A/N: Well that became a MASSIVE conversation haha. I'm going to quit messing with it now as I've been going back and forth over it for a couple of days, and I don't think it's doing much good. I'm a little concerned about this chapter just as it is such a massive step and also shift in the feel of the fic, so I hope it works!
Update-wise, I know I've been slow. I have exams at the end of the month and have a lot of work that needs doing for my art businesses, so I'm limiting myself to writing fanfic over the weekend IF I manage to get everything else done, so things are a bit hit and miss at the moment. I promise I will try to update this story as frequently as I can (especially given where I left it haha).
"That kind of depends on what you mean..."
Silence follows Emma's low reply, and Regina swallows as a tension she is all too familiar with settles heavily between them.
And, I've never minded it... Whatever state of play our relationship has been in, I've never minded that curious sense of electricity between us. Sometimes it's frustrating, and sometimes it aches. Sometimes it's pleasurable when it really shouldn't be; when she says or does something with others around- Hook for example- before offering me a glance to acknowledge that only I understand what she really means. And it's usually something stupid; something childish, something crude. But it's something secret, something just between the two of us. Something that would likely be meaningless- just Miss Swan's inconsequential rambling- if not for that brief glance shared between us. That glance- something I myself have been guilty of reciprocating countless times- that's what's meaningful. That's what brings pleasure, and that's what sometimes aches most of all.
No, I've never minded the tension, and I know her well enough to be certain she feeds off of it too.
Recalling the blonde's fury as she'd made her cruel demand back in the dungeon to know what the Mayor might think of her, Regina meets the younger woman's green stare pensively.
"What would you like me to mean, dear?"
She responds finally, and she catches a flicker of shadow as Emma clenches her teeth, before the blonde replies with a sigh.
"You know, you do that a hell of a lot, Regina, and it's fucking unfair."
"What is?"
The brunette frowns, taken aback by this accusation, but she wills herself to remain cautiously calm as the Sheriff simply sounds irritated rather than angry.
"You spin stuff back on me. You know I can't always answer questions as well as you can, so you turn the tables rather than giving me anything to work with."
Emma grumbles, and Regina raises a brow as she considers this allegation curiously.
"Miss Swan, I know I've suggested otherwise in my many attempts to vex you in the past, but I don't recall ever seriously questioning your ability to speak up for yourself. Quite the opposite! I don't think there's all that much in it if comparing which of us is more adept at standing her ground... Or would you disagree?"
"No, but I think you have the whole airs and graces thing down to a fine art, and sometimes when I'm called on to respond in kind, I feel foolish. I'm not saying I'm any less stubborn than you are- Mary Margaret would have your back there in a second, as would quite a few others- I just don't always have the perfect argument lined up, which I think you know, and you set me up to look stupid in order to avoid things you don't want to talk about."
The blonde confides sourly, and she furrows her brow when the Mayor responds to her complaint with a smirk.
"If I thought you looked stupid at any time, I'd tell you, dear. Gladly! I presume history has taught you as much?!... I think for the most part you make your point just fine. I also don't entirely agree that I set you up for failure, but in truth, it's not something I've really reflected on for a long time now, and perhaps sometimes I deflect without thinking about it... If so, I don't do it to be unkind, and I would argue that you have your own habits when it comes to avoiding uncomfortable subject matter. The fact that my technique carries more finesse than simply shutting everyone out and turning a cold shoulder the instant I feel ill at ease is hardly my fault."
"Oh, that is just-"
"-The truth."
Regina smiles, before swiftly nipping any further bickering in the bud when she crosses her arms a little self consciously over her chest and continues in a less assertive tone
"But, as for your claim that I set you up in order to avoid things I don't wish to talk about... I offered you a conversation I doubt either of us is all too comfortable with, did I not?"
"... You did, but this isn't exactly the time."
"No?... I don't know. A part of me would like to agree, as I'm a little fearful of what might be discussed, but I don't see how we can continue in our plans to best the Evil Queen and find our way home if we don't address what has evidently been her trump card in the game she's played thus far."
The Mayor clears her throat uncomfortably as the blonde studies her silently with her eyes narrowed as though feeling her out for tricks or cunning. Bristling a little under the younger woman's wary stare, Regina sighs as she recalls the state in which she'd found the Sheriff; imagining Emma might well have every reason to be wary.
