WARNING: slight fluff at the end of the chapter.

CHAPTER 6 – Regina – Slept

Miss Swan and I were sitting on the couch, eating the Chinese food that she had so chivalrously bought for us and watching some uninterestingly silly movie. I was in my nightwear already, without a hint of makeup on my face – hoping she wouldn't mind the slovenliness.

Why would you care, anyway?, a voice at the back of my mind asked. I promptly decided it would be best to ignore it.

Miss Swan had changed into some more comfortable clothes as well, and seeing her in a tank top and sweatpants, with her hair up in a loose knot, for some inexplicable reason was really distracting. I was finding it quite hard to concentrate on the plot of the movie, and I earnestly couldn't fathom why.

I felt really comfortable, nevertheless. Hanging out with Miss Swan was easy, almost natural, and it made me feel at ease. It seemed like I had known her for years, not just a handful of days, and that had never occurred to me before. Well, getting along with people in general had never occurred to me before, but still.

Desperately trying to focus on something that wasn't Miss Swan's body, I grabbed the blanket that I usually kept on my couch and threw it over us to hide her form from sight, curling up so that my feet wouldn't get cold. However, I didn't consider the fact that, in order to both fit under the plaid, she had to move closer, so now we were touching, and I was freaking out. What was up with me lately?! I almost lost it when she turned towards me and rest her legs onto my lap, her attention never diverting from the movie. I could feel the adrenaline rise up, making me tense and slightly shake; my heartbeat was increasing in speed, and I was definitely on the verge of hyperventilation. Not to mention those butterflies that were, most likely, dancing the conga in my stomach… It was almost as if I had become a teenager dealing with her first crush, all over again. Wait, what?!

It's alright, Regina, I said to myself. It's probably just food poisoning or an indigestion. Think about apples… Think about red apples and everything will be fine…

A few minutes later I was already better; thank gods I had my apples to keep me sane. However, now that the rush of adrenaline had abandoned me, completely draining my energy, I was feeling extremely tired, so I still couldn't manage to concentrate on the movie. Not that it mattered much, now: it had been an hour and a half already, and it was almost over.

I really didn't want that night to end. I had never been that human with anyone else before; for a change, with Miss Swan I felt as if I could be myself. I trusted a complete stranger, and I somehow knew I wasn't going to rue it.

Eventually, the TV faded to black and the end credits began to roll on the screen, darkening the entire room. I grabbed the remote control and turned it off, while Miss Swan – surprisingly to my disappointment – took her legs off of me and stood up, stretching.

"So, did you like it?" she asked me, obviously referring to the movie, while I turned on the light.

"Oh, indeed. I loved it," I lied, and she gave me a suspicious look, as the ghost of a smile touched her lips.

"Really?" she said, still staring at me appraisingly, her eyes narrowed as she slowly stepped towards me. "Did I ever mention I have a superpower, Miss Mills?"

Her voice was calm, yet quite different from its usual tone – almost playfully menacing. Her head was tilted to one side, and she was clearly analyzing my every reaction – which I didn't condone, seeing how much I was starting to freak out, once again, because of her proximity. For every step she made forward, I made one backwards, trying to keep her at a safe distance.

"No," I replied, my voice firm, my chin high. I could tell she looked quite intimidating, but I wasn't going to let her win that little game. Ever so defiant, I gave her a challenging look.

"Well, I have one," Miss Swan said, and once again she stepped forward. My back was now against the wall, the cold surface making me shiver… or perhaps it was just the exhilarating static tension that flowed between us. She was uncomfortably close to me, our bodies only a few inches apart – yet she wasn't touching me at all, which frustrated me even more. "I can always tell when someone is lying."

I didn't like that position of inferiority: it seemed as if I was the pray, and she was the predator, content of trapping me. Little did she know, I was no pray; I inched closer to her face and, as I had anticipated, she got distracted, inadvertently drifting her gaze from my eyes to my lips. I used that moment of hesitation to my advantage, pulling away from the wall and turning us around, my arms stretched forward, hands flat on the surface at either side of her head, so that now our roles were inverted, and she was trapped. Our bodies hadn't even brushed against each other yet.

"I'll keep that in mind," I replied with a smirk, and enjoyed the disbelief-mixed-admiration on her flushed face as I stepped away, breaking the moment.

What the hell just happened?, I asked myself, unable to find an answer – or rather, not wanting to acknowledge it.

I didn't address it, and changed the subject instead. "Would you like to stay for the night?" I offered again, for the third time in two days. I didn't precisely know if I kept asking to be polite, or if I somehow irrationally hoped that she'd help me sleep. I surely knew that, if she were to accept my offer, I'd most definitely… freak out. Obviously. She might see me lose not only my composure, but also every ounce of control I had over my mind; only the thought of it made me panic.

"I don't think you're ready for that," she replied, wise. "You might not be ready to share your… 'dark side'… with me yet, and I don't want to force you into anything you're not one hundred percent sure of."

I smiled warmly at her words, grateful for the great respect she showed me. It amazed me how much she had already understood about me; I was unexpectedly glad I had met such an introspective person. Not that I would ever admit to that out loud, of course.

"Thank you for the dinner, Miss Swan," I told her as I walked her to the front door of my apartment, her suitcase trailing idly behind her.

"Oh, come on! You can call me Emma," she replied with a genuine smile. "Thank you for the great evening. Call me if you need anything."

And she was gone.

I sighed as I closed the door behind her, and walked to the bathroom to start my nighttime routine. I procrastinated going to sleep as much as I could, re-checking the graphic of Miss Blanchard's apartment, leafing through my clients' folders and reading a book, but eventually I couldn't come up with anything else to do, and flopped down on the bed.

