They went down to the stables, surprised to find Emma's mother there also ready to go on the ride with them. They thought they were only going out with Regina's father. Once all the horses were saddled up, they left the castle with Regina and her father riding lead and Emma and Snow behind them. There were also several of their guards flanking them.

"I was pleased to have your response to your mother's letter delivered to my door last night," Henry said.

Regina didn't respond. Her father would not be pleased if he knew the contents of the letter and she was sure that her mother would share it with him.

"Some of the farmers on the western end of the kingdom submitted a plan for an irrigation system a few weeks back. It was patterned off one from the White kingdom," Regina said changing the subject. "Maybe when we return you could take a look at the plan and share your thoughts."

"I would be happy to do so," he said. "Emma had asked me yesterday about the possibility of getting someone over here to teach some of her guards to ride better, especially when using weapons. I told her you were the best rider we had in the realm but that your weapon skills are probably lacking."

"Gerald. I would suggest Gerald."

"That was who I was thinking. I am sure he would jump at the chance to do it if only to get to see you."

If she owed anyone for her skill as a rider it was Gerald. He always said she was his greatest student as a pure rider, but she never had an interest in weapons so their lessons were restricted to just riding.

"It will be good to see him. Although I am not sure I want him teaching the guards here how to ride too well. After all, if they learn to ride as well as me it will make it more difficult to lose them when I want to ride privately."

Emma watched Regina interacting with her father. After what Regina had told her that morning she was surprised that her relationship with her father wasn't just as strained as it was with her mother. Clearly, both of her parents contributed to this situation with Regina's magic. She tried not to judge Regina's parents for it, but it was hard not to.

Regina only wanted to learn about magic so she could control it and Emma didn't see any harm in that. She couldn't help but wonder why they didn't see it that way.

Regina had said it herself – the magic scared her.

Emma was glad Regina had opened up to her, even if it was just about this one thing. She was determined to help Regina find someone who could teach. How to do that would take some thought.

She heard Regina's father mention her name in connection with bringing someone in to teach better riding skills. Then she heard Regina's remark in connection with riding privately.

"Is there any way this Gerald can come sooner rather than later," Emma said and both Regina and her father turned to look at her. She raised an eyebrow at the look Regina gave her.

"Has my daughter tried losing her guards yet while riding?" Henry asked.

"No, not yet. I imagine she is biding her time, however," Emma said.

"One thing is for certain," Regina said to her father. "I could outride her any day."

"You think so?" Emma asked, moving her horse up closer.

"Of that my dear there is no doubt," Regina smiled.

"Oh yeah, well catch me," Emma said digging her heels into the horse and making it take off. She went flying by Regina, who looked at her father.

"Well, you heard her," Henry said.

Regina shook her head but smiled as she spurred Quicksilver in pursuit of Emma.

Snow brought her horse up to ride next to Henry as they watch Regina close the gap between her and her wife.

"Your daughter doesn't stand a chance," Henry said.

"Clearly," Snow said, still a little miffed at the sudden turn in Emma's and Regina's interactions.

Snow had stayed as quiet as her daughter during the first part of their ride. She kept glancing over at Emma, but her daughter's eyes were on Regina most of the time. The look she gave Regina was different than how it had been and Snow wondered if something had happened between them. Emma was looking at Regina in a thoughtful manner Snow observed. It was as if Emma was seeing something there that the rest of them couldn't see.

This trip so far had not been promising.

The two women agreeing last night to work together was the best sign she had seen, even if they were only doing it to have the stewardship dissolved. Hopefully, as they worked closely together they would grow closer together.

"This is a good sign," Henry said to Snow even as Regina caught up to and passed Emma easily.

"Let's hope," Snow said.

Regina slowed up Quicksilver after shooting past Emma and adequately showing off her skills. Emma caught up to her after she had stopped.

"Ok, so maybe I could use some lessons too," Emma said.

"Did you think you were going to win?"

Emma shrugged, "I thought maybe with that little bit of a head start yes."

"The first lesson you need to learn is that riding a horse is a partnership between you and the horse. The more that balance is off the worse you will ride."

"What's that mean exactly?"

"Gerald will explain it," she said. "Now we should probably get back to our party."

They rode back to their parents.

"Don't feel bad Emma," Henry said. "I haven't been able to outride my daughter since she was nine."

"Eight," Regina said.

…

Snow and Emma had dinner that evening in Snow's chambers. Regina was dining alone with her father. Their parents would be leaving in the morning.

"You and Regina seemed to get along much better today. Did that much change in one night?"

"We just talked," Emma said.

"And?"

"And what?"

"And does this mean you two are finally learning to get along with each other?"

"I don't know about that," Emma said. "She's … she's more complex than I originally thought."

"Most people are," Snow responded. "But it's good that you two finally talked. I admit I was beginning to think that you two were going to go with the plan of ignoring each other forever."

"Yeah, well maybe seeing me naked made a difference."

The words were out of her mouth before she realized it and she looked at her mother with the embarrassment plainly written on her face.

Snow started to laugh. "Maybe it did," she said.

Emma laughed too.