"She played the first few hands of our tournament, and they all smacked of a similar theme. Not one of wrath- not just wrath- but lust. I told her over and over that I wasn't going to be broken by her fucked up little games; that I was fully conscious of the fact that she wasn't you. Her opinions and her threats, they weren't you. The way she was choosing to get under my skin, that was her, not you... Only, that shit has to come from somewhere, right!? She didn't just materialise out of thin air, and neither did her perversions..."
Looking down at the bloodied rag she's left discarded on the table, Regina nips at her tongue, before speaking up quietly
"I suppose you want me to start then, dear?... I imagine that's fair given the circumstances."
"I-"
"-It wasn't."
"Wasn't what?"
"Fabricated out of thin air. The Queen's way of going about things... At least, how it looks like she's gone about things. You stated in the dungeon that her pe-... perversions must have come from somewhere, and I think you might be right. Just... Understand that I've never allowed myself to take any of those thoughts any further. I never allowed myself to admit they existed, much less allowed them room to develop and flourish!... I don't know what that woman has told you, Emma, and I would be tempted now to try and convince you to believe none of it, but... I can't do that when I'm in the dark. And, if she implied I might find myself conflicted in my friendship with yourself, then I can't hand-on-heart say that isn't true. Favourably, mind you!... I just sometimes fear it might be too favourably, if you understand my meaning..."
Regina winces, her complexion unusually pale save for the dark blush that creeps up her throat as she thins her lips and waits uncertainly for the blonde to offer some form of response.
"I understand... I mean, I'm trying not to laugh, as your 'favourable confliction' has been translated in a vastly more perverse, messed up sense, but... I won't, because I know you're not just fucking with me. Which, I mean... Again, after what-"
"-Please!... Please don't. I'm not saying you can't tell me what's happened- I know I won't care to hear any of it, but I understand I'm obliged to if you will it- but we're not talking about that right now. About her. I'm talking to you. As me."
"Okay."
Emma agrees quietly, shifting uncomfortably in her chair as she moves to sit on her hands. Nodding gratefully, Regina digs her nails surreptitiously into the soft flesh of her upper arms as she struggles to find something to say, but she realises that however much she may not want to, she needs to know the truth before continuing further. After all, she's fairly certain she knows the answer, given everything she's walked in on, but the idea is pure madness, and she just can't quite bring herself to believe it.
"... Did you... Did you sleep together?"
The last part is barely audible as the brunette waits for Emma to call her out on her audacity to have drawn such an impossible conclusion, but the Sheriff instead mutters darkly
"Did we sleep together? No. We fucked. I would never call it what you called it..."
Never... Only, when the bitch was wearing your guise... Then, it almost was like that. It almost-
"-Sorry. You asked, I answered."
Emma interrupts her uneasy train of thought gruffly, wondering for a moment if the Mayor might be having some sort of stroke as the darker woman simply stares at her, drained of all colour.
"It's been... It's been complicated."
The blonde mutters tersely, and Regina takes in a deep breath through her nose as her throat suddenly feels rusty.
"... She made you?"
She asks, unable to bring herself to word it better; to say what she really means.
You see, dear, not so eloquent after all...
But she finds herself taken aback when Emma appears uneasy rather than entirely distraught, much as she feels herself; the blonde simply repeating
"I told you, it's complicated..."
"... The situation or how you feel?"
Regina asks finally, taking the blonde's awkward shrug to mean that she isn't sure how best to answer, and allowing the truth behind the younger woman's discomfort to sink in. Opening and closing her mouth as she tries to think of something more to say, she eventually takes her chances and opts for a bold approach in order to shake them from Emma's recent shocking admission.
"You asked me down there if I wanted a closer look at you. If I liked what I saw... What's with the new look?"
"Really? You're going to bitch about what I'm wearing right now?!"
"Did I say I didn't like it?"
"... Do you?"
"Of course. I mean, it's a bit much, but that's hardly an area where I dare get too vocal, and you wear it well. You wear most things well."
"You've spent a great deal of energy insisting otherwise!"
"I have."
Regina agrees simply, and she offers the blonde a sly grin as she uncrosses her arms in order to count her reasons why off on her fingers.
