A/N: I wasn't going to post another chapter this soon, but the response to the last update was so overwhelmingly awesome that I had to get this posted as soon as it was ready. Don't get used to it! :-) Real life has a way of getting in the way of things.
Seriously, thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and alerted to this chapter. This was the chapter that I had in my head when I started this whole work, so I hope it reads as well for you as it sounded in my head.
As always, laurathechef did phenomenal work editing this chapter. All credit to her awesomeness!
I claim no ownership of the show, characters, settings or plots. Any resemblance to any real people, paces, or events is entirely coincidental.
Regina approached Gold's pawn shop with an unexpected sense of trepidation. Before everything had happened with Emma, it was really Gold's shop, and she knew how to deal with that. Now that Belle had kicked Gold out of Storybrooke, however, the 28 years that she'd held Belle prisoner as an insurance policy against Gold's machinations niggled at her every time she saw the librarian. Facing her alone in the pawn shop was growing more intimidating with every step she took.
The floor gave an ominous creak under her feet when she entered the shop, but Belle looked up with a kind smile. "Regina! What brings you to the shop today?"
She did her best to return the smile. "Hi, Belle. I'm in need of an item you have in your shop. I was hoping you'd let me borrow it, actually."
"Sure thing! What did you need?" Belle asked as she moved around the counter.
"Ah, well, I need to borrow Rumpel's dream catcher," Regina explained, "I got permission from Snow and David to use a dream catcher to look at the last hour of Emma's memories before she pricked her finger. I thought that if I could see one person more than any other on her mind that it might give us an idea of who Emma thinks is her True Love."
Belle's face lit up. ""That's a wonderful idea! Of course you can borrow it." She scurried behind the counter and into the back of the store.
Faced with a few seconds of silence, Regina found herself composing a thought that had gone unexpressed for far too long. When the other woman returned bearing the dream catcher, she was ready.
"Thank you, Belle," Regina began, "I never apologized to you, properly I mean, for keeping you in a cell all those years. I told myself I had a good reason for it, but the truth was there wasn't a reason good enough. It was unconscionable, and I want to apologize. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me eventually."
The expression on Belle's face was one that Regina never expected to see after her apology. The librarian broke out into a huge smile. "You've changed. You're not the woman who did those things in the past, anymore. I think with how hard you're working to save Emma shows that. The whole town knows it. You're not the Evil Queen anymore. I forgave you long ago, Regina. My life here is much better now, especially now that I have the shop and the library, and even though things have been rough lately, I feel like I'm really getting back on track."
Regina could only murmur a stuttered "thank you" through watery eyes and a choked-up throat. She took the dream catcher and made her way out of the shop without another word, but with a mind swirling with all the implications of Belle's response.
01:36
The red numbers of Regina's clock taunted her. Her impending task dominated her thoughts. Henry was asleep.
It was time.
Weeks and weeks of effort had built to this moment. This was their best chance to wake Emma. Instead of lining up a damned kissing booth, they had a real shot to see who Emma considered the most important person in her life. The magic involved wouldn't pose any real strain on her, so she could begin any time.
With a sigh, she tossed her book off to the side and got to her feet, hearing her ankles and knees pop along the way. After not aging for 28 years, the following four years of natural aging were taking their toll on her body, though magic had been helping. She changed out of her pajamas and into some comfortable athletic pants and a soft cotton shirt. For the work ahead of her, she wanted to be as comfortable as possible.
Tiptoeing out of her room, Regina cast a wary look down the hall, but Henry's door was closed and no light shone underneath. With a small nod, she turned and made her way the opposite direction to the guest room, walking on the balls of her feet to avoid making any noise at all. Opening the door, she moved in and closed it behind her without a sound, butterflies in her stomach growing with each step. With a flick of her wrist, the room was bathed in 60-watt light: bright enough to see what she needed to see but not enough to blind her.
The dream catcher waited on a padded bench at the foot of Emma's bed. She suppressed a snort at the thought. After this experience it would always be 'Emma's bed' in her mind. There was no way her son's birth mother and the woman who fit the descriptor 'friend' more than anyone else had ever done for her would occupy a bed in her house for weeks at a time under a sleeping curse without it becoming hers forever.
