A/N: Hey guys! Before I get on with the chapter I want to give a special shout out to all of you who've followed and favourited and reviewed, but especially those of you who take the time out of your day to review each and every chapter. It's such a lovely, special thing to do, and I love you for it :)

Enjoy chapter 13!

I've been tired and hopeful (I've been hurting inside)

For far too long now

So I'm giving it up, giving up, giving up on love

…

And it was obvious from the start

We were the only ones with hearts

And you pull mine apart

With the things that you do

-Slow Club, Giving Up On Love

Emma allowed angry tears to flow as soon as she closed the door to the mansion, punching it harshly for good measure. All the effort Regina had been making, trying to get better, gone to waste. Emma had always had some feelings for her, there was no denying that. These feelings became evident as she sat up at night stroking her hair as she cried. They grew even further as they spent the days bickering effortlessly about nothing in particular. She knew she'd fallen in love with her as she heard her talk to Archie only 2 days before. And now she was right back where she started, with Regina possibly even further back.

And again, this all happened because she was the saviour. Or perhaps because of true love's kiss. Either way, the blame came at least on part on Emma, and the bitterness she felt towards this whole fairytale charade was hard to swallow.

Emma reached her parent's apartment feeling defeated. Without knocking the door, she entered into the picturesque sight of her mother and father curled on the sofa together, the baby in between them, with the television whispering softly in the background. She spent a few seconds watching them, allowing herself one more tear for the family she never had, before turning and spotting Henry in the kitchen.

"Ma… what's happened? Are you hurt?" Emma realised she was still limping from the plate accident a few days before, with her knuckles now bleeding angrily, dripping red onto the floor.

"No, I'm not." was all she said, taking an ice pack from the freezer and wincing as she placed it on her hand. "Your mom wants you to go home."

"That doesn't seem like a good idea.." Henry said unsurely.

"She's remembered, Henry. Go home." Emma wasn't in the mood to say any more, and Henry got the message quickly. He wanted to be happy, and thought Emma would be too, but sensing her mood and the possible reason for the blood pooling at her feet, he said no more. Instead, he went into his room and packed a bag quickly, before dropping a kiss onto his uncle's forehead and moving towards the front door.

"Look after her. She's going to need it." was Emma's goodbye as her son left.

After abandoning all hope of her hand stopping bleeding, Emma remembered a punch bag she'd brought Mary Margaret as a joke not long before the curse broke. Emma had always poked fun at how calm and relaxed Mary Margaret always seemed to be, but now she envied her more than anything for being able to control her emotions. All Emma wanted to do was vent, and if her parents were going to sleep, then she was going to punch. Her hand was already bleeding, so there was surely only so much more damage she could do, she justified as she remembered that they'd lost the gloves.

She searched through every large enough cupboard she could find, eventually locating the bag in what was supposed to be a walk-in wardrobe, but had became a cupboard for useless items when Emma had moved in. Grunting with pain, she pulled the back as best she could into the bedroom, heaving it into the corner where there was the most room.

Pulling the first swing, she realised the position of the bag was a mistake, and it hit off the wall crudely, leaving flakes of plaster to float to the floor. At a loss about whether she was supposed to care about the damage she was doing, she continued to punch regardless. Before too long, the gaps she had left for breaths turned into more punches, and she punched and punched until she couldn't anymore.

"Stupid…. Fucking…." she muttered to herself as her pace increased, but the word "saviour" stuck in her throat as she felt the skin of her right-hand knuckles rip apart, and she screamed out in pain instead.

With that, her brother began to cry tiredly, and she heard her parents muttering to each other in hushed tones before one of them got up, picked up something metal and came bursting into the room.

"Emma!" her father dropped his trusty sword at the door, and rushed over to bend down to where Emma had dropped next to the punch bag, blood on her shirt and her legs folded haphazardly beneath her. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here." she said spitefully.

"You don't anymore, honey. You bought a new apartment for you and Henry, don't you remember?"

Emma couldn't believe that something like that had slipped her mind. "Right, yeah. I'll go then." she got to her feet awkwardly, stumbling as if she was drunk, before David grabbed her hand and pulled her lightly back down.

"Come on Emma, I'm your dad. At least tell me what's wrong."

"Even if you can't fix it?"

"I still want to know." David put his arm around her shoulder, and an act as familial as that reduced Emma to yet more tears, as she fell onto his side.

"Regina remembered."

"And that's not a good thing?" David was understandably confused, but the look Emma gave him told him all he needed to know. "Oh."

"We were nearly happy. We were nearly there. And then…"

"Then?" Emma wasn't sure David would want to know what was coming next, but she honestly didn't care.

"She kissed me. And she remembered."

"Right." Emma's father sounded so sure about that, as if he had been expecting it. "And let me guess, she flew off the handle?"

"Of course she did. That's all she ever does."

"Not anymore she doesn't. You know better than to think that about her. She's scared, Emma. Aren't you?"

"Obviously I am! I'm terrified! I mean, this is Regina we're talking about; Regina whose memories came back when she kissed me."