"One: I did so when we were first acquainted because you irked me terribly, and I would have said anything to tear you down. Two:- or perhaps my first point was a two-parter- while finding your very existence wildly offensive, your penchant for garish leather in many ways suited your insolence so perfectly, I wished for every such item to burn. Three:... I just enjoy winding you up. Immensely."
"Well, yeah, that I figured out!"
"Really?"
The brunette replies curiously, and she meets Emma's pointed glower with a small shrug before admitting honestly
"I'd never actually given it much thought before now... I mean, the fact that I make snide comments towards you almost out of habit, and that your response invariably amuses me; I'm well aware of all that. But... I don't think I ever spent a great deal of time before the insanity of the last couple of days putting two-and-two together. I'd never thought to equate my enjoyment of winding you up with how it made me feel to do so, especially since coming to consider you as a friend. I don't actually mean whatever cruelty lies on the surface of my comments any more than you mean your feigned annoyance in response. It's just something we do... I've not really had that with anyone else before."
"You tease Snow."
Emma points out, and the brunette pulls a face as she corrects
"That's not the same... How I feel when she snaps back at me isn't the same."
"No?"
"No... Not if I think about it."
The Mayor admits pensively.
"Well... I guess it's a shame you're so in favour of my new look, then."
The blonde sighs baitingly, and Regina smirks as she finally allows herself to drink in the younger woman's ensemble with a little less restraint before considering the silver fall of her curls.
"That might be pushing it a little, dear. We're in the Enchanted Forest; an elaborate wardrobe is almost mandatory. I might be less in favour should you decide to take your current attire back to Storybrooke... Although, it is a vast improvement on the last time you tried to convince us all how big and bad you are. Lower cut. Tighter, too."
The brunette adds dangerously before she can help herself, and Emma bites back a grin as she regards her companion cooly
"Yet you disagree with the idea of me making it a regular thing..."
"I never said I disagreed, just that I would be less in favour of the decision... Neither time when you've decided to adopt your whole 'vampire bitch' aesthetic has reflected especially well on me, dear."
Regina sighs regretfully, and Emma studies her thoughtfully but neither affirms nor denies her statement as she feels they have said all there is to say on the matter. Instead, she glances pointedly down at her cleavage and scoffs
"Yeah, well, I could do without my mom or Henry seeing me like this, I guess."
"Agreed, although it's not as though what you do wear isn't suggestive."
"How!? I don't wear anything that gives much away..."
"That depends on how much attention one might be paying."
Regina reasons silkily, and the blonde touches the tip of her tongue to her top lip as she meets the Mayor's dark gaze intently before lowering her eyes to study the table with a small smile.
"You know, I've always felt like a bug on the head of a pin with the intensity of your scrutiny, Madame Mayor. I guess I never realised that scrutiny went so far as trying to catch a glimpse down my top."
"Yes, well, there's very little trying to it, dear, what with the way you choose to sit."
The brunette sniffs tersely, before taking the opportunity this obscure conversation grants her and tackling something that has been troubling her ever since it happened.
"There was also very little effort required to glimpse anything of interest with your choice of dress the other day... I know you were trying to get my attention- and you succeeded- but, I don't understand the logic. I... I'm afraid you might have to explain that decision on your part to me, dear. After all, I... I assume your reasoning involved the Queen?"
"What, and that my choice of outfit- what little of it there was- wasn't just for your benefit?"
"Well-"
"-What if it had been? What did you think?"
Emma revisits her query snarled down in the dungeon quietly, and Regina sighs as she admits
"I thought a lot of things I felt I shouldn't be thinking... Not one of them especially negative about that dress or how it fit you."
"Oh."
"I suppose, more than anything else, I was confused."
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry you were made to feel like that. I've had similar assaults on my conscience and emotions over the last couple of days, and it isn't pleasant... Longer, actually, but let's tackle one thing at a time...That wasn't me. The dress, acting like that... That was the Queen."
"... I see."
"I'm sorry. I tried to tell you, really I did. I was fucking screaming! But no sound came out. Not even when I was beating on the closet door."
"The closet door? Your closet door? You were... You were watching?"
"Not consensually!... But yeah. I saw."
"Oh."
