?" He ignored the eye-roll that followed and gazed at her the same way he had with the vista, only this time, with more reverence. "My sunset is coming soon," he stated gently, his hands squeezing hers.

Regina resisted the urge to tear her hands out of his grasp and run away. "Daddy, don't," she pleaded instead.

"Ah, mi querida. Avoiding the inevitable will not make it go away. It is my time. I am content with that."

"How can you be? You're leaving."

"Your thoughts will keep my memory alive, Regina. I am content because I know you will not be alone." His gaze wandered and he looked past her, as if studying a memory. "When you were chasing Snow, I worried for you. You treated the darkness as a friend. As something to wrap around your heart to protect it, but you couldn't see how alone it made you. Now, you have found the light again. You have worked so hard, mija. I am so proud of you."

The queen sniffed and tears broke their dam. She sat for a while, holding her father's hands and sharing the sunset with him. They talked about the stories he'd told her as a girl and the rides they'd taken together on their estate. They touched on the times they had defied her mother's instructions and stolen cakes from the kitchen or played a game instead of studying, but talking about Cora all too often led to regret and guilt for Henry, so Regina steered him back to their shared memories of the more recent past.

All the while, the queen's mind flickered between Emma and Snow, trying to find some way to reconcile her need to separate the two. When she finally bid her father goodnight, she retreated to her war room and hovered over the large map which depicted the kingdoms and their borders. Some changes she'd made since her days of throwing soldiers at her enemy, but mostly the map was unaltered. Abigail had annexed a tiny portion of George's lands and the ogres had destroyed a sliver on the edge of Maurice's forest, but the bigger changes were in the population growth and trading.

She leant on the edge of the table and considered the problems that Emma had been investigating. Now that Abigail had pointed out the potential disaster waiting for them if darker forces were at play behind Snow and Charming's failures, she could not help but imagine the plots and schemes that would be needed to pull off such a feat. Trailing her gaze along the boundary that she still could not cross, she pictured the forest and all of the potential hiding places for thieves and ne'er-do-wells. She studied the estates and their positions in relation to the villages. She envisaged the backhand deals and how easily they could be carried out if the crown was not vigilant enough.

Seeing the criminal process was not the difficult part. What concerned her the most, was Snow's lack of action. She had quite happily believed that her former step-daughter's stupidity was the cause of her problems, but she was ashamed to admit that her own wilful ignorance had blinded her to the severity of the issue, and it didn't take a great leap of thought to wonder whether Snow and her shepherd were not living entirely of their own free will.

With a deep sigh, Regina put away her guilt and regret. They wouldn't help her in moving forward and she needed a clear head for the next steps. Wanting to leave Emma to sleep off some of the exhaustion from her trip, she found her wife's records – from the investigation she'd started three years ago, to the most recent. It was clear that the blonde had put a lot of effort into finding out as much as she had, but the dark queen could immediately see where gaps had hindered her progress. They were either things that Emma didn't know to look for, or pursuits for which she lacked the resources.

Regina worked long into the night, reorganising her wife's notes and adding suggestions for where they might want to focus their attentions next. She was only vaguely aware of having missed supper, so when a boy from the kitchens nervously pushed a plate of leftovers onto a table by the door a little before midnight, she managed to summon a genuine smile.

After squeezing in a few hours' sleep, she bathed, drew her hair into a plait and dressed in something that was suitable for both desk work and riding. As much planning as she'd managed, she couldn't predict what Emma would want to do next, and after hearing Abigail's telling off, her subconscious had had an epiphany.

When she made it to the dining room, her visitor was already enjoying a cup of tea and fresh scones. "Morning," she greeted as she sat in her usual seat and reached for the fruit.

"And where were you last night?" Abigail replied, her tone scolding. "Emma was practically asleep at the table before I could convince her to go to bed. She refused to let you go hungry, whatever you were doing instead of looking after your guest."

Regina stopped chewing for a moment and looked up at the blonde with no hint of remorse. "You invited yourself to my home under the guise of wanting to talk to my wife. I wasn't aware that I had any involvement in that." Considering the matter closed, her voice softened as she asked, "Emma sent the food?"

