A/N I've really sucked at writing lately, but for good reasons. My lovely girlfriend has been my point of interest as of late and the past week I came down with a horrible cold that I'm hoping won't come back. In other excitement...Halloween is almost here!

In This Moment just recently released a new song called "Sick Like Me" which had me thinking a lot about this story. I highly encourage you to check it out if you have time.

Your reviews are highly encouraged. Thanks for your time and support!

"Am I beautiful

As I tear you to pieces?

You are beautiful and sick like me"

– In This Moment

Emma was done. She was so done with being treated like an animal, but there was no way to fight back in this position. She had been left down in the torture chamber for just a few minutes or had it been hours? Honestly, Regina could have simply walked to the other side of the room away from view for all she knew. At the state her mind was in it was hard to tell. By the time the brunette did appear again something had changed. One weight had been lifted only to be replaced with another of different substance.

When she was released from the discomforting shackles, instead of dropping painfully to the stony floor, as much as her aching limbs begged, she forced herself upright as the Queen walked towards her. There was still dominance in the older woman's walk; however, there was an uncanny look of observation on her face. She almost looked as if she was concerned for the blonde.

"Can you walk?" Regina inquired in a soft tone like a mother who had come to check on a child after a harsh scolding. Emma's resentment faltered like that stubborn adolescent who wanted to remain distant yet at the same time wanted comfort.

Taking one step at a time, it became evident that each move was causing excruciating discomfort, and even though she didn't voice this, the expression on her face was more than enough.

Amber eyes shifted away from the sight. Regina could see herself that very moment, the child she once was. That's all Emma was; a child who had known little to nothing about the world and was now coming to see that it was filled with cruelty and frightening circumstances.

Yet it wasn't herself that Regina was seeing at all. No, Emma was different; she saw that the moment she laid eyes upon her. This highly cherished princess wasn't afraid to stand her ground. In all her stubbornness she was willing to fight the world head on even if it meant having her flesh marred with the burns of a thousand suns. This audacity was quietly admired by the brunette. Regina never had that strength, that courage, back then. She had been terrified.

The journey upward was a quiet one. Through a hidden passage Emma ungraciously followed the woman up a set of winding stairs and eventually into a false bookcase that led straight into the Queen's bedchamber. It was unnerving to think that just a few hundred feet below she had been screaming like a banshee.

When Regina sat her down in a chair, she was told to wait a moment as a few items were retrieved from a shelf. Was there another form of punishment coming? How long was she going to be feeling this soreness?

Green eyes met the brunette's from across the room and as if she could read the wary confusion, Regina spoke.

"You are not to suffer for days upon end, for that was never my intention," she walked back towards her as she dabbed a towel with liquid from a bottle, "Your punishment has been ample, but only your actions will tell if you choose to act further. I assure you that additional reprimands will be far worse."

Emma's muscles rippled involuntarily when the wet rag was placed onto a pink swelling along her chest. Whatever was in that bottle gave a relieving effect as it cooled down her scalding skin. Was this potion one of Regina's concoctions?

"What is this stuff?"

"A brew of my own."

She said this without much emotion as a hint to not inquire further and continued her work until ever wound had been touched. The marks hadn't vanished, but they had dramatically reduced in swelling as well as tenderness. Reaching over, Regina grabbed a dark robe and then proceeded to drape it around pale shoulders with such care that the deed seemed almost intimate.

"You said that my parents would never let you be in peace. I thought the kingdoms had an agreement after the war?"

"The only agreement was that we remain in our own separate corners. If either of us was suspected of plotting another conflict or even crossing into one another's land, there would be consequences. No trust lies between Obscuria and Lucia. "

"Which is why you tried to send me away the first time."

"Precisely, my dear, yet you chose to disobey."

"But as a child I remember seeing you in Lucia."

"Do you now?"

"Yea, I was riding in my parent's carriage when my father confronted you, but all I recall is arguing."

"Your father wasn't going to cause a scene in front of you. I shouldn't have been there, I know, but the events of that week had left in a state of not really caring."

"What happened?"

Emma was sure that venturing so deep would be chastised, so it surprised her when she was given an explanation.

"I was in mourning after my father had passed away earlier that week. With his departure I had no tether to hold me back from foolish actions. I was there in Lucia merely to taunt them, to entice them into threatening me. I think you may understand that thrill to tease the hunter."

