A/N: And here we go. This is the money chapter; my personal favorite to write.

Emlovesyouu made sure this was readable. Of course I don't own the show - I wouldn't be writing fanfiction if I did! :) Any resemblance to any real people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.

Enjoy!

Chapter 8

And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

2 November 2014

Emma briefly wondered if the sensation of warring sets of thoughts swirling through her mind was like what the fairy tale characters experienced when the first curse broke: complete and distinct timelines of memories taking up the same head space. In her case, however, it was conflicting sets of emotions driving her crazy.

The spell had worked. When she and Elsa had tried the freaky dragon-fire candle thing in the station, her unsettled emotions sapped her magical energy and the fire fizzled and sparked out without effect. After racing from Granny's to the clock tower and finding Ingrid, her mind calmed as she focused on the threat. Emma reacted on pure instinct, and within seconds, the chains were secure and they were on their way to the station.

Now, in the silent yellow Bug, her mind started creating its own discordant choruses again. She couldn't stop thinking about the look on her mother's face. It hurt to even think of Mary Margaret as her mother after the outright rejection, but that was the only term her brain would apply. The woman had never gazed at her with anything other than acceptance and love – with the possible exception of regret a few times when she thought about all the years they lost to the Curse – after everyone's memories came back, but that day her own mother had looked at her with fear and distrust.

When Emma was able to wrench her mind away from her mother's face, she felt a surge of confidence after how quickly she was able to use the magical fire to essentially arrest the Snow Queen. Her magic had been tough to bring under control, and it was still wonky even at the best of times. Going up to the clock tower was definitely not what she wanted to do after what happened just before, but apprehending the Snow Queen was just the confidence boost she needed.

"Emma, are you all right?" Elsa asked from the passenger seat.

She shot a quick glance across the car at her…friend? ally? Not entirely sure what to call the other blonde, Emma settled on shrugging. "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

Elsa offered a wan smile. "You just had a very…intense look on your face for a moment. We're about to interview the Snow Queen, so I wanted to be sure you were going to be okay."

"Yeah, I'm fine, Elsa. Just a lot of stuff on my mind," she hedged. As much as she liked Elsa, she hadn't known the other woman for nearly long enough to feel comfortable opening herself up to explain why she was upset.

Elsa took a small breath. "Well, if you ever need anyone to talk to, I'm not part of your family, so it might be easier to unburden yourself to a stranger."

With a grateful smile, Emma shook her head. "Thanks, but right now I think I just need to work through it myself. I appreciate the offer, though."

"What's our plan for questioning her?" Elsa asked, gesturing to the blonde head in the back of David's cruiser as they followed him back to the station.

Emma grunted. "Good cop, bad cop?"

"I think I saw that on a police show once at David and Mary Margaret's one night," the queen chuckled, "That's where you and I take turns, one of us being mean and harsh in our questions and the other showing her kindness to break down her defenses?"

That made Emma laugh. "Yeah, that's about right. What do you think?"

"I think I'd make a good bad cop," Elsa said, staring out the window.

It was a challenge, but Emma was able to swallow the laugh that threatened to emerge.

Barely.

"All right, Queenie, time to talk," Emma grunted, swaggering into the station's one interrogation room with all the false bravado she could manage. As she turned to face the older woman, she couldn't help wincing as her wound tugged.

Control. Dominance. Authority. You can do this.

"Ooh. You should get that looked at, Emma," the prisoner cooed with a sickly sweetness that made her stomach turn.

Emma's eyebrows rose as she folded her arms across her chest. There was a chair in front of her, but for the moment she remained standing, knowing the inherent authority that came from standing in front of a seated person. "Oh, now you want to play nice?"

Weakness. Attack. Exploit.

"With you two? Don't you understand? That's all I've ever wanted," the Snow Queen replied, looking back and forth between them with a sincerity that was unsettling. Over her three decades, Emma's super power had gotten her out of one jam after another. She'd learned to trust it, but there were moments it drove her crazy. Like that moment: every sense she had was telling her the Snow Queen was telling the truth, or at least that she believed that she was.

Elsa took over the questioning. "We don't care what you want," she shot back, "Where is Anna? She's alive. We know it. We heard her heartbeat."

"You heard her heartbeat?" With nothing more than a slight shift in tone and inflection, the older woman was able to completely shift her bearing from sincerity to dubiousness at the statement.

"From Bo Peep's Crook," Elsa clarified, moving closer to the desk.