"Yes," Abigail answered curtly. "If that had been Fredrick and he had ignored me all night long, I would have given it to the staff or the dogs."

"Well, I'm glad that Emma is my wife and not you then."

"Don't take her for granted, Regina. She deserves better."

To the visitor's surprise Regina backed down first, her expression melting. "I know. You were right about my feeling getting in the way of my logic. Last night, I was reading through her investigation."

"You couldn't have told her that?" Abigail sighed at her friend's need to make everything difficult.

The dark queen hid her uncertainty behind a mask of calm reproach. "I wanted to be prepared and thought she might as well have the evening to recover."

"You are so single minded sometimes. Next time, just leave your cave long enough to say goodnight. I imagine she probably tossed and turned, worrying about you instead of 'recovering'."

Regina paused with an apple half way to her mouth. "I'll take that under advisement," she replied, feeling once more out of her depth as she was forced to consider how her actions might have been interpreted by Emma.

Abigail's expression was unforgiving as she stared down her friend. "Please do."

Regina chewed thoughtfully through the rest of her meal, taking her time as she waited for Emma to join them. An hour passed before the hope faded from her eyes. Enjoying the uncertainty, your majesty? a voice niggled at the back of her mind. It stung, to feel rejection, but no more so than the knowledge that she deserved it. When she finally realised that Emma was standing her up, either intentionally or because she just didn't want company, she offered a terse apology to her friend and left for her office. Burying herself in work would have to be enough; she couldn't afford to waste time with regret.

Abigail couldn't decide whether to smile or glower when Emma sneaked into the room almost as soon as Regina departed. "I'm starting to see why three years hasn't been enough for these two," she muttered to herself. To Emma, she lifted her voice, "You just missed her."

A sheepish look crossed green eyes as Emma slid into her usual seat and began to pile food onto her plate. "Was she mad? I just couldn't face her yet."

Taking pity on the young queen, whose eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion and who had no idea what Regina had spent her night doing, Abigail sipped her tea and gestured casually at the mound of food between them. "Eat your breakfast and get your strength up. When you've finished, I'm coming to see Regina with you and she can explain herself to you."

True to her word, the visiting monarch took Emma's arm the moment she looked replete and all but dragged her from the dining room.

Emma grumbled to herself as they moved closer to the work space she shared with her spouse. She was still smarting from the brunette's inconsiderate reaction the night before. After her trip and her conversation with Abigail, with all of the worries that should have been prevalent in her thoughts, it was Regina's snide remarks about Emma's parents that kept her awake most of the night. The dark queen's refusal to join her for supper was yet further evidence of the rift that was forming between them and her heart hurt to think of what they were losing because of her divided loyalties. She was angry – with Regina, with her parents, but mostly with herself, and she didn't know how to face Regina in this state without starting another fight.

"Why don't we serve wine with breakfast?" she lamented, thinking that numbing her feelings was an attractive prospect at that moment.

The older blonde paused at the right door and smiled gently at Emma. "It's probably for the best. You are going to need all of your faculties today." Abigail pushed the door open without knocking and announced, "Look what I found!"

They discovered Regina hunched over her desk, her head resting heavily on one hand. At the intrusion, the dark queen startled slightly, but she quickly regained her composure and straightened in her seat. The beginnings of a disapproving frown pulled at her features, until her friend's words and the sight of Emma hit her. Nervous fingers brushed non-existent creases from her outfit and brown eyes looked everywhere but at her wife while she gathered her senses.

"Emma," she greeted her spouse at last. "Have you eaten? I can have someone send something up," she suggested, her body already half out of her seat.

"No!" Emma answered sharply, a hand reaching out as if to physically stop the dark queen from taking the trouble. They both knew that Emma was more than capable of asking one of the servants herself, but Regina's offer touched the young queen anyway. "I mean, yes, I've eaten."

"You had breakfast?" the brunette asked in confusion. "When?"

"Just now. Abigail told me I'd just missed you," Emma replied as her brain searched frantically for the words that would also explain her earlier absence without lying. "I had a rough night. I was late getting up." All true, if not entirely related, she thought and held her breath. She caught a split second of something behind her wife's eyes – pain? regret? – but almost as quickly as it appeared, it was gone again. "I'm here now though. Abigail seems to think that there's something pressing for me to attend to?" Her eyes scanned the documents already set out on the table but it looked like the usual fare.