"I was so mad at her for that, and I just didn't get it at the time. I could understand her wanting to make my life hell, but why do that when it would effect you also? I understand a little more on that count now, but I'm still sorry. I was so scared of having to tell you- embarrassed about having to tell you!- but please believe me when I say I know how it feels to find out you've been tricked like that..."
"It's alright. It was only a dress. Only a confusing exchange. Nothing to worry about."
Regina replies a little mechanically; never one to do well with feeling the fool. Still, she notes how emphatically the blonde apologises, leading her to believe that Emma no more sees it as being about 'just a dress' than she does.
"I just didn't want you to think I was... I don't know. You were clearly uncomfortable, and you know that beyond the realms of my own- friendly- amusement, I would never try to make you feel that way."
"You mean apart from snarling at me to take a closer look at you naked?"
"... Shit."
Emma sighs, cringing visibly as she offers the brunette a sheepish grimace.
"It's alright, dear. I've been threatened with worse prospects!... Incidentally, I'd say for a once shameless monarch, I showed remarkable restraint in not allowing myself a proper look, whether I might like the view or not!"
"True. Thank you."
The blonde chuckles awkwardly.
"I should think so, too. I doubt such decency would have been reciprocated."
Regina teases, purely in jest, but she nips her bottom lip uncomfortably when Emma confides
"I mean, I tried at first, but I guess recent evidence is in your court."
"... Oh god..."
"Sorry..."
"No. It's okay. You don't need to apologise, I've seen enough... I just... Well, now I know that you have, too."
Regina shifts uneasily in her seat as the blonde lowers her eyes with a slick click of her throat. Casting her own dark gaze around the small kitchen, the brunette brings them back to the matter of the Queen's masquerade and the dress and sighs
"I just hope my obvious distraction in response to how I believed you were presenting yourself wasn't deemed inappropriate."
"Uh!? No more inappropriate than 'me' sat cosied up against you with everything hanging out!"
"Well, yes..."
Regina winces, and Emma follows suit before admitting cautiously
"You know... I did think for a moment you were going to kiss her. Me. You know what I mean."
"... Would you have liked me to?"
"I-... Ugh! You're doing it again! You're making it so that I have to come out and say-"
"-I wanted to."
The Mayor interrupts; quietly but firmly.
"You... You did? But... You pulled back, and you left, and-"
"-Because something seemed off! Emma I've known you for quite some time now, and the way you were acting just wasn't right. Not because I didn't want what you seemed to be offering, but more... You've never been cheap. I know I've suggested otherwise and I've called you out on worse, but I know that's not you... I have had to work for each and every part of you that means anything to me, and I know that goes both ways, and that's why I like you as much as I do. Our relationship has always been complicated! It has! But, having you around to bitch at, to bicker with, to rely on... that's meant a lot to me since allowing you in, and I didn't want to risk ruining any of that. I've never allowed myself to think about ruining that! Everything that's ever come to pass between us has been complicated- unusual- and the way you were- that she was- that morning wearing that dress... It was meaningless. It was presented as an inconsequential perk of dropping by on you and catching you in a provocative state... Not that I'm saying I'd mind the latter, but you just wouldn't do things that way. That's not how I've ever imagined it."
"... You've imagined it?"
"No!... Yes... Sort of... I'd start to, and then I'd cut myself off."
Regina frowns, regarding the blonde warily as she allows this admission to linger in the air between them. Taking heed of the vulnerability and warning in the brunette's eyes, Emma finally removes her hands from beneath her ass and watches the blood return slowly to her fingers.
"Well... Then you have greater restraint than I do."
Dark eyes widen in surprise, before the brunette sniffs
"Yes, well, we knew that already."
"Not in the current context..."
"No... I... Well, I'm a little shocked, dear."
"Really? I kind of reckoned you were of the belief that everyone found themselves helplessly infatuated with you."
"Mm. Flaming torches and death-threats speak of lusty devotion to you, do they?"
"Oh, please, that's only happened a couple of times! And I said you believed they were infatuated with you, not that they liked you."
"Delightful, and an obvious attempt at deflection, Miss Swan... Are you saying you've actually played out scenes of your infatuation with me in your head?"
"Please don't use that word."
"What word should I use?"
"I don't know."
