I'm back again! It's been so long, and I apologize that updates are so inconsistent. Life is crazy. Time to really figure out what's going on with Emma...maybe ;)

Regina and Emma sat across from each other in the living room. Regina was looking at Emma, and Emma was staring intently at something on the floor. For once, Regina was thankful for her level of patience. Pushing Emma to talk would do nothing but shut her down.

Finally, Emma seemed to win a war within herself and looked up and Regina. "Okay."

Regina looked at her in confusion. "Okay what?"

"I'm ready to talk," Emma said softly. "About what I can at least. For the most part I don't remember anything at all. But these past few days I've been remembering things. Things that I didn't hope were true, but now I'm beginning to think they are."

"Like what?" Regina asked. Part of her wanted Emma to give her the answer, but the other part was dreading what Emma had to say.

"Her name was Avery, and she was my best friend," Emma started, choking slightly on "was". "We did everything together. She was like the little devil on my shoulder telling me to just live and have fun instead of worrying about the consequences. I was living with Ingrid at the time, so for once I was happy. Perfect home, perfect best friend, seemingly perfect life. And then it all went wrong."

Regina shuddered at the mention of Ingrid. It had taken her a long time to get over the Snow Queen and what she had done not only to Emma and the town, but also to have to deal with her evil part. "Do you know why they took her?"

"No," Emma said. "It all happened so quickly. We were out riding our bikes and suddenly a car pulled up and took her. Her bike and everything so there was no evidence. And then they realized that I was there." She took a deep breath before continuing. "I started to ride away as fast as I could, but a bike is no match for a car. I ended up having to ride into a narrow alley so they had to get out of the car and chase me on foot."

"They chased you?" Regina asked, her eyes wide. This definitely was not the story that she was expecting.

"No, there were only two of them. The driver didn't want to get out and leave the car there, and the other one was holding onto Avery so he sure didn't want to let go," Emma stated plainly. "Most likely they were trying to hit and kill me instead. But I got away and went home. A week later, Avery was all over national news. And then her dad came to visit me."

Without even realizing it, Regina had slowly been moving closer to Emma. She reached towards her and took her hand, squeezing it gently. Emma smiled at her before continuing.

"He wanted me to tell him if I knew anything about her disappearance. He knew that I had been with her that day, so he figured that I knew where she was and what had happened. I was scared that he was going to turn me in to the police or something for not telling the truth when they had originally come to interview me, so I lied again and told some story about how we had split up and she hadn't shown up where we had agreed to meet."

"Did he buy it?" Regina asked.

Emma huffed out a bitter laugh. "Not one bit. But I left the room before he could continue to question me, and then Ingrid sent me out to get the mail and there was a note telling me to keep quiet. Which of course I had already planned on doing. But now it was a threat, and I knew that I could never tell anyone what I had seen."

"As difficult as this all sounds," Regina said slowly, "none of this seems particularly scarring. And your memories are repressed of the incident. So what happened that made your brain actually block out what happened?"

Emma winced and looked away from Regina. "I don't know. I haven't recovered that bit yet. And if I'm honest, I'm not entirely sure that I want to. Recovering what I have already has been hard enough. I don't need anymore."

Regina used her hand not holding Emma's to gently grasp Emma's chin and bring her eyes to meet her own. "She's dead, Emma. Anything that you remember now will no longer put her at risk, but will be helping us to find her killers. I know that you're scared, and I would be too. But you are so strong, and you are definitely not alone. We'll do this together."

Emma nodded, the terror in her eyes depleting a little. "I don't know what triggers the memories to come back. It's just random."

"I think I know where to start," Regina said, standing up and pulling a reluctant Emma up with her. "How would you feel about a bike ride?"

"I'm not sure about this," Emma said, looking at the bike like it was going to attack her. "I haven't ridden a bike since that day. For very obvious reasons."

"That's the point," Regina said gently. "Riding might help trigger something. Something that could help solve this case."

Emma reached out and tentatively grabbed onto the handles before getting on. Regina smiled at her before getting onto her own bike. "Take a deep breath. You're not alone."

"I should probably warn you before we get too far," Emma said quickly. "Getting the memories back usually causes me to, you know, lose control."

"Don't worry," Regina said, smirking. "I won't let you fall."

Emma took a deep breath before getting on the bike and slowly starting to pedal. Her balance was a little rusty since she hadn't ridden one in awhile, but eventually she got started. She enjoyed the wind on her face, closing her eyes and smiling as her hair flew behind her. Only too late did she realize that closing her eyes was a terrible mistake.

Emma was in the backyard, swinging on the tire swing tied to the giant oak tree. Ingrid had noticed how much more quiet she had been over the past few weeks, but had chalked it up to teenage hormones. Emma was thankful she didn't know what was really going on.

