A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks so much to everyone who has already followed/favourited/reviewed!

Somebody asked and I realised that I hadn't mentioned, this is set a month or two after 3B, if Hook and Robin were completely out of the picture:p

Here's chapter 2, enjoy!

Sometimes I wish we could be strangers

So I didn't have to know your pain

But if I kept myself from danger

This emptiness would feel the same

-Birdy, No Angel

As soon as Henry was allowed to leave - thankfully, later that same day, Emma decided she needed to go and see Regina again. As sad as it was, Henry, and by that means herself, were the only people that Regina had to help her, and she couldn't bear the thought of her sat holed up in that hospital bed day in, day out with no-one but Whale to talk to.

After getting Henry's full statement about the accident and writing up a report confirming that it was, indeed, an accident, Emma left the apartment once again. At the hospital she was greeted with frowns, and an insistence from Dr Whale that she "really shouldn't be visiting Regina right now". Emma announced that she was here on official sheriff business, and she would have them all arrested for tampering with an investigation if they forbade her entry.

Of course, they reluctantly let Emma in, making it clear that she knew this was a one-time thing. Regina was lying in very much the same position she had been that morning when Emma saw her, but this time Emma's entrance was greeted with a small, hopeful smile.

"I didn't think I'd be seeing you again so soon."

"What can I say; I couldn't keep away," Emma lightened the mood and gave a mischievous smile, pulling the seat from by the door a little closer to Regina's bed. "So, how are you?"

"Not bad, given the circumstances. Headache. Nausea. Confusion…." Regina signalled to her head, and Emma regretted her question.

"Of course. Is there anything you need?"

"Can you tell me some things about me?" Regina blurted out.

"Uh, Dr Whale doesn't think that's the best idea for right now.."

"Screw Dr Whale." Emma chuckled as she saw a glimpse of the woman she… whatever she felt, and realised that even without memories, Regina could still be as fierce as they come.

"Well, your name's Regina Mills. You're the mayor of this town, Storybrooke. You live in this massive house, really classy. Like you." Emma smiled and blushed, and Regina beckoned for her to elaborate. "Yeah, you're very classy, intellegent. Always really sharply dressed, always putting people in their place."

"I sound like a bitch." Regina snorted, startling Emma.

"Eh, you can be." Emma shrugged her shoulders as a joke, "seriously, Regina, you're pretty awesome."

"Glad you think so. They said there was a boy in the car with me…" Regina implied it as a question, hesitantly posed.

"My son, Henry." Emma was reluctant to tell Regina about her connection to the boy, aware that it might upset her to discover she'd forgotten her dearly cherished child.

"And he was in the car with me because…?"

"He's… your son too." Emma scolded herself.

"I see." Regina's eyes glimmered with tears, and unlike her former self, she didn't manage to keep them in. "Are we married?"

Emma choked on the bleach-scented air. "No, no we aren't. He's our son though, we share him. Henry is mine, biologically, and you adopted him. He tracked me down a couple years back, and now we all live here."

Emma could have sworn she saw Regina's face drop. "I see."

"You said that already."

"If you'll forgive me, I was just in a car accident, I would expect I'm not at the top of my game right now. He's alright though; Henry?"

"Yeah, yeah he's great. Thanks to you." Emma looked down and cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. This is just, pretty strange."

"Are we not friends? From your description, I wouldn't expect I have any."

"No, we're friends. I think. Don't sell yourself short; you have plenty. There's me, Henry, Archie, David, Mary-Margaret.." Emma reeled off these names with ease, hoping that they would satisfy Regina's apparent upset at her expected lack of support network.

"At least I won't be overwhelmed with well-wishers.." Regina smiled sadly, looking down to smooth the material of the covers pulled tightly over her legs.

It dawned on Emma; she'd forgotten everything. Not just Henry, not just her life in Storybrooke, but everything that had happened to her. Her mother, Graham, Daniel (who Emma still didn't know the full story about, only snippets from Mary Margaret), her old life. Her crimes, her evil, her redemption. It was as if everything Emma had seen of Regina in the last few years; all of her hard work and attempts to be good, a hero, had gone to waste.