Regina picked up the dream catcher, startled to see it wavering in her trembling hands. It wasn't like she'd never read another person's mind with magic, or even with a dream catcher. It was the first time she would be doing this magic with this much importance. If this spell didn't work she was back at the proverbial drawing board.
Closing her eyes, she called her magic. The familiar tingle spread like licking flames under her skin, warm but comforting. She forced her mind to remember the spell, using her conscious thought to include a time limit. That part of the exercise was new to her. Whenever she'd used dream catcher magic in the past, it was always open-ended, she just focused on a particular event or memory she wanted to access, not a time frame of a person's thoughts. She focused on forcing the time frame into the spell as the tingle tracked down her arms, through her fingers, and out into the dream catcher.
When her arms felt normal once more, she opened her eyes. The dream catcher's surface was iridescent with the magic. Streaks of the light shot out toward the bed and surrounded Emma's head. Regina watched the lights play around the blonde tresses, creating a halo effect that sent shivers of fear up and down her spine. Omens played no more role in the Enchanted Forest than they did in Maine, USA, but the sight still unnerved her.
After a few seconds, the lights shot back to the dream catcher and Emma's memories were hers to view. The thought of seeing the images in Emma's own room made her feel dirty, almost like she'd be making Emma a voyeur to her mental violation. She closed the door behind her without a sound and made her way back to her own room, checking to make sure that Henry's room was still silent and dark on the way.
Closing her own door, Regina took a deep breath and felt the nerves return full-force. She wasn't sure what the dream catcher would revel to her, but with the focus of the spell she'd cast and the circumstances surrounding Emma's current condition, it wasn't going to be pretty or pleasant. Taking a deep breath, Regina sat down at the foot of her bed and called her magic forth.
Images began assaulting her mind before she had a chance to brace herself. At first it was a confusing swirl of faces, blurred out by the movement. She had to focus her mind to calm the storm surrounding her. Eventually, she was able to force the magic to show her Emma's thoughts.
The first memory initially confused her. Looking at the world through Emma's eyes, everything was much higher or taller than it should have been. The room was softer, more feminine than she would have expected. There were dark purple flowers painted on the lavender walls along the baseboard, up around the door, and around the windows. A white toddler bed that was much larger than it should have been was covered in purple bedding and tucked into one corner. Piles of stuffed animals and other toys littered the floor, but rather than messy, they looked purposeful. White lacy curtains hung over a window with sun shining through, giving the room a warm, homey feeling. It was the kind of room any child would have loved to call their own.
When other people came into her vision, she realized it was Emma's room. She was in a memory of Emma's from when she was a child. She – Emma – was happily playing with a stuffed unicorn, when the door opened and two adults walked in with somber looks. These were the people who gave Emma her name, Regina realized, the last name she'd never changed because the time she spent with them was the happiest of her foster life.
The woman was rubbing one hand on her stomach while the man guided her into the room.
"Emma, we have something we need to tell you."
Putting the unicorn down and looking up at her first foster parents, Emma asked, "Why Mama and Dada sad?"
"We're not sad, honey, we're just…serious," the mother chimed in. "We're going to have a baby."
The squeal of joy Emma let out startled the older two. "I am a sister?"
"Well," the man winced, "not exactly. We can only afford to have one child here in the house, and we can't waste any space."
"What you mean, daddy?" toddler-Emma asked.
"What daddy means is that we won't have room for you in the house with the baby. We're going to have to send you back to the group home," the mother explained.
"Go away?" Emma asked, voice starting to waver with tears.
"Daddy will help you pack some clothes and your favorite stuffed animals, but the social worker will be here in half an hour, Emma."
With that, the two adults left the room, oblivious to Emma flopping back on the floor and bursting into tears. The rest of that particular memory showed the Swans not even looking at Emma, much less hugging her goodbye, as the social worker carted her back to the group home, returned like an ugly sweater.