Before Regina could answer, Abigail held up her hands for attention. "That, my dears, is my cue to leave you be for a while. I know that I came to speak with Emma regarding our deal, but I don't think we will get any further until you've hashed this out some more, so I will go and entertain myself until this afternoon." Without waiting for a response, she left the couple alone.

Emma's confused frown rounded on her wife. "What did she mean by that?"

Regina held up a finger as a silent request to finish what she was doing and Emma waited patiently. Once she was done, she led the blonde from the room and back to where she'd spent the majority of the night. Most of the papers she'd found in her wife's bag and desk were positioned in strategic piles over the giant map, each with a figurine sat on top, its shape representing information therein. It was Regina's turn to hold her breath as Emma began to understand what she was looking at.

A report on organised banditry, which she'd only received that week, caught Emma's eye and she reached for it, running a finger over its edge. As she looked around, she thought about her wife's absence from supper and suddenly realised what Regina had been doing all evening. She couldn't tell whether the brunette's efforts were an offer to help, a lesson on organisation or something else altogether, but seeing all of her work displayed together across the map brought a tightening to her chest.

There was so much of it – years' worth of her life displayed in neat piles – and she knew that this was just a sliver of the full scope. She'd thought that she was managing to make headway on her own, but seeing it all before her and knowing the limit of its impact, she realised that her wife was right – it was too much for one person. Was that why Regina was showing her this, to gloat?

"Emma?" the dark queen prompted gently.

She had watched the conflict erupt from the blonde's thoughts to her face and felt a new wave of guilt pass through her. Green eyes were seeing through a screen of confusion, defeat and now the beginnings of anger, and she had to know what was going on in that pretty, blonde head. She took a step closer and reached out to touch her wife's arm.

Emma's head snapped up – she was ready to unleash all of her grievances on the brunette for daring to act so superior – but the depth of compassion staring back at her, the likes of which Regina seldom allowed, it gave her pause and instead of the litany of bitter insults that sat on the tip of her tongue, a sob escaped her throat.

"It's too much," she cried and closed a hand over her mouth. After several seconds of shuddering breaths, she added, "I can't do this alone."

She had been so proud of the dedication she put into saving her mother's people. She'd made a promise to herself to keep going until every man, woman and child could live without the constant threat of starvation hanging over their heads, but now she knew that it wasn't enough. She would never succeed on her own.

Regina wrapped her hands around the blonde's upper arms and squeezed in an effort to offer some level of comfort. She kept her expression free of the self-loathing which bubbled up from inside and forced a calm, business-like stoicism there instead. "No, you can't," she replied bluntly. The heart-breaking devastation that twisted Emma's features in response to those words burned a hole through Regina's chest and she hastened to correct the assumption, "But together, we can."

A louder sob tumbled from the blonde then, and Regina jumped at the feel of strong arms around her neck and a lithe figure pressed abruptly against her own. As she wrapped uncertain arms around Emma's back and became the blonde's anchor, her carefully constructed control cracked.

Emma's warmth and light spread through her body, filling her from head to toe.

The edge of the forest and border between Snow White and The Evil Queen's kingdoms…

"What's taking so long?" an impatient voice cut through the night air, its weight deadened by numerous trees.

Another mouth opened to reply but the distant approach of hoofbeats stopped it in its tracks. Two sets of eyes peered into the darkness, the pale moonlight just making out the shape of a rider. Hands reached for swords and held them aloft in case the newcomer was not who they expected, but the tension eased rapidly when a fluttering banner caught a shaft of light and they recognised the insignia.

"About time," the voice muttered and sharp steel slid back into scabbards. "Did you get it?" he called out quietly once the rider was alongside.

"I got it," a triumphant voice replied. The rider shifted in his saddle, fumbled around with a sack-like shape behind him and then pushed it from the back of his horse. The sack hit the ground with a thud and a groan.

"Right, we'll take it from here. You know where to go to get your payment."

A grunt of acknowledgement was the only reply as the horse was turned about and urged back through the blackened trees. On the ground, the sack breathed but otherwise remained still. A coarse hand reached for the tie and pulled back the neck of hessian to reveal the profile of an aged but still ruggedly handsome face.