I was insanely tired, but I knew that wasn't going to help at all. I thought back to the moments I had just spent with… Emma… and it did distract me for a bit; however, I didn't want to linger too much on those thoughts either, unconsciously scared – of what, I didn't know – and so I closed my eyes.

It was all vehicles, screams and alarms from there. Every now and then a few police cars and ambulances drove by as well, their annoyingly loud sirens making them recognizable. I felt the reality around me disappear, as the noise sucked it out from my surroundings and filled the void it had left.

I didn't want it to happen again. Not after last night, when I was finally able to enjoy the silence and rest for a couple hours, in Storybrooke…

I grabbed my phone, determined at first, and dialed and erased Emma's number so many times that, by the time I finally decided to press the green button on the touchscreen, I had learned it by heart.

I heard her pick up; I was about to talk, when her voice, husky from sleep, impeded me. "I'm on my way."

Ten minutes later I was greeting her at my doorstep, shameful and sorry for waking her up and being such a bother.

Before I was able to apologize, she raised a hand, stopping me, and tilted her chin towards the bedroom. I noticed she wasn't wearing any makeup either, now, and the clothes she was wearing – the same tank top and baggy pants as before – were full of wrinkles. I only lazily registered that she had walked through the streets of New York in her sleepwear. Her eyes were half closed, proving that she had just woken up. I fleetingly thought she looked exceptionally pretty, as I walked with her into my room and, eventually, hid under the warm comforter of my bed.

Emma closed her eyes almost immediately, murmuring a slurred, "'Night, 'Gina", to which I didn't respond.

I didn't know what to do, or what to think. I was increasingly more scared as time went by, and I was already regretting inviting her over – although no formal invitation had actually been offered.

My silence seemed to worry her, because she opened her eyes and looked at me, her brow furrowed.

"Everything okay?" she murmured, suddenly more awake, now that I needed her.

I nodded briefly, before recalling what she had told me earlier: she could always tell when people lied. She didn't say anything to confute my words, though. She wiped away any trace of emotions from her face and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me closer ever-so-gently. I didn't freak out as I had predicted; I needed this too much to. I let out a shaky sigh, doing my best not to cry, and hugged her back instead. It was comforting, and once again I felt that static electricity that seemed to constantly surround us. She was a stranger, and yet I had never felt more safe.

"Once upon a time," she whispered, just loud enough for me to hear her, "there lived a smart, kind, beautiful young woman…"

"Are you seriously telling me a bedtime story?" I mocked her.

"Hey, I'm trying to help, here!" she replied, pretending to be hurt. "Shut up and listen."

I did as she said.

"This girl fell deeply in love with the stable boy at her mansion; when they were together, they were happier than they'd ever been. They felt as if nothing in the world could go wrong.

"One day, during one of her frequent horse rides, she saw a child in danger, and hurried to save her from a terrible destiny. She soon found out that the little girl was none other than the King's daughter whom, to thank the young woman, proposed.

"Her heart broke, when her mother accepted the proposal on her behalf. She didn't want to marry someone she didn't love; she didn't care about status, she wanted to spend the rest of her life with her True Love: the stable boy. She secretly asked him to get married, planning on eloping."

"She proposed to him? I quite like this princess already," I chuckled.

Emma joined me for a moment, before resuming, "However, the little princess saw them; she felt really sad, at first, wanting the kind, beautiful woman as her new mother; but after she had explained how she felt for the stable boy, the child understood, promising not to reveal the girl's secret.

"Unfortunately, she didn't keep her promise. Believing to be helping the young woman, the princess told her mother about her plans with the stable boy, which eventually led that horrible woman to killing her daughter's fiancé. The girl ended up marrying the King, fulfilling her mother's dreams. Once the now-Queen had found out it was the younger girl's fault, filled with infinite pain and thirst for revenge, she spent her life hunting her stepdaughter down, doing whatever was in her power to destroy her happiness."

"I think I may have heard this story before," I murmured, and I felt her stiffen up, probably because I was interrupting her for the third time. I continued nonetheless. "I sympathize with that princess. She saw the love of her life die right before her, and that must have been an agonizing scene to witness."

"It was. The day the princess was to give birth to her first child, the Queen enacted a curse onto the whole kingdom, sending everyone away to a land without magic, where time stood still and no one but her knew who they actually were."

"What happened to the child?" I asked, worried. Funny, how much a simple fairytale was involving me – or how a complete stranger was holding me in her arms, as if comforting me was her absolute priority.

"She was sent to the same land, close yet far from her parents. She spent her childhood from a foster family to another, hoping that someone would adopt her, or at least that she could find out who her parents – who she was. Of course her parents couldn't reach out to her: they didn't even remember she existed.

"She had a son, whom she gave up, granting him his best chance; little did she know, that child was going to change her life completely.

"He had been adopted by none other than the Queen, who was initially oblivious to his true identity; it wasn't until ten years later that the kid found his birthmother and led her to the cursed town, revealing her own true identity and that she had been prophesized to be the Savior that could free the town from the Dark Curse.

"She managed to save the kingdom and be reunited with her family, but the Queen wasn't happy about that: she had lost so much already, and now her son was leaving her as well. She hurt more than anyone else, because, unlike them, she was alone.

"Eventually, she managed to suppress her desire of vengeance, and was accepted by her former stepdaughter as part of the family."

She paused for a second.

"Did the Queen and the Savior ever get to live happily ever after?" I inquired with a yawn. I was getting so sleepy…

Emma sighed, pulling away from the hug and looking me in the eye. She gave me a small, rueful smile.

"No."