The memories jumped ahead 25 years or so to when Emma had shown up on Regina's literal doorstep, Henry leading the way. She felt the blonde's extreme nervousness at seeing herself turn into fierce determination to protect her son after his allegations of mistreatment. Threats flew back and forth, but Emma's memories focused in on Regina's promises to destroy her.
Before the guilt could set in too far, Emma's memories went back in time again to when she was a child. Older this time, but still a child. She went to a man who had to have been her foster father at the time. Tall and thin, he had a haggard look about his weather-beaten face. Lank blond hair hung down around his ears, and suspicious blue eyes darted back and forth from other children squabbling in the background and an ancient television in front of him. Emma's attention was fixed on the older man.
"Mr. Davis? I'm hungry, and my shirt is too cold. Could I have a snack and maybe a sweater?"
"Hungry? You're hungry? I ain't got the money for no more food, girl!" he shouted at her. "We fed ya earlier, didn't we?"
"Some of the older kids took my food away from me," she pouted, looking at her feet. "I'm still hungry."
"Ain't my fault you weren't fast or strong enough. I fed ya. Ain't got no money for a sweater, neither. You're just going to have to learn to live with it," he declared, turning back to his TV.
"But I'm so cold!" Emma's pout turned into a whine.
She never saw it coming. The thin, bony hand impacted her cheek hard enough to rattle her jaw and split the inside of her lip. Emma flew backward, landing hard on her back on the wood floor.
"I said deal with it, ya worthless baby! Now git upstairs before I have to really spank ya!" Davis shouted.
Emma turned away, hiding the tears streaming down her face, and limped up the stairs, arms wrapped around her torso. Dodging older foster children, she made her way to a tiny mattress in the corner of a dilapidated room, situated under a broken, poorly-repaired window. A chilly breeze streamed in directly onto Emma, who lied there, shivering, crying, and bleeding. She ignored the teasing coming from behind her and wept for her loneliness, her hunger, and her pain.
Before Regina could even catch her breath, Emma's memories shifted forward once more. She saw the front page of the Storybrooke newspaper and Sydney's amateurish hatchet job leading up to the sheriff's election. Emma's past, splashed all over the front page for everyone to see. In a first time for her using a dreamcatcher, she could feel Emma's shame burning hot on the back of her neck and in her ears, intensified at the knowledge of her own responsibility.
The vision darkened once more, and when it shifted, Regina could see Emma's feet kicking back and forth as she sat on a chair in a small room. From the angle of the view, the blonde was older this time, but still a child.
"Miss Swan? You may go in and see the principal now," a nasal voice droned.
Emma took a deep breath but hopped down to her feet and turned to a closed door behind a desk where sat a gaunt woman whose face seemed fixed in a perpetual scowl. Approaching the door as if a prisoner to the gallows, Emma pushed it open.
"Come in, Miss Swan. Sit down, please," called the voice of a surprisingly pleasant-appearing man. He was taller, but with round features that gave him a genial expression, but that quickly soured when Emma took her seat.
"You wanted to see me, Principal Matthews?" When Emma looked down at her hands, Regina could see for the first time that they were red and swollen.
He frowned. "Yes, I did. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Emma swallowed. "I was trying to,"
"Because we have the report of one of the students involved, a Tyler Strong, saying that you attacked his friend Rob Bowman for no reason."
"No reason? He was shoving some kid in his locker!"
"That's not what anyone else has told us. Why are you, the one who started the confrontation, the only person who's said he did anything wrong? That sounds a little suspect."
"It's the truth! Rob's a bully! He was shoving the kid in his locker and everyone else was standing around laughing! I had to do something," declared Emma, folding her arms over her chest.
Narrowing his eyes, Principal Matthews fixed her with a gaze. "Tyler is the son of a pastor here in town. Why would someone like him lie to me about this?"
"To protect his jerky friend," Emma grumped.
"I doubt it, young lady. You have a reputation as a troublemaker already. Your foster parents warned us about you before you even got here. As a matter of fact," he paused as a knock sounded at the door, "they're here right now to take you home. Three days out-of-school suspension."