Emma replies honestly, splaying her palms in a helpless gesture.
"I don't know the right words or the right way to talk about any of this... I just know it's probably wise that we do."
"Agreed."
Regina nods, before admitting quietly
"You know... I thought I was crazy. At least, I tried to convince myself that I was crazy. You'd do things or say things, and I'd catch myself feeling so certain that you must know what you were doing and how those things sounded. How they looked... But then I'd tell myself not to be so foolish."
"... Likewise."
"Honestly?"
"Well, yeah! I mean, do you hear yourself sometimes, Regina?! I'd tell myself I was crazy for presuming it was solely for my benefit, but there is no subtlety to some of what comes out of your mouth!"
"No one else seems affected."
"Which just made it all the more absurd!"
The blonde groans, and the Mayor laughs softly, before reminding the younger woman awkwardly
"You can't blame me for feeling confused and trying to distance myself from what I considered a figment of my imagination... You're in a relationship."
"So were you."
"Yes, but-"
"-But, you were right when you said you felt Hook doesn't like how much time we spend together- or, rather, the way we spend time together- I've just never known how to agree with you without having to have this conversation... Honestly, I didn't even think it would be this conversation, but more me stumbling over my words while trying to explain things to you, followed by you laughing at me or being angry with me."
"Why would I be angry with you?"
"Well, I figured the odds were pretty evenly stacked between you finding me foolish or being outright disgusted, and I wasn't all too keen on finding out which eventuality would win out... Still, that didn't stop me from feeling... I don't know... You say things have always been complicated between us, and that's true. Fuck me is that true! But... I like it. I butt heads with you more than anyone I know, but I like it. I like you!... And I like Hook. I do. He's funny, we get on well, Henry likes him, he does a lot for me... He does a hell of a lot for me, and I try to reciprocate, but... The stuff he does for me, it's what you do for the love of your life, you know? Selling his ship?... That was a huge thing."
"...It was."
"I think for a while I had him convinced- hell, I had myself convinced!- that I'm just really useless when it comes to emoting and expressing my feelings. I've never been one for grand gestures, and I told myself that over and over when I just couldn't... I couldn't live up to it. And I don't mean that in a self-deprecating way, I just mean that whatever I was supposed to feel; I didn't. Not fully. But I also didn't want to admit that. Not to Hook, not to my parents, not to myself! This massive gesture had been made for me, yet I was so fucking wrapped up in what was going on with you. I was so uneasy with the fact that I'd hurt you, and that you hated me again, and that just seemed way more important to me at the time... I guess the problem is that you're more important to me most of the time, and I don't think it's exactly a secret anymore... And I mean, Hook sold his ship and gave up a lot of what he knew for me, and I can't even take the step of letting him move in with me."
"You're private; if the idiot hasn't figured that much out for himself, then he doesn't know you as well as he thinks... And let's not forget, you've made your own gesture. You went to hell for the man, Emma, what more could he ask of you?"
"We went to hell. All of us."
"Okay, sorry that his chances of coming out alive were greatly increased."
Regina rolls her eyes, and Emma allows just a shadow of a smirk, before admitting ruefully
"The thing is, I would have gone to hell for any of you. We would all have done that for one another. Fuck, we have all done crazy stuff like that for each other!... And I think when it comes to Henry, and when it comes to my parents, Hook understands, because that's my family, but then there's you..."
"Then there's me."
"We share a son, and that reasoning held up fine for a while. You're my friend; again, friends do a lot for each other. But, you're also this woman that has an insanely convoluted past with my loved-ones and myself, and maybe that's harder for some people to wrap their head around."
"Well, it's not as though ours is the only relationship that's a little odd in our little town..."
"No, I know, and it drives me crazy when the others question how we see each other, because it's personal, and they'll never get it."
"They won't."
"I went to hell to save Hook because it was the right thing to do. There was emotion there, of course there was! Of course I cared that it was Hook... But it was also what was right, and that's why we all went..."
"That doesn't take away from what you did."
"No, but... I took the dagger instead of you, Regina... Not because it was right- it was; you didn't deserve that shit after everything- but I did it because it was you... I'm sorry I brought it up earlier and used it against you. It wasn't fair, and it's not how I feel. I had a choice, and I made it, it's on me... Something Hook reminds me about frequently."
