Entering her bedroom with Emma at her heels, Regina glares down at the Queen as dark eyes track her movements predatorily.
"How is it that you're awake? Miss Swan says you blamed the age of the dust, but it's always worked fine for me and it shouldn't have worn off so soon. What trickery are you up to now?"
"Not I, dear. The Saviour. She-"
But the Queen's words evolve into a guttural, choking sound; her eyes flashing first with shock and then with anger.
"What are you...?"
Regina hisses, equally confused, before opening her mouth in surprise and turning to Emma.
"You bound her tongue?"
She frowns, finding this to be a strange and rather uncharacteristic move on the blonde's part.
In all honesty, I believed Miss Swan merely meant to offer me moral support, not inflict her own sense of justice.
Still, she can't deny that Emma deserves to throw a proverbial punch or two if she so desires before she finishes the bitch once and for all. She just hopes that 'proverbial' is all that the younger woman's violence will remain.
"We've allowed her her side for what good that it did us. This is about you, now."
Emma shrugs, and Regina nods slowly, supposing the blonde has a point, but there is something strange about the way that she looks at the Queen, and something equally concerning in the way her darker-half studies the Sheriff with an intensity fit to scald.
"We have."
She agrees, injecting a note of confidence into her tone that she's not sure she really feels.
You better start feeling it. You better pull yourself together. You're doing this, once and for all, you're doing this. Emma's right, she's said her piece and the rest is up to you.
"You know what I've come here to do?"
She speaks down to the Queen, studying the familiar lines of her face uncomfortably as she waits for a response.
I suppose I now have a better understanding of why so many have quivered before me.
She muses as she studies herself. She supposes the thought is primarily rooted in vanity, although no less true for it, but there is something cruel in the Queen's eyes that she hopes has since left her own.
And I hope it remains gone once I've done what must be done.
"Do you understand?"
Emma snaps at the woman on the bed, pushing her for an answer, and the Queen finally allows them a curt nod accompanied by a furious curl to her lip.
"Perfect."
Regina purrs sultrily, imagining she sounds like herself, even if she doesn't feel it. Everything about this situation is disconcerting to her, from looking herself angrily in the eye, to the demanding quality of the younger woman's tone. Glancing over at her shoulder at Emma, she offers her a tight smile, hoping the blonde won't use it again.
She's angry. She's told you as much. That's all there is to it.
She hopes so. She hopes that's all there is to it. She's not sure she can handle any more surprises.
Moving in closer so that she perches on the edge of the bed, she shares a silent exchange with the Queen, drinking her in as she makes her final peace with her decision.
"Gold said this might hurt."
She warns as she rests her hand over her counterpart's chest, her palm brushing against sultry lace. The Queen sneers back at her, and the Mayor doesn't need the darker woman to speak to understand the cause for her disapproval.
"Yes, I went to Rumple. You made me do so. I trust the golden imp only a fraction more than I trust you, but that fraction makes all the difference. Gold is aware of where the power lies in our small town, just as he busied himself manipulating it to his will back in the Enchanted Forest. He likes to keep power on side, dear, he always has, and for now, that means doing as the two of us have asked. It means offering advice without trickery."
Regina reasons, frowning when her words are met by a silent snigger, and she turns back to face the blonde; her eyes troubled.
"Is it right to do this without allowing her a final word?"
She asks, her expression suggesting that she poses an honest question, and hopes for an equally honest answer, thus causing Emma to falter a little as she weighs up her options. She doesn't want to allow the Queen free speech for fear that the darker woman will relay what the two of them had previously discussed before the Mayor's return. If she is to believe the Queen, then Regina will soon know the horrific details of what happened in the Enchanted Forest whether she likes it or not, but she can see no benefit to hard truths being weaponised and used to cut any more than their reality will soon do.
"That's up to you."
She replies finally, avoiding the Queen's gaze as the latter attempts to lock her in and stare her down.
"It's not final, though. Not really. You're taking her back. She is you. Anything she has to say now is entirely biased in evil, nothing more. She is nothing more right now... Haven't you seen and heard enough?"
The blonde continues, wincing a little as she feels uncharacteristically manipulative tacking on this last part. Still, it does the job, as Regina nods in agreement and turns back to the Queen with an assertive glower, digging her nails into the darker woman's chest until they dip impossibly beneath the bone.
"You've done this a thousand times."
The Mayor admonishes as the Queen emits a chocked hiss of discomfort, and while she knows that she exaggerates, she suffers guilt as she doubts that it's by much.
Pulling her hand free of her darker-half's chest, she studies the beating organ clutched in her fist with a grimace of disgust. The Queen's heart is black as ichor and small; much smaller than her own, she is sure of it.
Perhaps as there is very little in it? Or perhaps due to my previous attempt to destroy her?
She supposes it doesn't really matter, and pulls back, stepping away from the bed as she suddenly feels much too close to the vessel that has unleashed her darkness.
"I'm never going to get used to that."