It was a sunny day, and Emma closed her eyes to enjoy the slight breeze and her hair blowing behind her. Closing her eyes had been a mistake, as she soon found out when two men came out of nowhere and grabbed her; pulling her kicking and screaming to their car that was waiting in the alley behind the fence.

Once she was in the car, they finally let go of her. To her surprise, Emma saw Avery sitting across from her. She had a black eye and a few scrapes and bruises, but otherwise she was fine. "What's going on?" Emma asked.

"We know that you saw us take her," one of the men said. "So you have a choice to make, right here, right now. You go or she goes. One of you leaves this car, the other stays with us. Forever."

Emma gulped. She didn't even like making a decision about what she wanted for breakfast. Why would she want to make this decision?

"Emma," Avery pleaded. "Please. I have a family to go home to."

At this, Emma saw nothing but red. "What's that supposed to mean? That because I don't have a family I should take your place?"

Avery's eyes widened. "No that's not what I-"

"I want to go," Emma said, looking at the two men behind Avery. "I made my choice. I want to go, she can stay."

The two men smirked before hauling Emma to her feet and helping her out of the car before climbing back into the car and driving away. As the car sped away, Emma could swear that she heard Avery calling her name.

Once the horror of the situation hit Emma, and she realized what she had done, she threw up into the grass. She sank to her knees and began sobbing, a panic attack taking over her body. She couldn't breathe, but she deserved it. She had made her best friend stay with her captors simply because of her comment about Emma's lack of family. Eventually the lack of oxygen caused her to pass out.

When she woke up, she had no idea who Avery was, or what had happened to her.

When Emma came to, she realized that she was laying on the grass next to the sidewalk. True to her word, Regina had caught her before she hit the ground and set her down nicely in the grass. Speaking of Regina…

Emma slowly sat up, her eyes slightly brightening at the sight of Regina sitting on the sidewalk. When she saw Emma sit up, she smiled at her before moving closer. "You gave me quite a fright there for a moment."

"Sorry," Emma said sheepishly. "I warned you that it comes out of nowhere."

"So you did remember something."

"...yes."

"Are you going to tell me?"

Emma shook her head before curling in on herself and scooting away from Regina. Regina, ever patient with Emma, simply sat and waited. Eventually, she asked her question. "Why not?"

"I'm a monster," Emma whispered, so quietly that Regina almost missed it.

Regina shook her head. "You're not-"

"I was given the option to save myself or save her and I saved myself! That's a monster. She was killed because I couldn't take the fact that she had a family that missed her and no one would even care if I was gone. She said it herself. She pleaded with me to let her go because she had a family and I just got so angry that I left her with them. I should have saved her!" By the end of her rant, Emma was shaking and crying.

Regina hated seeing Emma in this much pain. She slowly moved closer, but Emma was having none of it. She shot to her feet, backing away from Regina. "Don't, I don't deserve comfort. I did this. I did this to myself."

"Listen to me," Regina said soothingly as she got to her feet. "I know that you think that you're a monster, but that does not mean that you don't deserve comfort and love. You've already suffered so much because of this."

"She's dead!" Emma shouted, starting to shake. Regina became even more concerned when white sparks started to dance on the ends of her fingertips.

"She's dead because of the real monsters out there," Regina said, slowly walking towards Emma. Whether Emma wanted to admit it or not, Regina always calmed her down. She just had to accept the help. "You are not the monster in this situation. You were young, and hurting, and no one blames you for that."

"Avery did."

"You don't know that."

"She died because of me!" Emma screamed. "Why can't you just understand that and stop trying to help me? I killed her!"

By now, people were coming out of their houses to see what all the commotion was about. Regina didn't have the energy to focus on them, she needed to get Emma calm before she tore a chunk out of someone's house.

"I killed people for sport," Regina said. "You think I don't know what a monster really is? In this time, I'd probably be considered a serial killer. But does that make you love me any less?"

"Of course not," Emma said quickly.

Regina smiled at her. "It took me a long time to finally accept the fact that I was the only one still beating myself up for what I had done years ago. I was the last one to move on. I know the situation is different for you, and I know that these memories are overwhelming. But it doesn't make me love you any less."

By now Regina had made her way close enough to grab Emma's hand. Emma didn't resist, so Regina pulled her closer and hugged her tightly. Emma finally accepted the comfort, and collapsed into Regina's arms as her emotions finally gave way to exhaustion.

"We're going to go home," Regina said soothingly. "And tomorrow, we're going to talk calmly over everything that happened today."

Emma tensed in her arms. "No one else can know."

"For now," Regina agreed. "Eventually they're going to have to know in order to help solve our current case."

A few seconds passed before Emma nodded. "Take me home."

Regina was all too happy to oblige.

So there you have it! That's what happened to Emma to cause her memory blackout. What did you think? Was it what you were expecting?