Emma and Regina had left early that morning without saying a single word to one another. They walked in silence now across the rugged terrain. It wasn't hot, but Emma was certainly sweating from the exertion of walking through the wilderness. She considered herself a fairly fit person before this, but there was a huge difference between running five miles in Storybrooke and all of this climbing. The added weight of the sword Regina had insisted Emma carry didn't help her unsteadiness due to the extra weight on her left side. She also regretted insisting that she carry the larger bag Regina had prepared, but she had no idea what was in it. She regretted her chivalrous attitude immediately, but she couldn't help but smirk at the idea that formed in her head. The white knight and her Queen marching through a forest to get back to their loved ones. Emma literally was inside a new fairytale.
They stopped to rest at what Emma assumed was around noon due to the position of the sun. Regina handed her an apple and a basin of water again without saying anything. Emma was gracious for both the apple and the water. The silence, however, was starting to wear on her nerves.
"How far away is the castle?" Emma asked.
"At least a two day journey." Regina answered.
"So we are sleeping in the woods tonight?" Emma asked.
"Sorry princess, but we will have to." Regina said shooting Emma a look that dared her to argue their arrangements.
"I've slept on park benches before Regina. I think I can handle the forest floor." Emma answered taking a bite of her apple effectively ending their communication.
When midafternoon approached, they stopped because the two heard voices filtering towards them. Regina was really confused by this. Everyone should have gone to Storybrooke with the curse, but she knew that might not be the case because she didn't create this curse. Emma drew the sword immediately smiling at how oddly familiar it felt in her hand.
Regina and Emma saw the two women before they saw them. One was dressed in armor also carrying a sword while the other was wearing a long flowing gown. Emma shifted to try to see into the clearing, but the only thing she accomplished was snapping a twig. The two women in the clearing stopped immediately and looked around. The soldier drew her sword and moved the other woman behind her in a protective gesture.
Emma stepped forward first with her sword drawn.
The two women looked at each other for a few minutes trying to decide if they were dealing with an enemy or not. Regina stepped behind her out of their hiding place, and Emma couldn't help but put an arm in front of her in the same protective manner the other knight had displayed. Emma was worried that the strangers would recognize the former queen, but it didn't seem that they did.
"Who are you?" The soldier asked after the staggering silence.
"Emma." She answered simply. "Who are you?"
"Mulan. This is Aurora." Mulan said gesturing behind her.
"This is Regina." Emma said. Her eyes widened hoping that Mulan wouldn't recognize the name. Then, she wondered if anyone in this land even knew Regina's real name.
"Why are you here?" Mulan asked then keeping her sword raised.
"We fell through a portal." Emma answered like it was the most normal thing in the world. "We are just trying to get back to our land."
"Why are you here?" Regina finally asked stepping to Emma's side. Emma used her free hand to interlock her fingers with Regina's. She wasn't sure why. She didn't want Regina to hurt these women, but she wanted to make it perfectly clear that she would protect her as well.
Mulan looked down at their intertwined hands. "This land is a cursed land. For some reason our kingdom didn't get cursed. We've all been here frozen in time for almost thirty years. Recently, time started again."
"That would be because I broke the curse." Emma answered with a smug grin on her face. Regina's grip tightened on Emma's hand then silently communicating to her that she could not tell the two women who she was.
"You are from that land?" Aurora asked them.
"Yes. We both are." Emma answered.
"You are Snow White's daughter?" Aurora asked shock written all over her face.
"Yes, I am." Emma answered.
"Who are you?" Aurora asked looking at Regina.
"She was a friend of the royal family." Emma answered immediately. "We are heading to Snow White's castle in search of something to take us back to our land."
"Why would you want to go back?" Mulan asked finally lowering her sword. Emma mirrored the actions, but she didn't let go of Regina's hand.
"Our son is there." Regina answered quickly.
Aurora looked confused. "The two of you have a son together? The two of you are lovers?"
"Yes, we have a son together. It's complicated." Emma answered.
"What are the dangers in this land?" Regina asked changing the topic immediately.
"Just ogers." Mulan answered. Regina rolled her eyes at that. Undermining the danger presented by ogers wasn't a good idea. "There are only a few as we have taken care of most of them, but they are here."
"You brought a princess with you on a mission to kill ogers?" Regina asked.