…

Regina was thinking about that afternoon – specifically about Emma – as she ate dinner with her father.

"You are being silent," Henry said.

"Sorry father," she said.

"I wasn't being critical," he said. "I wish you wouldn't take comments like that as a negative. Regina, you didn't use to be like this, so closed off."

Regina sighed. "Do you really want to go through all of this tonight? It's your last night here, and I would rather not argue with you."

"I don't want to argue with you either that is my point. Regina, today was a good day was it not? Yet here you are brooding over your dinner."

"I am not brooding," Regina said. "I was merely thinking."

"What has captured my daughter's thoughts so much that she isn't even paying attention to her dinner?"

Regina hesitated before saying, "Emma."

"Oh," Henry said. "I noticed you two were less tense around each other today."

"I guess. She's … she seems to care a lot about people. I mean, she's a good person and I don't understand why she was predicted to die. Did this seer say how that was going to happen or why?"

"No," Henry said. "The why of it was never explained. Does the why matter?"

"I suppose not," Regina responded. "I hadn't thought of it until today but it must have been hard on her parents to know that this thing could happen to her. I can't imagine what that must have been like for them to be waiting all those years hoping she would be ok and having to rely on this one thing, to rely on me when they didn't even know me and our families don't have a history of getting along. To have to watch your daughter grow up with this future looming and not knowing the why of it, it must have been hard on her parents."

"Yes, it was," Henry said. He had often thought of that day when the seer had walked into that hall and forever changed his life. It never became more real to him than the day Regina was born and he held her in his arms. He remembered looking down at this small, perfect gift that was his daughter and knowing he would do anything in the world to keep her safe.

But he never knew the why. Why was his daughter destined to be the one to cast a curse that would destroy their world? Why would Regina ever do such a thing? Every time he looked at her smiling face as she grew up, he found the idea of it more and more impossible.

It wasn't until Regina learned she was to be married to Emma that Henry ever truly worried that there was a depth of anger in his daughter that he just hadn't seen. It had bothered him that she could seem so cold and distant. It was why today had meant so much to him – seeing Regina smile once again, this time at her wife.

Yet, here they were and it seemed like that dark cloud was once again threatening to take over.

"You can't understand until you have children of your own, the lengths parents will go to and what we can endure to keep our children safe," Henry continued.

"I suppose not," Regina said thoughtfully.

...

Emma was a little surprised when Regina remained in the outer room on the couch reading a book that evening. She thought maybe after their talk and how the day went that Regina wouldn't avoid her. Yet, Regina had been mostly silent since she returned from dinner with her father. It was not the same kind of silence that Emma had endured from her. No, she could tell Regina wasn't being silent to ignore Emma, she was being silent because she was thinking something.

Emma had tried to get to sleep but found she remained awake wondering if Regina ever planned on coming to bed. Finally, she got up and went to check on her. She found Regina in the same position she was the last time she had seen her and it was clear that even though she had a book, Regina wasn't reading.

"Hey," Emma said. "Is there something wrong?"

"What?" Regina said seeming to notice that Emma was there and that she had been staring off into space rather than reading her book.

Emma took a seat on the opposite end of the couch. "You've been quiet since dinner time, are you ok?"

"Yes, I am fine," Regina said. "I didn't realize it was so late. I should be getting to bed."

She started to stand up, but Emma leaned over and put a hand on her arm to stop her. "Come on, something has got you deep in thought. Don't tell me we are going to go back to the whole not speaking thing again so soon."

Regina looked down at her book which now sat closed on her lap and then at Emma. She had told Emma more things that morning than she had anyone ever. Yet she didn't know this woman sitting on the couch with her. They may be married, but they didn't know each other and Regina didn't know if she should trust her despite Emma's apparent willingness to help her learn her magic.

Emma was watching her, waiting to see if she would respond.

"Last night after you left I read that letter from my mom and I sat down and I wrote a response to her. I had one of the servants deliver it to my father last night," Regina said. "When I was at dinner with my father he said something about being a parent and always wanting to keep your children safe and I don't know I just keep thinking about what I wrote."

"Did you write something bad?"

"I wasn't very nice. I told my mother that I didn't wish to ever speak to her again unless she is finally ready to talk to me about magic. Now I am wondering if maybe I was too harsh. I grew up being told to ignore the magic because it wasn't safe, but maybe that was just my parents' way of trying to keep me safe. My father said a parent will do anything to keep their child safe and maybe this was just their way you know."

"Does this mean you don't want to try and find someone to teach you magic?" Emma asked.

"No," Regina said quickly. "I still want that. I've always wanted that. I guess I just realized that what I've always wanted was for my mom to be the one to do it."

"I can see that," Emma said. "I love both of my parents, but I've always had this connection with my father because of our mutual interest in swords and weaponry. It doesn't mean I love him more than my mother, it's just that he and I have something we can share that's different from what I share with anyone else. From my albeit limited observations of your interactions with your parents, I can tell you are closer to your father than your mother. Maybe you are looking for something to balance that out."