Emma gasped, turning to look at the door behind her. A man and a woman, of decidedly less amiable appearance than the principal had worn earlier, waited for Emma. The foster mother in particular was glaring at her. "Don't worry, Principal Matthews. Emma here will be dealt with very severely. I can guarantee she will never get in trouble again," she growled, the last few words sounding almost like bullets fired in the small room. The man seemed content to let his wife speak for him, hanging back without a word.
Emma turned back to the principal. "No! Please don't send me home right now! I'll do anything! I'll clean the floors!"
The foster mother grabbed Emma's arm, squeezing it so hard it was sure to leave bruises. "Come along now, Emma. You're going to be punished when we get home."
Emma's tears overrode every other sound on her way out to the car.
The vision dimmed briefly before returning to the same school. This time, Emma was walking down the hall, but the perspective kept making sharp drops and slow climbs. With a gasp, Regina realized Emma was limping.
It changed again, this time revealing the Storybrooke Sheriff's station. Charming stood there with Snow while Jefferson's hat spun on the floor. As a dark shape disappeared into the void, it lunged to grab at Regina herself. With a snarl, Emma jumped to push her out of the way, but was herself sucked down. Her eyes found Regina's as she fell, and Regina watching through Emma's eyes felt a sensation of peace, satisfaction even. The errant thought that at least Henry would be safe and protected flew across her mind before she lost her grip and fell through the portal.
And on it continued, in an endless spiral.
Foster families who never spent enough money on food, leaving Emma at the mercy of crueler older siblings who used food as a bargaining chip to get whatever they wanted from her. Emma usually refused, meaning she was always, eternally hungry. Watching the images, Regina understood how Emma was so skinny still. She was more than used to a less than adequate diet. Even now when she had food, like a cheeseburger from Granny's, her subconscious mind still thought of it as such a treat that she had to wolf it down, so deeply ingrained was her fear of it being taken from her.
She watched as they worked together to move the moon on Neverland, creating an eclipse with nothing more than the power of their united magic. Her own gaze had never wavered from the celestial body, but viewing the memory through Emma's eyes, she saw how the blonde had turned to her in sheer joy and elation that they had succeeded. Regina never saw the happiness in Emma's expression the first time.
Grabby foster brothers and fathers, groping her without her permission and against her will. Regina herself well knew the sense of violation from her forced marriage to Leopold, but Emma was even more helpless against the older, larger, stronger boys – and the fathers, Regina shuddered. When she resisted, she was either beaten or food and water were withheld. It was wrong, debasing, dehumanizing on every possible level. She watched as a sobbing, starving Emma vowed to learn self-defense before she was taken back to a group home. Finally fed up with the abuse, she'd landed a particularly savage kick to the groin of one of her foster fathers. Rather than cop to his depravity, he'd called her a problem child and sent her back.
Again.
After Emma had returned from the past, inadvertently bringing Marian back with her from Regina's own dungeon, Regina got to watch her evisceration of the blonde from the other side.
"Don't you dare touch me! Get this through your thick blonde skull, Ms. Swan: I don't need you. In fact, Storybrooke doesn't need you! We could get a chimp to do the Sherriff's job, and I wouldn't even be surprised if the paperwork got done faster."… "I'd even go so far as to say that your own parents don't even need you anymore. They've probably got their hands full with that new baby of theirs, wouldn't you say?"… "She reached out one more time for a hug to apologize, but Regina held up her hand. "Don't. Don't touch me. Don't talk to me. Don't call me. As far as I'm concerned, you're nothing. You don't exist."
Regina saw a parade of scenes of Emma waking up in bed, a cold indentation where a one-night-stand had left after their tepid passion. She saw tear-tracks on Emma's face in the mirror gradually give way to a set jaw and a determination that none of the people she'd chosen for a night's distraction would ever have the power to hurt her again.
She saw an endless sequence of her snide remarks about Emma's intelligence, diet, or fashion sense. At the time the remarks were intended to annoy the blonde, but seeing from the other side, Regina felt how wounding they truly were. Every time she put Emma down, her self-esteem ebbed a little more.