"And you think it was true love? And that's what scared you?"

"Regina was insisting it wasn't. But if it wasn't, then… then it was me. Being the saviour, as usual. Saving somebody who didn't need saving."

"If Regina was angry, I think you know which one it was. She's scared that this means something's going to change. When Regina feels something, she tries to cover it with whatever else she can spare. But that's probably something your mother could talk to you better about."

"Right, because the woman I love spent years trying to kill her."

"Emma…" David warned her, before she enveloped herself into fits of pitiful, hurt laughter.

"This is so fucked up."

"Yes, I know it is. But just remember that Regina might have problems with this, in the short term at least."

"She isn't like that anymore."

"She's not?"

Emma paused. "I don't know. God, why does everything always have to be so black and white with you people? I've started thinking that too; I keep thinking to myself that people, that Regina, has to be one person or the other. But it's not like that at all, not really. Don't you think?" David hesitated.

"I don't know what I can say to make you feel better, honey."

"You don't need to say anything." Emma mumbled into the knees she had pulled up to her face, and David pulled her in tighter to him.

Regina allowed herself a few minutes curled on the floor where she dropped before she got back up. Though it was only partly, Regina blamed her collapse on dizziness, pure and simple, and not because of any latent feelings at having Emma leave.

She chose not to think about the kiss, or what had happened during it, for the foreseeable. Essentially, she would put it out of her mind for as long as she possibly could stand it. Emma was Emma Swan, mother of her child and constant pain in her neck, nothing more, nothing less.

Whatever she had felt for Emma while she had been ill was irrelevant; that was then and this was now. And even if 'then' was only a couple of minutes ago, 'now' she needed to get up and make herself presentable before her son got home.

Looking in the mirror, Regina almost gasped at her appearance. She was almost unrecognisable; her skin pale and waxy, her hair untamed, and her cheeks blotchy from the tears she had neglected to hold in. She washed her face in cold water to compensate, splashing it reluctantly, before drying it with the first piece of fabric she came across. Regrettably, it was one of Emma's shirts, that she had left on the kitchen counter for whatever reason she had justified it with. Regina willed herself to let her go, but instead she buried her face in it, wondering how it had taken herself under a minute to destroy a relationship months in the making.

In spite of what she had just agreed mentally with herself, her own cold, forced words of persuasion repeating in her head, she missed Emma. She'd only left a few minutes ago, and yet she missed her with her whole heart. The goofy, childish smile she did, the greedy and excessive way she ate, the comfort she effortlessly provided to a woman who never deserved it.

"Mom!" Henry shouted out as he entered the house, and Regina ran a hand through her hair to sort it out.

"In the kitchen." Henry came in quickly, almost running, and launched himself at his mother. He'd grown so much that he could no longer put his head into her chest as they hugged, instead settling for resting his chin on her shoulder.

"Are you ok?" he asked as he pulled away. The familiarity of the comfort that Henry gave her had sent Regina close to the brink once again, but she managed to contain it and settle on a watery smile.

"I'm fine, dear. So much better now you're home with me." Regina figured that Henry would indulge her sentimentality just this once, and he did, however begrudgingly.

"Are you sure? You look like you're crying.."

"I'm just a little bit overwhelmed, that's all. I'm going to go and lie down for a little while, is that ok with you?"

"Course it is. I'll be in my room." Henry left reluctantly, and Regina took a few deep breaths before she herself climbed the stairs.

After filling Mary Margaret in on what had happened, David took Neal out for a walk, leaving mother and daughter alone in the apartment.

"Your father is right, Emma. This is what Regina does when she's scared. Her heart gets so full, her body even, and she doesn't know what to do with it. Maybe you should give her some time to come to terms with this, I'm sure it's come as a bit of a shock to her. Would you like me to have a word?"

"No, mom. I'm not some little kid trying to break up with her boyfriend."

"I know you aren't." Mary Margaret responded wistfully, "But I'm still your mother, and I know that you need some sleep. It might clear your head." The woman stood up and guided Emma as though she was blind into her bedroom, where she settled her down under the covers.

"Me and David will sleep in the other bed, you can stay in here tonight."

"Mom, it's ok…" Emma got the foreign feeling that this was what parenting a small child was like; when they were sick, you made them sleep in your bed, as if this would offer them some form of protection.

"No Emma, you'll stay here. Now go to sleep. I love you." Mary Margaret laid a kiss on her daughter's forehead.

"Love you too." Emma turned over to lie on her side, knowing that sleep wouldn't come easy for her. It was too quiet, and the bed was too empty.

When she eventually got to sleep, she woke an hour later, expecting to hear cries from beside her. But none came, and so she continued to lie awake in the darkness.

A/N: I WON'T BE UPDATING FOR A WEEK. Now that I've got your attention... I'm going on holiday in a couple of days, and I'm going to have patchy wifi. I won't be home until Saturday the 2nd, so I'll try and get the next chapter up for you that weekend :)