Chapter Twenty Four

In her sleep, it didn't take long for Regina to become dead weight against Emma's body. Emma shimmied her way out from under her carefully, repositioning Regina onto the cushion below her as she slid off the couch quietly. She watched Regina for a moment, making sure that she really was still sleeping, before tiptoeing across the room to where her laptop sat open on her desk.

She sighed as she fired it up, feeling slightly guilty for what she was about to do, but she had to know the truth. Either Regina was suffering some sort of break from reality, or everything Henry had said about the curse was real, and Emma figured a quick background search might help clear things up.

To her dismay, however, a search of Regina's name didn't pull up much of anything, other than a few flight records and Henry's adoption certificate. No birth certificate, no prior addresses, no family on record…

Emma cocked her head to the side as she noticed something peculiar; there were no records of anything prior to 1983. She chewed her lip nervously as her fingers hovered above her keyboard. She debated for just a moment, before typing in Mary Margaret's name.

Nothing.

Emma shook her head in disbelief. Her software was some of the best in the industry of finding people, and never once had she had a name pull up no results whatsoever. The only possible explanation was, Mary Margaret Blanchard was a fake name.

Quickly, Emma began plugging more names into the search bar: Ruby Lucas, Graham Humbert, Kathryn Nolan… and every one turned up nothing. There was no way everyone in Storybrooke was living under an alias.

Unless they didn't exist.

Emma felt a knot forming in her stomach as the realization set in. No one in that town existed; at least not here, in the real world. She remembered that Henry had said no one could come or go, save for himself or her… and apparently Regina, and the rest of them were living in a daze. Cursed. And trapped.

Emma drummed her fingers nervously on the keyboard. As ridiculous as the curse and magic and the Enchanted Forest might be, she couldn't come up with another reasonable explanation.

She sighed, and decided to run a different search. She attempted to access Storybrooke's records, only to find that, according to her software, Storybrooke didn't exist, either. That made no sense. She'd been there. How could it not exist?

Emma was frantic as she closed out of her software and got on Google instead - searching names, searching addresses, finding nothing - until she was startled by Regina's voice behind her.

"What are you doing?"

Emma nearly jumped out of her skin, before spinning around. Regina was standing a few feet away, looking a little groggy and her face still red and a little puffy from crying, and Emma stared at her with wide eyes. "None of it's real."

"What?"

The hurt in Regina's voice wasn't lost on Emma, as she realized that she must think Emma was referring to what she'd told her her earlier. Quickly, she continued. "Storybrooke. Everyone in it. They don't exist. They… how could they not exist?"

Regina sighed and gave Emma a look that almost appeared sympathetic. "I think you know how," she said, softy.

"Fairy tales? Seriously?"

Regina shrugged. "Is it really that hard to believe?"

"That you're some sort of… Evil Queen? Yes!"

"It was your mother who made me that way, you know. Well, among others, I suppose."

"My mother. Mary Margaret? The woman I've been rooming with who is the same age as me?"

"Time hasn't moved since the curse was enacted. It didn't move until you arrived in Storybrooke. The clock wasn't broken, it was the curse."

"Time didn't move," Emma repeated, nodding slowly. "That's why you haven't aged. I thought… well, I thought you must age well, obviously, and I thought maybe I wasn't remembering you quite right since there was… a bit of alcohol involved but… you haven't aged."

"I haven't aged," Regina admitted. "Physically, I mean. I was thirty four when we first met and…"

"You went from twice my age to being only six years older than me. You can see why this is hard for me to wrap my head around, right?"

Regina shrugged again, half-heartedly. "I grew up in a world where magic and fairies and curses are real. I'm not so fazed by these sorts of things."

"Right… okay so what now? I'm some sort of… savior? So, what? Henry said I'm supposed to fight some epic final battle."

"I don't know how the curse is broken," Regina admitted, sitting back down on the arm of the couch behind her and fidgeting with her hands in her lap. "Rumple never felt the need to explain that part."

"Rumple?"

"Stiltskin. Gold."

"Oh," Emma breathed, nodding slowly. "Henry couldn't figure out who Gold was."

"I suppose if you're meant to fight a battle, it's going to be to defeat me."

"Jesus, Regina… I'm not going to fight you."

"You might not have a choice."

"Oh. So… is that the real reason, then?"

Regina shook her head in confusion. "The real reason for what?"

"For… everything. Have you known this whole time? Since we first met?"

Regina shook her head quickly. "No… that… that first morning, I thought you reminded me of someone, but I just couldn't place it. There was something so… familiar about you. And you know I was drawn to you. I am drawn to you. Our lives were destined to become intertwined, but back then, I didn't know that."

Emma nodded. "So… you didn't know until Henry brought me to Storybrooke, then?"

Regina swallowed. "I guessed it, a little before then. Do you remember your twenty fifth birthday?"

"Yeah. I ran into you in a restaurant in Boston."

Regina nodded. "You were so… upset with me. Angry, even. I'd never seen that look on your face before, and that's when I saw it. You look like your mother, you know. And your father."

"David Nolan?" Emma asked, remembering the man in the coma who'd just woken up one day, just like that. Henry insisted he was really Prince Charming.

"Mm-hmm," Regina said, looking down guiltily.

"So… you figured it out when I was twenty five. That means you really did stop seeing me because…"

"Because you said you loved me," Regina finished for her. "Emma, I know you didn't mean it, or at least that you didn't think you did. You were nearly asleep and you had no idea what you were saying but… it came from somewhere and it was never supposed to get that far."