Emma sighs, and Regina raises her brow as Emma lets her in on what she has long since suspected to be the case.
"You know, for a long time, I thought he was just pissed because he felt it was a stupid decision. That he was worried about me and that he questioned what I'd done. And he was pissed for all those reasons, but then there's this other matter of contention; the one we never properly get down to talking about but that's always there... You."
"Hook doesn't like that he received the group rescue package, whereas mine was the bespoke, personal experience?"
Regina asks silkily, and the blonde shrugs as she confides
"Honestly? I think it's a sore subject. Same as my following you around trying to win back favour and spending my time in an ice cream parlour in response to his giving up everything for me."
"Yes, well, if he expected anything from you other than your prioritising dessert above all else, he clearly doesn't know you."
"Ha! Yeah, not quite what I was doing there, sadly."
"I wouldn't know, I couldn't stand you at the time."
Regina muses flippantly, before shaking her head and admitting
"Of course I knew what you were getting up to. I just wasn't done being mad at you."
"Oh, I know!"
Emma smiles dryly, and Regina smirks as she primps her hair, before asking seriously
"Are you happy, Emma? With Hook? In general?... Sometimes I wonder, but I've never felt as though asking would go down especially well. I also never felt that it was my place... Lily's anger and revelations as to how I can be towards you shocked me. They upset me as I hadn't realised how some of my actions might be perceived or whether they were just. Whether I was being fair. That's a fairly new concern for me, dear, and I don't always get it right. It doesn't always come naturally, but I do try to mind myself around you. Because I do know. I do know that I'm responsible for some of the less pleasant chapters in your life. Indirectly responsible, and I'm grateful for your apparent agreement on the matter, but I never felt I should be the one to push the subject of your happiness... That doesn't mean that I'm entirely convinced. I want you to be happy, but sometimes I'm not so sure whether you are?"
"... Everything's finally working out for me. I'm stable."
"Yes, and if you were a piece of exercise equipment or a fairground ride, that would be wonderful, but you're not. You're human."
"It's complicated."
"You always say that."
"Well, it's almost always true!"
The blonde grumbles, and Regina nods as she agrees with this and then some.
"It is. We are. Our relationship. I had a little reprieve when I was with Robin; I loved him, I was sure of it. I was happy. But do you know something? I missed you. I did. We each had our own thing going on, and in a way, that felt good, because things have always been complicated, and it was nice to have a break from that, even though I didn't fully understand why that was. I didn't fully understand what it was I was catching a break from. I was happy, but then when Robin died... After some time... It became complicated again, being around you... More so than before."
"Oh?"
"Annoyingly so. Granted, in the past, you'd had idiots running around after you incessantly."
"Slight exaggeration-"
"-Graham, August, Hook, Neal-"
"-Okay, with Neal that was comp-"
"-Complicated."
Regina smiles thinly.
"Yeah."
"I know. And watching you try to navigate your way clumsily through each new testosterone-fuelled fiasco was invariably entertaining and provided me with abundant ammunition to tease you mercilessly. None of your relationships- save for a simian fiancé- were ever especially serious, though- not in your eyes, not if you were to be honest- and so no one was apt to get hurt. Well... Maybe the men, so I suppose what I mean is no one important was apt to get hurt."
"Lovely."
"Aren't I? And I will take that very half-hearted attempt at an argument as a sign that you know I'm right... Even when you eventually conceded to the pirate's pining, I know you- better than Hook does- and I carried on my teasing because you let me."
"Pretty sure I asked you several times to shut up...?"
"Oh, it was more than several times, and using rather more colourful language! You weren't committed, though. If you'd meant it, I would have stopped."
"Would you?!"
"... Have I ever teased you about your brother? No. Have I made any number of the truly brilliant yet rather cruel incarceration remarks I'd once stockpiled? Not for a long time... There are certain subjects I know not to touch, because my intent for the best part of our relationship hasn't been to hurt you. Irritate you? Yes, gladly! But I'm not such a monster that I can't grasp that there are some things that are off-limits. Neither are you, in spite of your current get-up. You've made countless disgusting comments to amuse yourself about myself and Gold, my enslavement of Graham, my way of speaking and conducting myself. I wouldn't trust you for a second not to find hilarity in being grossly inappropriate in hopes of making me falter, but you have never mocked my relationship with Daniel."