Then she was able to watch what actually happened the night Neal left Emma. She felt the fear as the police officer approached, the devastation when Emma realized there was one of the stolen watches on her wrist, and the betrayal, hot and painful, when she realized Neal wouldn't be coming back. It switched to the view of a positive pregnancy test stick, as folded knees in a hideous orange prison suit supported her. She felt the sheer desperation after Emma brought Henry into the world, refusing to look at him, knowing that if she did she wouldn't have the courage to give him up, to give him his best chance. She saw a nearly endless parade of nights of Emma sobbing herself to sleep.
Alone. In prison. Pregnant. As a teenager.
She saw the memory of their confrontation at the Rabbit Hole. Emma shrunk back in fear as Regina raised her hand to strike the blonde. "With that attitude and self-destructive nature, Miss Swan, you'll get plenty of chances to be happy all by your lonesome once more."
Emma's worst fears being realized as Snow and David talked about wanting a baby on Neverland, then actually came back heavily pregnant from the Enchanted Forest struck at Regina's heart. When Emma heard what they named the baby, she felt how much effort it took the blonde to remain stoic while her heart split, one side of pain at the memory of Neal's death with the knowledge that every time someone called her brother by name she'd be reminded of Henry's father, and one side in betrayal at her parents making the decision without asking her what she would have thought about it.
Regina watched in dismay as Snow shielded Neal from Emma when her magic went haywire after another of Regina's verbal beat-downs. She wondered how much abuse one heart could take and still keep beating when Emma accidentally sent the light post falling toward Hook, instead injuring her father. Horrified, the Sheriff could only watch as her mother stood and scolded her, as if she'd done it on purpose.
There was a final sequence of images that started slow, but increased in speed until they were flying almost too fast for her to discern. They were faces, nameless, but all sharing the same characteristics. Anger, hate, lust, fear, rage, and uncounted other negative emotions flew in front of her as they flashed in front of Emma's eyes. Interspersed among them all was a slideshow of Regina's own expression. Smiling, laughing, frowning, fearful, angry, they were all there. Storybrooke, Neverland, the Jolly Roger, and more. It was a montage of almost every moment she'd spent with the blonde. It made her head spin as her own face swam in front of Emma's eyes.
Worthless slut.
Miss Swan.
Troubled child.
Deputy.
Little bitch.
Henry's other mother.
Every image, every insult spat at her, every denigration on her as a person, every vitriol spewed at her chipped away at Emma's humanity, leaving her less of a person and more of a fortified shell.
All at once the images ceased, leaving her alone in Zelena's dank basement. Regina's tearful face swam in front of her own face. In a single moment of silent darkness, the only noise was Emma's anguished whisper. "I'm so sorry," Emma whispered as she pricked her finger.
As the visions finally stopped, the dream catcher fell from Regina's nerveless fingers with a quiet thud onto the deep pile carpeting.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Regina had one instant of pure, frozen horror at what she'd seen. The world seemed to crystallize around her, brittle and fragile, before the residual anguish from seeing what Emma lived every day of her life – the life she was cursed to thanks to Regina's giving in to Rumpel's machinations – hit her system all at once and the world shattered.
She shattered.
Her stomach gave a violent lurch that told her she had seconds to spare. Rushing into the bathroom, she just barely made it to the toilet before her insides seemed to try to turn themselves inside out.
She crouched, hunched over the cool porcelain, willing her body to cease its rebellion as she shook in horror. Stronger people than Emma had ended their lives over less.
And it was all her fault.
Literally every moment of pain that Emma had suffered in her life could be laid directly or indirectly at her door.
But, if her theory about who Emma thought mostly about during her final moments awake being her True Love was correct…she was the person most commonly featured in Emma's memories.
Preposterous.
There was no way the Savior could love the Evil Queen.
Silly.
She had to find a different way to wake Emma.
One way or another.
She owed her that much.
A/N: Thoughts? Comments? Constructive criticism is always welcome. Thanks!