"Well, hullo, Prince Charming."

Emma recovered slowly from her outburst and reluctantly withdrew from her wife's arms. Beyond the profound relief she felt and the wonderful tingling all over her body, confusion and anger crawled back into her mind. In her agitation, she thought about everything that had passed between her and Regina since Emma first became involved with her mother's business again. She began to pace. "What about abandoning my duties and our people? What about splitting our responsibilities and not being able to run two kingdoms? These are no longer concerns you have?"

Regina's mouth opened and closed. "I…" How was she supposed to handle the apology that she apparently needed to make? She listened to her own words thrown back at her and cringed. Had she really sounded so sanctimonious? There was a certain irony there considering the person she had been trying to avoid with her refusals to help. She stepped back to give herself room to breathe, away from the magnetic pull of the blonde's touch and the irate energy crackling across the room.

An energy that she was beginning to recognise… But that was a concern for another time.

"Emma," she began in what she hoped was a tone of contrition – it had been so long since she'd let herself apologise for anything. "I was wrong. I wanted to believe that I had the moral high ground, so I did believe… But I was wrong."

The blonde's eyes closed and she breathed slowly to clear her thoughts. It wasn't the resounding 'sorry' that she thought she deserved, but the struggle behind those troubled, brown eyes spoke volumes about the effort it had taken to say those words. "Alright… What changed your mind?"

"Abigail," the brunette admitted with a wry smile. "She did what I couldn't; she listened. What you had to tell her gave her some concerns, which she shared with me."

"What!?" Emma blurted, feeling off kilter again. "If she had concerns, why wouldn't she tell me?"

"Dear, I'm certain that she was just allowing you to recover from your trip. She told me because she wanted me to stop being blind to a potential disaster." Seeing that her explanation was just causing more confusion, she gestured to the table. "Emma, you've obviously worked hard on this. I knew that you were stretching yourself thin, but I didn't appreciate the scale of what you were attempting. It's impressive, but you are young and inexperienced; there is writing on the wall here that I would have seen had I swallowed my pride and helped."

Emma felt the sting of criticism, though she knew that Regina hadn't meant it that way. She had put her heart and soul into doing everything she could and it hurt that it wasn't enough. "What writing on the wall? Show me what you're seeing."

The dark queen nodded and walked Emma round the table, explaining her theories behind the strategic attacks on Snow's resources. "Do you notice how the bandit raids are concentrated on our border? I suspect there are two reasons for that. One, it deters the common folk from getting too close, and two, it gives someone a potential stronghold should you and I decide to send forces of our own. I don't believe that grain is of any interest to whoever is orchestrating your mother's downfall."

A new level of fear struck the blonde queen and her eyes flicked rapidly over the map, looking at the picture with fresh perspective. "So, what's happening to the grain if it's not just the work of greedy landowners?"

Dark eyes gazed into the map, as if they could see beyond the facsimile. "Starving Snow's people puts a strain on the kingdom's economy. Your mother is renowned for taking money from the treasury to feed the people when times are hard. A generous solution to be sure, but a short-sighted one. Even without her penchant for elaborate balls, that's not a sustainable way to run a kingdom."

"I've seen you send aid," Emma responded in a knee-jerk fashion to what she thought was yet more criticism; Regina had never shied away from insulting Snow when she could. It was something that the young queen had had to get used to. "Last autumn, when Wood End had a infected harvest, you provided everyone with food and… found out how to… plough and treat… the fields…" she trailed off, realising that the brunette had not stopped there. Strict quarantine between villages had kept the blight from spreading and the dark queen had personally ridden to neighbouring villages, taking a horse that had never set foot in Wood End, to check on the overall health of the harvest there and to appropriate a small percentage of crop to fill orders. Unlike when the Evil Queen was building her army, the people were more than happy to support her.

Not like Emma's mother, who thought that full bellies for a few nights would get everyone back on their feet again. "Never mind."

"You know better than anyone how little regard I have for your mother, but she was spoilt and given almost no instruction in how to deal with these kinds of situations and, much as I would like to, I don't entirely blame her for lacking in foresight. Still, the fact that she continues to ignore the problems? That concerns me," Regina responded readily.