"Sounds like someone's grasping at straws about their long-lost sister." With each new statement, the Snow Queen's manner grew more condescending, more irritating, even though her body hadn't moved an inch.

"What happened to her?" Elsa demanded, leaning over the table in an attempt to intimidate some answers out of the handcuffed woman.

Emma had to shake her head at the Snow Queen's braggadocio as she dismissed Elsa's driving motivation. "I'm not sure you should care. I told you... she's the one who put you in that urn. I have no idea why you'd want to find someone like that," she offered in false sympathy.

"Because she is my sister and she would never do what you say," Elsa's vehemence was overpowering. It was like looking into a mirror of herself, Emma decided. Both of them were magic users, both fiercely dedicated to protecting their family members, even when they – assuming the prisoner was telling the truth – were less than dedicated to Elsa and Emma themselves.

"Or she's your sister and she couldn't handle what you... what we... are, and she did exactly as I say," the Snow Queen was deflecting their inquiries, getting them off-track with the ease of a practiced master.

"No!" Elsa shouted, pounding the desk.

"Elsa," Emma chided, reaching out for her arm and guiding her toward the door, "Please. Take it easy. She's getting under your skin. Don't let your emotions cloud your judgment. If we want answers, we have to be calm."

Elsa looked at her with defeat in her eyes but protested, unwilling to let go of the most solid lead they had as to her sister's whereabouts. "She knows what happened to Anna."

"And we're gonna figure it all out," replied Emma, keeping her tone calm and even, "You go help David and Hook try to figure out how to take apart her mirror. I got this."

"Emma..." Elsa protested one last time.

"I got it," Emma promised.

The door closed with a resounding thud.

"Okay. Now it's just me," she said to the back of the Queen's head.

Calm. Confidence. Stay in control.

As ever, the older woman remained unperturbed. "Good. You're the one I wanted to talk to anyway."

With a scoff, Emma took the seat across from her prisoner. "Yeah, yeah. I know. You want me to turn to the dark side and be your... sister-buddy-something or other. I'm not interested."

"I'm so proud of you, Emma," came the almost-motherly reply, more than slightly unnerving in its resemblance to how Mary Margaret acted immediately after the Curse broke.

Deflection. Focus. Keep on track. You're stronger than her.

Shaking her head, Emma headed off that line of conversation to maintain control of the interrogation. "No, that's not gonna work. I know that we have a past, which we're gonna get into. But you're not gonna push my buttons."

"I'm being completely sincere. Use your super power... you'll see I'm telling the truth," the Snow Queen pressed, shrugging her shoulders as casually as if she was saying someone should check her ID to buy a six-pack at the corner store.

Surprise. How could she know that?

For the first time, Emma was taken aback. "How do you know about that?" She asked after a few moments.

"You told me. When you were a child. What a lovely child you were. I am so grateful I got to know you then," came the proud reply, almost wistful in its nostalgia.

Missing something. Something big. Walking into a trap. Get out of it. Back to the interrogation.

"Don't talk to me like we're friends," dismissed Emma, shaking her head for extra emphasis.

"We're not friends, Emma. We're family," the Queen insisted, speaking slowly and forcefully as if talking to a child.

Family. What does that even mean? I thought I knew but… She's getting you off-track. Get back in control! You're stronger than this.

Emma wasn't entirely sure how she ended up on the defensive in her own interrogation, but felt the need to disagree just to regain control over the interview. "I know that's what you want, but whatever past we had... the past you stole from me... I know enough to tell you about the future. And what you want? It ain't gonna happen, sister."

And still the Queen continued her calm, almost condescending manner. "Oh, but it will. You see, at the end of the day, you'll understand that everything that I've been saying is true. And then you'll do the last thing in the world you'd think possible right now."

"Yeah? What's that?" asked Emma with more than a touch of sarcasm.

"You're going to let me go."

Bullshit. No way am I letting this witch loose on Storybrooke.

Emma took a moment to study the older woman after that statement. Her lie detector wasn't going off, so the Queen actually believed what she was saying, but there was no scenario in which Emma envisioned releasing her.

With a deep breath, ever the picture of calm, the other woman looked around the interrogation room as if only now remembering what it was and gazed at Emma. "Now, then... What would you like to talk about?"

Losing control. She knows something. Something's wrong.

Returning to the matter at hand, Emma started fresh, giving the Queen a glass of water. Starting this interrogation thread, she chose to stand again. "So, the spell of shattered sight. Pretty impressive stuff."