"I vowed to protect her." Mulan answered in the same tone Henry would have used to say "duh" back in Storybrooke.
"Where are you two headed now?" Emma asked.
"Back to our village." Aurora answered.
"Then we will go our separate ways." Regina said.
Mulan simply nodded at Emma before the two passed them going in the opposite direction that Emma and Regina had been heading. Emma looked down at their intertwined fingers before releasing Regina's hand ignoring the cold sensation that washed over her at the loss of contact.
Emma was about to collapse by the time Regina said they should stop for the night. She was exhausted. She was sore already from walking and climbing throughout the day. Her feet were killing her. Emma wasn't sure if she had ever been this sore before and that included the times she had decided to do work outs with prisoners.
Regina picked a clearing that was up on a small hill. She told Emma that they would be safer there in case they heard anyone approaching. Regina took the bag from Emma and started to remove items before using magic to poof a tent into existence. Emma just starred at it. She still wasn't used to this idea of magic.
"Wait, why can't you just poof us there?" Emma asked.
"Poof us there? Dear, you have been watching to many television shows about magic." Regina began to reply before moving into the tent. Emma followed. "It takes energy to use magic. If I poofed us there it would take so much energy that I would have to rest for at least three days after that."
"Oh ok." Emma responded looking around at the tent that just had two simple sleeping bags and two pillows at the bottom of it. "I'm hungry."
"We already ate dinner." Regina said.
"No, we ate an apple for lunch and some kind of salad thing for dinner. That might cut it for you, but I usually eat at least a burger, grilled cheese, and a pound of fries a day." Emma responded rubbing her stomach just thinking about fries.
"Your cardiovascular health isn't my concern Miss Swan. I have an apple that you can have, but that is it." Regina responded tossing Emma the apple.
Emma sat down far away from Regina to eat it. She stood her jacket off then before removing her boots and button up. When she moved to remove her socks, Regina stopped her. "It gets quite cold here at night. You may want to leave those on." Emma knew that she couldn't sleep in jeans so she decided to risk it and take them off. Emma was in her sleeping bag with her back to Regina who seemed to be playing the same game.
"Regina." Emma spoke softly just in case the woman was asleep. Regina didn't respond, but Emma knew that she was awake by the intake of breath at Emma's words.
"For what it is worth, I'm really glad I didn't come through that portal with David and Mary Margaret." Emma spoke softly still afraid that the silence of the night might cause someone to hear her.
"Why?" Regina asked genuine confusion in her tone.
"I'm not ready to deal with all of that. Having a Mom and Dad, well, that is a little terrifying to me." Emma said turning over to face Regina's back. Regina didn't respond, but it wasn't long before both women had drifted off to sleep.
Emma woke up a few hours later, and her legs were ice cold. She moved from her sleeping bag quickly to pull her jeans over her legs. Her sudden movements startled Regina awake immediately.
"What's wrong? Did you hear something?" Regina asked sitting up quickly blinking rapidly to adjust to the lack of light.
"No. I'm freezing." Emma answered snuggling as deep into her sleeping bag as she could. Regina smiled briefly at how much Emma reminded her of Henry.
"One day you are going to stop being so stubborn Miss Swan. I know this land." Regina answered. She tried to go back to sleep, but she could literally hear Emma's teeth chattering. She knew they wouldn't get anywhere on their travels the next day if Emma wasn't rested.
"Get in my sleeping bag." Regina said. Emma couldn't believe it.
"Excuse me?"
"Body heat sheriff. We can use your sleeping bag for another layer." Regina responded scooting as far to the edge of her bag as possible.
Emma slid into the confined space. It would have been comical if there wasn't so much tension between them. There was only about an inch of space between them, but they were both pressed to opposite sides of the sleeping bag. Emma was still cold even with the extra heat. So, she took a deep breath and put an arm around Regina to pull her back flush with her own front. Regina didn't protest so Emma fell asleep.
It was early again when they left, and Emma was thankful for her magic breakfast of eggs and bacon. They reached the castle in the evening without an incident or without anything other than necessary conversation.