Regina wasn't cold or vengeful anymore, because she'd never learnt to be. As Regina herself once said, evil isn't born, it's made, and that was abundantly clear to Emma now that she saw Regina without memories of her life; a lonely, vulnerable, innocent woman.

"Would you really want loads of people here, though? All crowding in, fussing, keeping you awake. The old Regina would…" Emma paused as Regina winced.

"Maybe I didn't. I think I would though, now. Is this normal? For me to change?"

"Maybe you haven't changed. Maybe you were always like this, underneath all your exterior."

"Do you think?"

"I always hoped." Emma admitted, meeting her eyes once again with the gleaming, wet eyes staring holes into her. She continued to look for as long as she could bear, searching the eyes for any of the evil that once resided there. All she was greeted with, however, was tears, and increasingly rapid blinking as the woman eventually tore her eyes away from Emma's.

"I should, uh… be going. Are you gonna be ok here?"

"Of course I will." she did it again; Regina's face painfully conceded into a sad smile that ripped Emma's heart in two.

"Do you think I'll ever get my memories back?" when Emma returned in spite of Whale's disapproving the next day, Regina was looking brighter. It was only a slight change, but it made Emma's heart leap at the thought that she may be getting better.

"That's really not a question for me to answer, Regina."

"I attempted asking that insufferable Doctor, but he kept using vague terminology, I'd assume in an attempt to confuse me." Regina's fire was most definitely returning, and Emma could feel herself liking this Regina; a mix of her usual self and what she suspected was her personality pre-marrying Leopold.

"Give the guy a break, for once I think that's not his fault. He can't make you any promises."

"Have we had run-ins before?"

"… Story for another time." Emma raised her eyebrows and changed the topic swiftly, asking Regina how she'd slept, and if there was any word on when she would be able to leave.

"Not yet. They want to be sure I'm capable of looking after myself before they release me, which is absurd if you ask me. I'm fine." Regina shifted uncomfortably a little too swiftly, and grabbed her head as she did so, as if in pain.

"Hey, take it easy." Emma crossed over to her, pulling the covers back over her and smoothing down the hair that had been left on end by the movement of the woman's hand. "You aren't fine. Just listen to him, please."

Regina smiled at Emma fondly, if a little perplexed by her intentions.

Their visits continued in much the same stead for the next two weeks. Emma would pop her head in on her way to work, and would stop by after to try and placate the woman's growing cabin fever. One conversation, however, left Emma with a sour taste in her mouth.

"I had a dream last night." Regina began carefully, looking down as she did when they approached an uncomfortable subject.

"Oh?"

"My first, since the accident. I was in a castle of some kind, and it was dark. You were running behind me in some kind of… knight's armour, and I realised you were chasing me. I turned to run and saw something glowing red in front of me. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that I needed it, but as I got closer to it, it got darker and darker until it turned to ash and crumbled on the ground."

Emma let this hang in the air for a minute. "Was it a nightmare?"

"I think so. I was afraid, but not of you. I don't know what of."

Emma tried to decide the best way to handle this. "Amnesia can do crazy things to people. Hey, some people wake up speaking a whole different language. Don't worry about a dream, ok?"

Regina paused as if to consider. "You're probably right. The, um… the Doctor told me I can go home soon."

"Hey, that's great!" Emma patted her lightly on the knee. Through each meeting, Emma had been sub-consciously pulling her chair closer and closer to Regina's bed, but this was the first time she had dared break the touch barrier.

"There's conditions, though. I'm not allowed to work, which is frankly a blessing seeing as I don't have the slightest idea how to run a town. And…" Regina stopped.

"And?"

"I need to stay with someone. Or rather, someone needs to stay with me."

"I will." Emma volunteered, a little too quickly. "I mean, if you want. You know you can trust me, I'm not going to kill you in the middle of the night or anything." Emma gave herself a mental slap across the face as she once again put her foot in her mouth, even though Regina remained oblivious.

"I think I'd like that." Regina smiled, widely, for the first time Emma could remember.

A/N: Please review if you have the time, or hit me up on tumblr (swarklesinstorybrooke) :)