Emma murmurs as she moves to stand beside her, green eyes lowered uncomfortably to the beating heart held in the Mayor's hand.
"Good."
Regina replies grimly, feeling unusually embarrassed as she watches the blonde study the blackened organ; intimately on display in the ugliest fashion.
She knows better than that.
She blinks, not doubting this sudden thought, but surprised by in nonetheless.
"Now yours?"
Emma asks, and the brunette nods, swallowing slickly.
"Now mine."
She agrees.
"Will it hurt?"
"It's not pleasant, but it's not intolerable, either. You've seen it done."
"I've had it done by your mother, but that's the only experience I have to base things on."
The younger woman reminds her, and the Mayor frowns, feeling guilty for a second time, and this time, the Sheriff reads her face and calls her out bluntly.
"I made a choice. You weren't there. Your mother might be responsible for some of that, but you're not her keeper."
Emma insists as she gestures to the Queen's heart, and Regina sighs as she replies wearily
"I know. And I'm sure my mother had her reasons... I have met you before, Miss Swan."
"She was actually aiming for Mary Margaret."
"Yes, well. I've met her before, too... The removal of one's heart is unpleasant for all I should imagine, but I would hope you refrain from experimenting further in a bid to sate your curiosity. You and I both know that particular well is bottomless, and I'm praying that when this is done, it might be my last performance of the morbid trick also."
Well, if this works how you hope it's going to.
The blonde doesn't say it, but Regina is sure she can read these words in her expression.
Almost sure.
"Could you look away for a moment?"
She asks Emma primly, and the younger woman cocks a smirk that doesn't quite hide the nervousness in her eyes.
"Do you have to take your shirt off or something? I didn't think you did, I-"
"-No. That's not necessary, it's just... It's intimate."
Regina shrugs arrogantly, aware that her cheeks rouge with flustered heat, and she scowls down at the Queen who greets this statement with a sly smirk directed pointedly towards the Saviour.
"Oh. Okay."
Emma nods uncertainly, doing as she's told and thus causing Regina's brow to furrow as she had expected the younger woman to argue.
Or at least make some asinine comment or other...
She imagines the blonde struggles to do so in front of her tormentor and thins her lips, unaware that the Sheriff's discomfort is a little more complex and is merely a mask for her guilt.
You're about to find out a whole new meaning to the word intimate, Madame Mayor, and I really don't think you're going to like it.
Emma frets, feeling a little as she had as a girl when she'd misbehaved and had paced whatever was currently passing for her room, waiting for inevitable punishment.
Yes, although I really doubt Regina's going to demand that you bend over while she takes out her belt, and if she did, you'd probably like it, and for the love of god would you fucking quit it already!?
She squeezes her eyes shut and lets out an irritable sigh to accompany the Mayor's pained gasp as she plucks out her heart.
"Are you okay?"
Regina asks curiously, her voice hoarse as she tries to steady her breathing, but her expression kind as she raises a brow in a request for an explanation for what has caused the blonde to behave in a similar fashion.
"Yeah, are you?"
Emma waves the brunette's concern away dismissively as she refocuses her attention on the task at hand. Looking from the pure, perfect scarlet of the Mayor's heart to the black ruin of the Queen's she mimicks Regina's earlier observation pensively.
"They're not the same size."
"No. I thought that was odd, too."
The brunette admits, and Emma looks up at her thoughtfully and shrugs.
"It's not that odd."
"No? What do you know of such things?"
"Not much, but I've picked up a thing or two about the idiocies of magic over the last few years."
"A funny way to put it, given what magic has done for you?"
"It has given and it has taken away."
Emma agrees prophetically, and Regina struggles to decide whether she's joking.
"Go on then, enlighten me, oh wise one."
She encourages, and the blonde simply meets her gaze calmly as though her thoughts on the matter should be obvious, before elaborating to break the silence.
"We've each said it, Regina. You are both your darkness and your light, but those parts of you aren't equal. Why would they be?"
"True. I suppose I have been thinking of the Queen as the other half of me; my mirror image. This suggests that isn't so. It suggests I am more than she is."
Regina muses, looking down at the woman on the bed as she states this last part, for it is the Queen who might oppose this revelation and the Queen alone.
"Stings, doesn't it?"
She asks of the darker woman silkily, imagining that if the bitch were able to do so, she might respond with venom and lies, and, while she is suddenly certain that she would be able to see through all of it, she relishes the silence.
I don't need to hear it. I don't have to hear it. I don't deserve to have to hear it.
Looking back down at the hearts in her hands, she watches them beat in unison.
"What do you do now?"
Emma asks her quietly, and she glances up and replies simply
"I bind them. I press them together and make them one again."
"Will they... Will that work?"
The blonde's brow creases as she considers the opposing organs the Mayor cradles, imagining the mess they might make when squeezed and pressed against each other a little more vividly than she'd like.
"It will."