Emma was in awe of the structure that towered over them. It was without question larger than the castle Regina had called home in the years before the curse. It was also lighter with pale grey stone and worn flags that still hung from various towers with what Emma could only assume were the colors of the kingdom. Small huts that were mainly intact littered the grounds. Emma imagined that the people who had served her family had been treated with respect by giving them these small cabins.
They waked in silence through the front gate and right through the front door. Regina's eyes seemed to glaze over at the sight of the grand room they entered. Everything was aged, but it was still the grandest thing Emma had ever seen. Three gold thrones sat at the head of the room with a huge banquet table in front of it that could seat at least 100 people. Elaborate art and tapestries hung from the ceilings and chandeliers hung from the ceilings that looked just like the ones from Cinderella. Emma chucked at that. They were probably close to Cinderella's actual castle.
Regina stopped in front of the throne and looked back towards Emma, but she was looking right through her.
"Were you happy here?" Emma asked slowly.
Regina turned and looked right into Emma's eyes. A thousand memories shot through them almost instantly. Emma saw happiness then fear then absolute hatred before Regina's eyes returned to the original pair that had initially glanced in Emma's direction so many years ago.
"I thought I was going to be." Regina said sitting down without thinking in the smaller chair right next to the large one in the center. She gasped and jumped back up immediately. Regina didn't continue, and Emma didn't want to push so she didn't ask anything else.
They'd managed to get enough water from the small lake behind the castle to wash off a little. When Emma reentered the grand room, dinner was ready. Emma's mouth watered immediately. She looked down at what she could only assume was expensive china with meat, potatoes, and squash on each plate. Regina looked up at Emma as she entered. The conflicting emotions Emma knew Regina was feeling shone brightly in her eyes again. "I felt bad that you were so hungry yesterday."
"Thank you." Emma said. They ate for some time in complete silence.
"I really thought I would be happy here." Regina spoke. She was speaking to Emma, but she was a million miles away. "When Leopold asked for my hand in marriage, I thought that maybe it could be a new start."
Emma didn't say anything. The thought of Regina being a mother to Snow blew her mind. Regina was less than ten years older than Snow.
"I thought Leopold asked me because he thought he could love me, but that wasn't it at all." A single tear escaped Regina's eye. "I later found out that it was all a part of my mother's plot to make me the queen." Regina laughed, but it had a cold air to it that surprised Emma. "The king was a lonely man."
An ice cold shiver shot right down Emma's spine at the ice in Regina's words. She knew immediately that they had been spoken by someone else. They had been justification for something horrible that had happened to Regina.
Emma placed her hand over Regina's that rested beside her forgotten dinner. "You can tell me."
"I know." Regina said with a sad smile. "When I moved here, I thought I was finally free on my mother. I had lost someone really important to me, but I thought maybe I could start over. Second chances and all of that. My relationship with Snow was tentative, but I thought maybe I could be the mother that I never had to her. That all changed on my wedding night."
Emma unconsciously scooted her chair closer to Regina's knowing that they were getting to the difficult part of the story.
"In this world, your wedding night is precious. You find your true love, and you marry them. Then, you spend your wedding night together for the first time." Regina finally swallowed the lump that had developed in her throat. "I told him I didn't want to. I told him that I wasn't ready. I was still so young." Regina's tears flowed freely to the point that she was shaking. Emma was up from her chair kneeling next to Regina immediately holding the woman in her arms.
"It's ok." Emma said running her hand down Regina's back trying to sooth her.
"It isn't ok." Regina said. "I told him over and over that I didn't want to, but he did it anyway. And the truly messed up part is that I did it to someone else. Over and over, night after night, he would enter my bed chamber. Night time became like the hour of hell for me, and it made me hate him. It made me hate your mother to the point of no return. She saw what we displayed in public. She thought we were happy, and she thought that we were in love. She never saw the blood on the sheets in the morning. She never saw the tears that flowed down my face every single time we were alone." Regina's sobbing had stopped, but her body still shook in Emma's arms. Emma didn't really know what to say. She knew quite a few foster kids that had been sexually abused, but it never happened to her.
"How did it end?" Emma finally asked.
"I killed him." Regina said looking down at the floor. "There is so much blood on my hands Emma."
"Yeah well it sounds to me like not everyone is as innocent as all their stories like to tell us either." Emma responded.