Pale cheeks blushed at the accusation. She tried to imagine Regina when her father had died. Had they been close? Such a thought that she could have held any emotion other than hatred or anger sounded preposterous, but it was just as she suspected. Everyone had a story. No one was purely good or evil.

"What was he like?" Emma asked, "Your father."

She saw the brunette's face shift, lips pursing with contemplation. Regina couldn't remember if she had ever told anyone about him or even the life she once had.

But this was a trap. Emma couldn't actually care about her story or how she came to be right? Especially after what she had just done to her. To her and everyone else in the world she was the Evil Queen and nothing more or else. Someone to be feared not pitied. Yet she found a part of herself aching to release these stories she had held onto for so long.

"He was a loving man," she replied with hesitance and as she did she began to carry the items she used on Emma back to the shelf they were on. With her back turned, Emma couldn't see that Regina's eyes were starting to gleam with memories, ones happy and sad.

"He always saw the best in me despite what everyone else said. He wanted me to be happy and wouldn't have done anything, but there was nothing he could do. I could have prolonged his life; honestly, I tried to for so long, but my father was always against it. The only way to live longer is to take another's life. So I respected his wishes and when he died, he died quietly. I didn't hold a large funeral. Who would have come? Instead, I chose to mourn in silence."

When she turned around she made sure to appear disinterested, yet as she spoke more the blonde could see warmth, not of a blush but of life, filling her form. She never sat nor looked at the younger woman. Instead she coolly made her way over to the balcony, drawing back its curtain to see the light of day. The cool air brushed their skin like a sigh.

"He taught me how to ride horses even though Mother said it was unladylike. 'A proper lady shouldn't have dirt on her knees and hay in her hair.' And when Mother would finish scalding me for various reasons my father would try to tell me that she meant it with love. I knew she didn't, but he tried to make me believe she did."

A heavy sigh left her lips and she turned around only to find that the blonde was in the process of walking towards her. There was a kindness in Emma's eyes, one that Regina couldn't understand. The blonde seemed to glow against the backdrop of the room, her pale features like a light among the darkness.

"Your mother doesn't sound very likable."

"I was never good enough for her."

As Regina shifted her gaze elsewhere and sighed, a pale hand reached out and touched her shoulder softly, reassuringly.

"Some people just can't be pleased."

"And you would know this how?"

A dark eyebrow rose.

"Look at me, Regina. Do I look like the princess my parents hoped for? I tore holes in nearly all the dressed they forced me into because I wanted to play knight. If they loved me they would have let me be who I was, yet they insisted that I play my role. I know what it's like to be looked at as if you're something else."

"You talk as if we're one in the same."

"Well maybe we're not so different."

The words were left to play themselves out, evaporating into the air around them. When a breeze scurried through the room it took hold of golden locks and danced them around. Emma was far from sympathizing with the brunette's ways. Hatred should have coursed through her veins, for this woman had tried to kill her mother on several occasions, but what for? The more she tried to understand the morals and beliefs of her home kingdom the more torn she became; she wanted to understand this woman standing in front of her.

Darkness is only dark until you shine a light upon it; the shadows are there only to trick one into thinking only misery is within, but what if that wasn't the case? What if this Evil Queen as everyone called her had a reason for becoming this monster? She apparently had enough room in her heart to care for at least one person: her father. Had there been anyone else?

The blonde's hand traveled up the length of the brunette's neck until she was cupping her cheek with both hands, but that was all she did. If Regina was startled by the sudden movement she hid it behind her stoic mask, but as emerald eyes bored more deeply into darkened gems she could see them softening into a liquid amber. There was a secret life hidden there; what did it take to unlock them?

She could wait another moment to see what happened, but then she would risk losing her courage, so she dove straight in and captured the older woman's lips with such fervor that she felt Regina gasp. Time was slipping through their hands like grains of sand and soon enough the brunette was kissing her back, pulling the blonde flush against her body by the hips.

But the spell faded fast and the Queen became aware of what was happening. She didn't kiss her bedmates generally and if she did it was only to assert power over them, but this time she had actually felt something like a sparking of a new flame. Liberation.

Backing away from the princess's hold, she told her to leave. She didn't care where she went or what she did. It was simply time for her to leave. As Emma retreated with only the robe against her bare skin, part of her ached to call her back, to find the meaning of what just happened, but she refused to feed that flame.

She couldn't. Any hope of that had died long ago.