The next clue to the mystery came from a surprising source.
They had convened as a group to discuss how best to address the Evil Queen running amok. They were heading toward Granny's and Emma had lagged behind to grab a jacket from the bug. She could still hear their conversation up ahead.
Somehow the discussion had shifted to Leopold and she heard Regina reference the Evil Queen's ire at the loveless marriage.
A snort directly behind her caused the hair on the back of Emma's neck to stand on end.
"As if loneliness alone would drive someone like me to a murderous frenzy," the ridiculousness of such concept evidenced in the Evil Queen's husky tone.
Emma turned in shock, taking in the sneer on the other woman's face as she watched the group ahead of them.
"Why would Regina say that if it weren't true?" Emma had no idea why she chose to ask that instead of calling to her family to alert them of the danger.
The Evil Queen eyed her up and down as if evaluating the blonde. Appearing to decide something, she smirked. "You're more brazen than I'd expect. I'll give you that." Turning to gaze after Regina, she continued, "it was never something she was equipped to handle. That's where I came in. She needed me to handle it… to endure it."
Emma's breath caught in her chest. She knew what laid behind those words. She'd seen far too much in her time in foster care to not know what the Evil Queen was referencing.
"Who…?" she could barely get the word out and masking her rage was out of the question.
The Evil Queen side eyed her and smirked, licking her lips at the animosity rolling off the savior. She'd always found that aspect of Emma's personality scintillating. "Oh, it began with mother." She tapped at her top lip. "This was the first and last time she allowed us to scar. It was a punishment. But then she realized she needed our beauty to get what she wanted."
"So she'd heal you after…" Emma didn't know how to finish that sentence.
The Evil Queen cackled. "Oh, dear no! How ridiculous. We needed to feel the punishment. The pain. The shame. The humiliation of no one else knowing." Her dark eyes ensnared Emma's.
The savior felt sick to her stomach. She didn't want to hear the next words that fell from the other woman's mouth but she felt incapable of tearing herself away.
"What better way to punish than to make the scars invisible to everyone else? No humanity. No empathy. No one to believe." The Queen glanced back toward Regina before turning to Emma with something akin to pain in her brown eyes.
She whispered, "have you never wondered why her tolerance for pain is so high?"
And with a flick of her wrist, she vanished leaving Emma alone on the street clutching her jacket to her chest as she tried to breath.
"Are you coming Ms. Swan?" An irked mayor appeared in a puff of magic in front of her.
The change from one half to the other made her dizzy. She grabbed onto the bug to stay standing.
"Emma?" The concerned voice questioned as Regina held an arm out toward the blonde. "Are you.. are you alright?"
Emma shook her head in the negative and focused on her breathing, petrified she might lose her lunch.
"It's… I mean it will… we will find her." Regina emphasized, after failing to allow a hopeful statement to exit her mouth. That was the Charming's job after all.
Emma could only nod in response. After a quiet moment she pushed off the car and walked toward the diner with Regina watching her with concern.
There was no way at this moment that she could share what she had just learned, though it was buzzing in her brain.
As she opened the door to Granny's, she spotted her mother's face. She stopped short, causing Regina to bump into her back at the unexpected change in pace.
This time she grabbed the sheriff's arm, her tone worried, "Emma?"
Emma just shook her head. Her mother's face reminded her of how the earlier conversation had started. With her grandfather, King Leopold. She heard the Evil Queen's words in her mind, "it began with mother… As if loneliness alone would drive someone like me to a murderous frenzy… it was never something she was equipped to handle."
Emma barely made it to the restroom before losing her stomach contents.