Small pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall into place for Emma when it came to Regina's past. Something bad had happened when she was young with her mother. Her father didn't protect her from any of it. Leopold had used Regina for his own needs which just made Emma sick to her stomach to think about. Regina had killed Leopold. She had killed her own father. She had controlled Graham. It hit Emma then. None of that had been Regina. Regina had disappeared from existence the night that Leopold had married her. The Evil Queen had done all of those awful things. Emma just didn't think that person existed anymore.
Emma scooped Regina up and carried her to a small room that had been for a servant so they could sleep. Neither spoke, but Emma held Regina tightly in her arms hoping that maybe letting all of this out would help.
The next morning, Regina told Emma she had something to show her. Regina led Emma into the room slowly. Emma's eyes widened at what she saw. The windows were shattered. The mirrors in the room were also broken all over the floor. There was a white crib in the corner of the room with baby things all over. Emma took in the room along with the large black spot in the middle of the room. She knew instantly what Regina was showing her. This would have been the room she grew up in.
"What is that?" Emma asked pointing to the burnt floor.
"I don't know." Regina answered. "That was where the wardrobe was."
"What wardrobe?"
"The magic wardrobe. Your mother and father had Geppetto build it to send you to the world you grew up in." Regina responded carefully unsure of how she would respond to this new information.
"They abandoned me to save all of these people." Emma said running her hand over a worn out teddy bear.
"That is who they are Emma. Your mother and father would literally do anything for the greater good." Regina answered.
"We could have gone to Storybrooke though, and we could have been together even if we didn't know it." Emma said dejected.
"No dear. You wouldn't have been. The curse was supposed to take away Snow White's happy ending. That is why David was in a coma. You wouldn't have been together." Regina answered.
"Tell me about the curse." Emma said sitting down in the middle of the floor. Regina followed her actions.
"Rumple made it. God, there is so much you don't know Emma." Regina said looking into green eyes.
"Then tell me." Emma said.
"My mother knew magic my entire life. She used it to her advantage. Rumple had taught her everything she knew. I still don't know how they came into contact. It must have been before I was born. My father was a prince in another kingdom. My mother had been born a miller's daughter, and her aspiration was to become royal. I don't know how she married my father, but she did. In her opinion it was my destiny to marry and be queen. She didn't care what happened to me. My life was literally falling apart. I was cold and shut off to the world when I found out about the curse. I would have done anything no matter how awful it was to ruin everyone else's happiness because I wasn't happy. I thought if everyone was like me then I would finally be happy at the expense of everyone's misery."
Emma gave Regina an encouraging look. Half of her didn't want to know any of this, but she knew that she needed to. She knew it would catch up with her if she didn't.
"Rumple created the curse. He knew that you would be the savior, and he told your parents that. That is why they sent you through to save everyone. The curse was never about me though. The curse was always about him going to that world to find his son that he had lost a long, long time ago even before my time. I'm so sorry Emma."
"I'm not mad at you Regina. I still don't understand all of the details, but I understand you. You're just as much a pawn in Rumple's game as I am. That I am 100 percent sure of. We all have made shitty choices, but I don't give a damn about the past. We can't change that. Henry has a future that we have to look at. That is all that matters." Emma said standing and offering Regina her hand to help her up.
"What about our future?" Regina asked tentatively. Emma noticed how much younger she seemed in that moment.
Emma didn't say anything. Instead, she kissed Regina. It was brief, but it still took Regina's breath away.
"Did you find what we came here for?" Emma asked.
"Yes, but we need something more." Regina answered.
"What?" Emma asked.
"We need to go to the house I grew up in. My mother kept something near it that she never knew I knew about. I've got the ingredients I need, but one of them doesn't work anymore. The curse must have deactivated it, but I can fix it there."
"How far away is that?" Emma asked already feeling her body protest.
"Roughly a five day journey." Regina answered. Emma groaned. "I can "poof" us there as you call it, but we will have to stay there at least five days before I will have the magic to get us back."
"Well, Regina, hate to be logical here, but if it takes us five days to get there and then we stay there for a day, that is six days. If you poof us there tonight and we stay there for five days for you to rest, that is the same six days." Emma answered.
"You are infuriating." Regina answered with Emma's favorite grin.
"I know. Now poof away." Emma said as Regina took her hand. Emma felt like she was spinning until all of a sudden she wasn't anymore.