"I used to be close with my mother," Regina said. "My father and I will always have our love of horses. With my mother though, growing up I adored her. She was the one I would run to tell anything and everything I thought to be important at any given time. Then in one afternoon, it all came crashing down when I learned she could do magic. It changed everything I thought about my mother. I have been angry at her for so many years that I don't know how not to be angry with her."

She told Emma how she learned that her mother had magic and how her mother had immediately shut down any talk of her teaching Regina.

Emma watched Regina as she spoke and as she often was, she was struck by how Regina seemed to think things through – even the words she used seemed to be well thought out before she would say them. Here was a woman who didn't seem impulsive because she did think things through from all sides. Emma hadn't been gone from the room that long last night so she figured the letter Regina had written to her mother was more of a knee-jerk reaction than something Regina had crafted thoughtfully.

"I obviously don't know about this magic or how things were for you growing up," Emma said. "But I do know that anger clouds a person's mind. When my father was teaching me how to fight, one of the first lessons he taught me was how to fight without emotion. It was by far the hardest lesson I had to learn and one I can readily admit I have not mastered. To me using your emotion in a fight makes sense. I see it as fuel. You know when you have something worth fighting for, something you are emotionally attached to it makes you want to succeed even more. And that is fine my father said. It's not a bad thing to have emotions and want to use them, but when it comes to the actual fighting it's emotions that can trip you up – especially anger. You can't see things clearly when you are angry. Maybe if you start putting that anger aside then you and your mom can come to an understanding about this magic stuff."

"I don't think she and I will ever come to an understanding about it," Regina said.

"You won't know if you won't try," Emma said. Even as she said it she thought about how applicable it was to her marriage with Regina.

"Either way it's not going to be settled tonight. We should probably go to bed."

Emma nodded.

They both returned to the bedroom and settled into their respective sides of the bed – neither saying a word about one or the other sleeping on the floor. Once in bed, each extinguished the lights on their sides.

Emma listened and felt Regina get into what she guessed was her normal sleeping position – on her side facing away from Emma. For a while, she lay there on her back just listening to Regina breathe until she finally heard the other's breath even out.

She thought about what she had told her mom earlier about Regina being complex and decided to revise that thought. It wasn't just that Regina was complex, it was that she had a certain depth of emotions to her – depths Emma suspected that Regina did not want to be shown to the world.

Her wife always seemed so collected, like she had everything under control or at least was attempting to control it. This issue with her magic was something she couldn't control which is why it bothered Regina so much. Again she thought the same could be said about their marriage. Regina couldn't control the fact that she had to marry Emma which was why she resented it.

Emma eventually drifted off to sleep while thinking about Regina.

Regina woke first realizing that during the night she must have rolled over onto her back. Also during the night Emma too must have moved as she was now snuggled up against Regina. One of Emma's legs was draped over hers and Regina was frankly surprised that Emma had once again found some unconscious way to make contact with her and that the move hadn't woken her. Regina was not a deep sleeper – she never had been. Noises tended to wake her during the night and if there was a storm she rarely slept well.

She thought about how when she was a kid and when there was a thunderstorm she would often flee to her parents' room and sleep there between them. Once she was there and comfortable she was able to sleep – blocking out the sounds of the thunder by instead concentrating on the comfort she felt at being close to her parents.

Regina again extradited herself from Emma's touch without managing to wake her. She looked down at her wife thinking that she should maybe say something to her about her nocturnal movements.

She got ready for the day – not once waking Emma – and once she was dressed she took a seat at the small desk and pulled out a piece of paper and ink.

Mother,

I don't even know how to begin writing this letter to you. I have thought about it over and over again and each time I have I felt angry, just as I have felt anger at receiving your previous letters to which I have not responded.

You were right about father as he insisted I respond. He wishes things could be different between us, as do you and as do I.

I do not like that my instinct is to be angry with you. I also know we can not simply go back to how things were either.

But we can't keep doing what we are doing. To move past it I have to set aside that anger but I don't know how.

Even writing this I don't know how not to be angry at your refusals to teach me magic. I often wonder how it is that you discovered your magic and how your parents handled it. I wonder how you learned to control it and a hundred other things that I know you will not give me the answers to.

I also wonder if the magic scares you. Do you feel it like I do? It's ever-present – needling at the back of my mind and humming under the surface of my skin. Your only counsel to me has been to ignore it, but you haven't even given me the courtesy to teach me how to do that.

See, it keeps coming back to the magic and I am afraid it always will.

I don't know how to not be angry about these things, but I am willing to try.

Regina

She read over it and sealed it. Instead of handing it off to one of the handmaidens she went to her father's door and knocked.

"Regina, here to see me off so soon," Henry said.

"No," she said. "Can I come in?"

"Of course," he said.

She entered the chambers and turned to face her father as he shut the door. She held out the letter to him.

"What's this?" he said taking it.

"It's for mother," she said. "I was hoping you would give that one to her and return the other to me. I had other thoughts I wished to impart to her."

He looked at the letter skeptically.

"The other was written in haste," she said.

He nodded and went and retrieved the other one and handed it to her.

"Your mother loves you very much," he said.

"I know," she replied. "I love her and you too. It's just … hard."

"We did what we thought was best for you," Henry said coming up and hugging her. "Please remember that."