Regina responds matter-of-factly. It's on the tip of her tongue to add something snide, but she supposes the Sheriff's residual doubt in the extraordinary is in many ways similar to her own reservations when she had first driven a car in this strange land.
I'd seen others do it, and was assured it would work, but without magic or some hidden beast to guide the wheels and run the motor, how could such a thing be?
"It will work."
She repeats softly, raising her dark gaze to meet cool green.
"When I do this, though... When I do this, that will be the end. At least, I think so. There can only be one... The merging of hearts I trust; what to you might seem like madness, to me makes sense in the way you might think of science... That part, I know will work... The rest is founded admittedly in hope."
"But it sounded feasible, what Gold told you?"
"Yes. And where my knowledge falters, I have belief."
"Well, I guess I know better than most that that's enough."
"Indeed."
"... Are you ready?"
Emma asks, and she takes care to look only at Regina as she says it, avoiding the Queen's certain rage and possible fear now that her time has come. She has nothing but hate for that version of the brunette, and she doesn't see what good might come of instigating further communication seconds before theoretical murder.
Regina appears to be of a similar opinion, as she glances down at the Queen just once, saying nothing, before turning back to face the blonde as she brings the beating hearts together with her jaw clenched and hands shaking.
"Ah..."
She shudders, a strange sensation overtaking her as she feels suddenly both lightheaded and as though her feet might be made of lead.
"Ah!"
Emma mirrors her shrilly, looking to bed in horror.
"What?"
Regina turns around dizzily and watches, open-mouthed, as purple flames engulf her bed.
"Shit!"
She remarks in open surprise, raising her hands to quell the flames before they can do further damage than the singed streak they leave on her bedding.
"What the hell?"
Emma asks uncertainly, looking around nervously as though trying to catch the Queen in the act of sneaking away, and Regina shakes her head, her complexion ashen.
"She's gone. She's in here, but the rest of her, it's gone. I just know."
She assures the younger woman, raising the heart in her hand shakily; warm crimson cobwebbed in a thin lace of midnight.
"She did that on purpose, though..."
She growls, gesturing towards the bed, and Emma laughs uneasily as she considers the soot marring the throw.
"Really?"
"Well, I'm not certain, but it seems plausible."
Regina chuckles in an equally shaky tone.
"I guess so."
Emma agrees, swallowing as her attention falls to the mottled appearance of the darker woman's heart.
"Don't pay too much attention to aesthetics, dear. Others have darkness in them as well."
Regina murmurs uneasily as she follows the direction of the blonde's gaze.
"I know that. I'm sure I do."
Emma assures her, meaning for her words to offer comfort, but instead, she is struck by what the Queen had told her when she'd awoken from her drugged slumber.
"The rope I speak of in its beauty was immediately identifiable as belonging to you. It was black, dear. Utterly and completely."
Feeling suddenly sick, she looks back up at Regina, trying to decipher any changes to the brunette's expression.
Repulsion for one.
Anger.
Hate.
Shock.
But the brunette displays none of these as she simply stares, transfixed, at her heart.
"Can you feel her?"
Emma asks warily, and the Mayor remains silent for a moment as she ponders over the question, before finally looking up and blinking as though surprised to find the blonde in her room.
"In here. In here I can feel her."
She replies quietly as she looks back down at the heart.
"I can feel her energy and mine. Like standing next to the powerlines."
"Powerful..."
"Yes."
Regina agrees, sounding as dazed as she looks. It's been quite some time since she last felt the effects of an empty chest and she sighs as she experiences the dullness and fatigue she has inflicted on so many others in her time.
"Are you okay?"
Emma asks nervously, noting the way the Mayor doesn't seem quite steady on her feet.
"I'm okay. It's normal, this feeling. Or lack of it."
The brunette assures with a humourless laugh, and she strives to shake herself from her muddled thoughts and offers the younger woman a more sincere smile.
"I don't think the lack of food or sleep will be helping much, either. I'm fine. Honestly. In fact, I would say I'm doing remarkably well for someone missing a part!"
She chuckles as she looks back down at her heart, raising it up to her chest to finish what they've started.
"...Regina, wait."
Emma speaks up suddenly, and the darker woman stills, looking up at her companion curiously."
"What, dear? Why?"
She asks, lowering her hand just a little when the blonde seems uncertain how to answer.
"Emma, what do you-"
But she falls silent, surprised, when the younger woman steps forwards to embrace her. Raising a brow, she reciprocates, struck by the distracted realisation that she doesn't believe she's ever actually just hugged the blonde as she does now. Holding her heart carefully out to the side, she allows her arms to fall away when she deems their embrace to have gone on long enough; patting the younger woman's shoulder awkwardly when Emma doesn't let go.
"Dear, I... It will be okay. This part I've done many times before."
She insists gently, thrown by the blonde's actions and troubled by her expression when she finally takes a step back.
"Not like this."
Emma shakes her head, and Regina considers this statement as she raises her heart to her chest.
"No. Not like this."
She agrees, before closing her eyes and pressing down.