"Well, I-"
"-Not to me... You've never really teased me about my mother, although I might well have deserved it for what I've said about yours, but you understand that it's not the same. You'll comment, and sometimes it will irritate me, but you don't twist the knife because you don't want to hurt me. You never talk about Robin, and... I think there might be some guilt there, and I think there's some discomfort there, but I also think you simply don't want to cause me pain."
"...I wouldn't tease you about that."
"No... I made my fun of your courtship with Killian because you were okay with it. Maybe not happy, but okay. That was still the case when I found Robin, and then I was too preoccupied with my own happiness to spend as much of my time trying to sully yours... Things were more serious after Robin died. You and Hook; that had evolved, and it was something real now. I've never known you in a relationship before- a proper relationship- and... It's been complicated."
Regina splays her palms as she repeats this sentiment uneasily, and Emma nods slowly.
"...For me, too. There've been times when you and I have been hanging out together where it's almost felt like I've been making a choice. As though I've been choosing one thing instead of another. And I'd get so frustrated because I'd remind myself that was fucking crazy! That there was no way in hell you were aware of any of the weirdness I'd sometimes feel; much less any way you'd understand! There was no way in hell that you wouldn't just be totally freaked out and avoid me for a while...
Worst, though, there's this fear that... Maybe I'm not always sure I am making the right choice. Maybe sometimes I worry about that."
Emma admits, her voice so low the brunette has to lean forward to hear her, and Regina swallows, her throat suddenly very dry, before conjuring them each a glass of water.
"...What about now, dear?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well... I have yet to recoil from your admission with the disgust you anticipated... And you haven't fallen about laughing at me as I had feared you might if I ever let it show that some my affection for you isn't always of the friendly variety... You didn't even laugh when I expressed that I'd wanted you to kiss me."
"I... I've spent the last couple of days trying to tell myself this is all insane..."
"And I've spent the last month growing increasingly confused- increasingly flustered- around you. Emma, I invite you to my house under the pretext that Henry enjoys it when you have dinner with us, which he does, but I would be lying if I said it wasn't also to avoid having the pirate barge in on us... Now and then just recently I've suffered the fleeting desire- swiftly nipped in the bud, mind!- that there might be something more that he would be barging in on."
"... Me too... Fuck."
"It's always going to be complicated, Emma. I'd say a great deal more so given what's happened the last couple of days. I know that's not just something we can sweep under the rug!... It's always going to be complicated, but that doesn't render my question void. You say you worry about the choice you've made, while desperately trying to convince yourself that there is no choice in the matter... I'm offering you one."
"... Yeah?"
"Yes. I know we have a lot on our plate right now. I know we need to figure out how to elude the Queen. I know we need to get home. But we may well need to lay a trap for that bitch, and chances are it will follow the ilk of the game she's played with you thus far... I need to know how much of our likely charade is fact and how much is fantasy. Partly for your benefit- I know your time here has been hard, and I don't want to open fresh wounds- but partly for mine. I don't want to look a fool, Miss Swan."
"Me neither."
"Well then... If we lure the Queen where we want her- away from the mirror, away from where we need to be- are we doing so as we've done things before countless times; as friends? As amusingly twisted reprobates of good? Or are we playing her game? Are we accepting what's been building between us and using it to our advantage?"
Regina asks quietly, and the blonde studies her glass silently for a moment as she runs her finger over her bottom lip; recalling the way the darker woman had struggled against her- caught off guard- when she'd tasted her in the dungeon.
Recalling countless chuckled innuendos; dripping with sarcasm to mask the wistfulness underneath.
Recalling so many evenings interrupted far too early and the subsequent frustration.
But also remembering Regina's confession on their way here.
That something is missing.
That nothing has been left in its place.
"...I don't think we should elude her."
"Sorry?"
Regina frowns, perturbed that the younger woman should so predictably- so cowardly- change the subject.
"We need to talk about what we plan to do next. We need to talk about a lot of things."
"I know! But-"
"-But, we need to figure something out before getting to any of that."
"What now?"
The brunette sighs irritably.
"...Do you still want me to kiss you?"