"Oh?"

"Snow may not like to admit when she's wrong…" The dark queen caught a strained expression on her wife's face and rolled her eyes in acknowledgement. "Something we have in common; I know. But I have never known her to stand by when others are suffering. How did she seem when you saw her last?"

"Abigail didn't tell you that?" Emma asked with renewed annoyance.

"No, she only told me enough to encourage me to pay attention," Regina replied and gazed hard at the blonde, telling her without words that the snippy comments were not helping.

Green eyes drifted away as Emma took another steadying breath. "Cold," she replied with a soft sadness. "Like my being there was something she had to endure. She told me to stop interfering."

A nod followed that information before the brunette probed further. "Was she like that when you arrived?"

"Sort of? There were smiles and hugs like usual, but there was something… off."

"Like she was putting on a show?" Regina didn't like where her thoughts were taking her, but she had spent many years living with a manipulative woman who often pretended to feel affection and she knew the signs. She had also spent years being that manipulative woman.

"Yes."

That wasn't what the dark queen had wanted to hear. "And your father?" Was he as weak beside Snow as Henry had been with Cora?

The blonde considered the question, taking a few moments to really think about his behaviour. It was hard to pick out anomalies when she had been so focussed on her mother's pig-headed stubbornness. "I think he's just trying to keep the peace. He was quiet most of the time. Occasionally, he tried to promise that he would follow up on my concerns, like they did before, but my mom kept interrupting and insisting that I was stretching things out of proportion."

Regina sighed. "Emma, I think we might have to accept that your mother is under someone else's influence."

"Like who?"

"That, dear, is a very good question, and one we are going to find the answer to," she promised, adding ominously, "before it's too late." If her suspicions were correct, they were in big trouble, but it didn't bear thinking about when there was no proof yet. "Have you no other contacts within Snow's circle?"

"I… the only two I trust are Red and Granny. The guards, dwarves, fairies… they're all too loyal to my mother and since I moved here… since I married you, they don't trust me." She shrugged like it was not a big cause for concern, but there was hurt in her eyes. The kind that spoke of betrayal.

Regina instantly felt that stabbing guilt again, knowing that she was at fault for ripping the blonde from her home and friends. "Emma…"

"No," Emma stopped her with a smile that was a little less forced. "That's one thing you don't have to be sorry for." She met her wife's gaze and her smile warmed for a moment before she looked back at the table. She had never discussed her feelings about her forced marriage before and she wanted Regina to know that she appreciated the unique position she'd been given. "This year has been… difficult. But the two years before that, and right now? Well, I didn't ever imagine that I would have such freedom to just be me. I know that, as queen, my mom does what she likes, and others like Abigail managed to find a partnership where their authority is respected, but how often does that happen? No princess I grew up with ever aspired to being more than a wife. Balls and princes were never amongst my interests, no matter how hard I tried to please my mother. You and I?" She shrugged. "We started on rocky ground – it could easily have been a disaster on either end, but you gave me something that I don't think anyone else could have. You took away one choice, and that was awful on your part, but you gave me so many more in return.

"We've lost something recently. I think you wanted me to choose you over my mother. That's pretty awful too, but I don't think you did it consciously. Regardless, you're still my best friend, Regina and marrying you was the best decision I didn't make."

While she chuckled at the attempted joke, Regina tasted the word 'friend' and damped down her disappointment. She wanted to dig deeper and ask what Emma thought they'd lost, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Her heart soared to know that she had made the right decision even when her motivation to marry Emma had been tainted by revenge. There was potential there if ever she found the courage to seize it. They had bigger problems at present though and that was a good enough excuse for her to avoid a more onerous conversation about feelings.

"I wanted revenge on Snow, and I got a taste of it, but the greatest thing to come out of that deal was you, Emma. You're my best friend too… Just don't tell Abigail."

A watery smile lit the blonde's face before she cleared her throat and re-directed her gaze back to the table, fire brightening her eyes. "I think that's enough mushy stuff. How about we find out who's trying to destroy my birth-right and make them pay for it?"

"Sound right up my alley, dear," Regina replied with equal enthusiasm.

Progress at last? We can't have that... ;-)