"Because you didn't feel the same. You don't."

"No, Emma, it's not that. I don't… people aren't supposed to love me. I'm not good for them."

"Them?"

"Anyone! Everyone who crosses my path ends up being hurt… your mother, everyone in Storybrooke, really… my father, Dan-"

Emma looked up in surprise when Regina stopped short. She'd known there was something that Regina had left out earlier, and she was sure whatever name she was about to say, that person had something to do with it.

"Dan...?"

"Daniel," Regina said, after several long moments of silence. She didn't look up as she continued to speak. "He was my fiancé, before I was betrothed to the King. Daniel and I were going to run away together and start a new life, but my mother killed him. She ripped his heart right out of his chest and crushed it in her hand."

"What?!"

"I told you. It was a different world, Emma. It was a long time ago, but… well, it doesn't matter now. The point is, people who love me get hurt."

"So, what, then? You just suffer?"

"I didn't think I was suffering. You know perfectly well that I found ways not to be alone, and when that wasn't enough anymore, I adopted Henry. He was the one thing I thought no one could ever take from me, until you."

"I didn't take Henry. I didn't even try to."

"You don't have to. He's knows who I am, and he's got a birth mother who's a hero. You're going to break the curse, and save everyone, and if I survive that, I'm going to be locked away."

Emma shook her head quickly. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"You can't stop it."

"No. There has to be another way. If breaking the curse means hurting you, then I won't break it."

Regina shook her head and smiled, finally looking up with fresh tears in her eyes. "You know, there was a time where I believed that could be true - that perhaps you wouldn't break the curse. There was a time where I thought maybe - just maybe - there was a future for us. But you can't escape your fate Emma, no more than I can escape mine."

"I make my own fate, Regina. I get a choice in this, and I'm choosing not to hurt you. I won't do it."

"So what are you going to do instead then? Just stay in Boston, knowing where your family is?"

Emma bit her lip. She hadn't really considered her next move. All this information was a lot to process, and even if she was beginning to believe that it all could be true, it wasn't easy to wrap her head around the fact that her parents were in Storybrooke, and that she'd met them. She'd lived with her mother without even knowing it, and still, that wasn't the most pressing thing on her mind.

"Regina… you've been, more or less, a constant in my life for damn near half my life. Even when you weren't around you were still the first person to ever really show any sort of genuine interest in me. I know you think I should hate you, or be angry with you, for taking my innocence or whatever you think you did, but I think you know as well as I do that I wasn't innocent when you met me."

"Okay," said Regina, not quite sure where Emma was headed with this train of thought.

"Okay, so… I'm gonna lay it all out on the line right now. Years ago, you asked me what would happened when I inevitably wanted more. Well, I want more."

"Oh," said Regina, the defeat obvious in her voice.

Emma shook her head, realizing that Regina was absolutely misconstruing what she was saying. "Regina, I want more from you."

"Oh!"

Emma smiled. "We may be two broken people and maybe it will be a disaster, but maybe it won't be? If I go back to Storybrooke, I'll want to find a way to get to know my parents, and I'll want to get to know Henry, if you're willing to invite me into his life, but I want you to know without a doubt, that if I come back, my reason for coming back, is you. My whole reason for staying in the first place was always you."

"I thought you stayed for Henry?"

"Regina, I… he's not really my kid, he's yours. It was hard to give him up, but I did, and he's your son, and you're his mother, not me. If… if by some miracle this all works out, then yeah, I'm gonna want a relationship with him, but I don't ever expect to take your place as his mother."

"Thank you for saying that," Regina said, with a little sniffle. "But I'm not sure he wants me as a mother anymore."

"He's ten. He doesn't know how good he has it, compared to what he would have had with me. But Regina, I don't want to talk about Henry right now. I just want to know one thing. Do you want me to come back?"

"That's why I came here," Regina answered, quickly.

"No, I don't want to know if Henry wants me to come back. I want to know if you do. I can't be in Storybrooke if you don't want me around. I don't know if it's fate, or what it is, I just know I can't be there, and not be with you. It's too hard, and I want more."

"I want you," Regina replied, looking almost as surprised as Emma when the words actually came out of her mouth. Once she'd said them, however, it was like a crack formed in one of the walls she'd so painstakingly enacted around herself, and the words kept pouring out. "I want you, Emma. I've always wanted you. I've been scared, and stupid, and I hurt you, and I'm sorry, but Emma… you belong in Storybrooke, with me."

Emma smiled as she felt tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. A few managed to escape as she got up from her chair and closed the short distance between herself and Regina. Regina stood as Emma approached, and without another word, cupped Emma's face in her hands, drawing her near, into a long, deep kiss.

She felt a flutter in her belly as all the fears and anxiety drained from her in an instant. In this moment, nothing mattered - not the curse or its consequences or even the fact that she was about to embark on a real relationship for the first time since Daniel died. All that mattered, in this moment, was Emma.

And Regina knew, since the moment she'd met her eleven years ago, everything she'd done since then had always been about Emma.

To be continued…

A/N: I'm not sure how many more chapters are left, but we're heading into the home stretch for this story… it's been quite a journey, since this was the very first Swan Queen story I ever wrote, and also my first attempt at smut, the entire first 18 chapters or so have been completely overhauled and rewritten at least once (some more than once!) since I first published this story, and it's definitely been a learning experience for me! Thanks for sticking with me throughout this journey and I will try not to make you wait too long before the next chapter!

Also, feel free to find me on tumblr as rowark-sq :)