Chapter 4: Queen of Hearts Season 2 Episode 9

Regina comes into consciousness wanting her head torn from her body. Anything would be better than this, she was willing to do anything to stem the pain.

Absorbing a killing curse should've had just one effect and yet here she was. Still breathing, tearing up her throat as her lungs seized and shuddered with each inhale and exhale.

There's bile at the back of her mouth. Her body felt too wrung out to move, all sticky with sweat. She's burning up from the poisonous curse. It blisters through each nerve and muscle. She's craving an end just as a damp towel settles on her forehead.

Emma interlaces their fingers and even though it agitates Regina's internal injuries, the saviour's touch soon soothes her.

Regina should be convulsing, should be drowning under waves of pain, but Emma was managing to forestall death like it was but a minor inconvenience.

Unbeknownst to them both, this healing was fueled by the most powerful magic in their world.

…

It takes absorbing an entire killing curse for Emma to come back to the mansion. Henry returns along with her whilst she tries and fails to make anything serviceably close to chicken noodle soup.

Snow moves in on the behest of her only daughter and Charming comes along with the package.

Snow and Charming remain on the lower levels of the mansion while Emma or Henry brings the meals to Regina.

It's an unspoken rule that neither group acknowledges the other's presence.

Snow ignores how she always makes enough for five instead of four.

Charming is complacent and just plain grateful for a door to his bedroom.

Regina pretends that Emma has spontaneously learnt how to cook.

Henry flits between the two sides with countless and equally fruitless attempts at bringing his whole family together again.

He's trying to amend what he has broken, but neither side is willing to compromise.

…

Regina doesn't know where to begin.

Doesn't know how to explain this tragic misunderstanding.

How even she herself had forgotten the apple. How it had sat waiting like a hunter's trap on her path towards happiness.

That she had been as guileless as any fool caught in fondness, too distracted by contentment to notice an ambush.

The notion was so childish, so raw with truth that the words dried up on her tongue, withered and remained unspoken no matter how many times she tried to bring them up.

…

All those months ago, Regina had cleared out a space for Emma's things and even now it's filled brimming with everything left behind. She can't bring herself to clean out the only reminder she has left of their short dalliance.

Whenever Emma is in Regina's room she avoids looking at that drawer. She can't risk her heart over belongings. She can't chance opening an empty drawer and get forced to see the truth.

That she had never been allowed a place within Regina's life.

…

Emma pushes a loofah over the rise of Regina's breast, it makes the queen relax and sigh. She's no longer so weak that she can't accomplish the chore herself, though neither had said a word when Emma entered the bathroom and filled the steaming tub with expensive soaps.

A whimper escapes Regina as Emma brushes the sponge excruciatingly close to where she aches. Over the last month, Emma has always helped with nightly ablution, but Regina had been too drowsy from the cozy waters and fatigued to do more than groan and writhe.

But now...She blinks up at Emma and for once her expression is not faux coyness but genuine affection. She lets her emotions seep into the open, and hopes against reason as she tugs on the waistband of Emma's boxers. She drags Emma close until the other woman acquiesces and slides one leg and then another into the tub.

They stay staring as Emma slicks off her wet clothes and noisily plops them onto the floor.

"You'll be the one to pick them up, dear." Regina drags the term of endearment over her tongue, letting a purr elongate between the 'e' and the 'a'.

"Maybe." Emma lathers the soap onto Regina's calves, working the tense muscles free of their knots. The appreciative sigh encourages her further, but when her fingertips glance just shy of where Regina wants her, Emma moves to work on the other leg.

Regina shifts uneasily, trying to hide her disappointment. These months of simmering sexual frustration has built up to make her pliant and wanting. She tugs her leg free from Emma and turns to press her back against Emma's naked front. A barely repressed moan encourages Regina to guide Emma's arms to wrap around her torso. It takes a while more until she can place Emma's fingertips against her clitoris.

Regina tries to be calm and refrain from grinding against Emma's passive 's no string of 'pleases' or mantra of Emma's name. There are no words strong enough to start up a song ended by the breaking of a 28 year-old curse.

Regina has to initiate it, has to show that she wants it. It reddens her cheeks in a way that has nothing to do with the steam that fogs the mirrors across from have her wants so openly known. It's improper and something a well brought-up lady such as herself should never engage in.

The taboo of her actions only quickens her movements until her hips are rocking into Emma's hand. A continuous keening sound leaves her before she can think to stop it making Emma press a kiss to her neck, just where the curve of her spine ends.

Regina almost bolts when Emma finally touches her, really presses and rolls her fingers; it makes the water slosh over the side of the bathtub, but Regina finds herself not worrying about the mess.

Emma flattens her hand away from Regina's guiding touch and skims down lower so she can cup Regina's sex. She swirls a timid finger just at Regina's entrance. After so many rough encounters it surprises Regina to hear how laboured her breathing becomes.

"M-more." Regina coughs, but the stutter doesn't leave her words when she repeats her words. She can only grasp onto the edge of the porcelain tub as her head lolls back onto Emma's shoulder.

Emma's expression is melancholic, but Regina misses it as two fingers finally slide into her. It is a passionate ride to the finish line, and when Emma curls her touch, it forces Regina to crumble.

Regina falls apart again and again, but knows if there was one place safe to unravel it would be in Emma's arms.

Minutes later, Regina flutters her eyes open to Emma's relieved gaze, she reaches back and pulls Emma in for a kiss but her lover turns at the last moment.

She finds her lips pressing against the other woman's cheek. "Oh."

"We aren't… I can't, at least not how we were." Emma sounds apologetic and Regina wonders how the guiltless can sound so doleful.

"Thankfully, Ms. Swan," it vexes her that Emma gets to be the one to set the rules for them, that another has control; Regina only knows to handle rejection with malice, "we were never anything to begin with."

Emma bites her tongue with something akin to acceptance. Like she has just received confirmation to a long suspected fact. It pains Regina's heart more than anything the killing curse has put her through.

Emma scrambles out of the tepid waters and leaves the room with the only towel available.

Regina misses the legs that had book-cased hers and is unappreciative of the hard curve of the tub. She feels like a cheap whore having just plied for her trade, after a night with a john it leaves her body barely sated and her chest gapingly empty.