"What does it matter? You stopped me," the older woman answered without really answering. It was a little eerie how she didn't blink, though.

She's too confident. What does she know? How does she know ME? Why don't I know her?

When Emma pressed on, she leaned over the table for any extra intimidation she could get. "That's right. I did. We know who you are. We know what you're planning. And we know that for some sick, twisted reason, you want Elsa and me to replace your long-lost sisters," she explained.

"Well, then, you have all your answers. May I retire to my cell now?" Even though the Queen spoke with sarcasm that would have impressed Regina – Emma halfway wondered if there was some class princesses took to speak with such amazing sarcasm before they could become queens – she could tell the older blonde wasn't lying. It still didn't answer her question.

Losing control. She's not letting you ask the questions you need. FOCUS.

"No. I want to know why. Why have you been tracking me my whole life?" her next questions were softer, less of an interrogation and more of a personal plea. She had to know the answers. She had to know why she mattered so much to this woman she didn't remember.

"I was trying to protect you, Emma," the Queen insisted, her soft tone belying the steel underneath her manner.

Protect me. Right. That's why I was robbed, teased, bullied, abused? You were trying to protect me?

It was the wrong thing to say. Emma prided herself on one thing more than almost any other: her independence and ability to protect herself. She'd earned the capability the hard way. "Is that what you were doing in the foster home? Protecting me? So why did you erase my memories? Because they were just too good?"

"Every family has their ups and downs. You see…"

She calls you family. It has more than a ring of truth. Familiarity. Caring. Concern. Protection. Did you feel any of that this morning at Granny's?

"No, you and I... we are not family. I have one of those, and it spans three generations and 400 years."

"Family isn't about blood. It is a bond far stronger than mere genetics. Elsa and I are your real family because we are the only ones like you. We belong together," she looked down to her glass and spoke in a low, slow voice, making her point with sheer emphasis, "The family that you think you have... They may love you, but they also fear you."

Snow's face as she protected your own brother from you. Fear. Doubt. Mistrust. You're not LIKE them.

"No. They don't," protested Emma, standing up in defiance, but in her heart the doubts grew at the unbidden images from the morning.

"You've never seen them wince at your power? You've never seen a twinge of panic just behind their eyes? Not even once? I find that hard to believe," she retorted, voice growing in volume and intensity as she went on. It was almost as if she'd seen the scene inside Granny's earlier that day.

You've seen all that and more. Neverland. Another baby. 'Do it right.' 'Give him everything.' You got nothing. Dumped on the side of the road like trash.

Emma froze in place, recalling the way Snow shrank back, protecting N – her brother from her wonky magic. Her fingers tensed, clenching around the urge to smack the smirk off Ingrid's face. "They love me for who I am, including my powers," she hissed, hating that she was starting to see Ingrid in any positive light.

"I thought that once, too, Emma. It's understandable you feel upset."

The older woman's voice was quiet, firm, and unsettling, like one of the many therapists Emma had been forced to see as a child. She spoke with the certainty of experience, of knowledge, and it drove the turmoil inside Emma's mind to new heights of frenzy.

Fear. Mistrust. You're the 'other'. The one to protect innocents from. Dangerous power. Do they even love you? Or are they just using you for your powers to protect them?

From her time chasing down bounty jumpers, Emma knew that frequently best offense was a good offense, so she deflected the question to ask one of her own. "Now you think you know how I feel?"

"I know you better than you know yourself, Emma."

With every word the Snow Queen got further into Emma's thoughts, making her doubt herself and everything she thought she knew about her own past. "Yeah, because you took... what?... A year from my life?"

"When you lived with me, you talked about your parents all the time. You were so angry with them for giving you up."

Giving you up. Dumped on the side of the road. Unwanted. Unloved. UnlovABLE. Useful, but not worthy. They never wanted you. No one ever did. Never anyone's first choice. Except Lily, and that was only after she screwed you over.

"They had a good reason for that. I know that now," Emma retorted, determination to hold onto that fact adding steel to her words. The words were so accurate that she couldn't even argue it anymore. Somehow, some way, this woman had been a confidante of hers as a child. For whatever reason, teenaged Emma had trusted the woman in front of her in shackles. After the series of personal betrayals and disappointments from the past few weeks, Emma found herself fighting a surprising pull toward her prisoner.

"It doesn't change the fact that you felt unwanted for 28 years," the Snow Queen reasoned, maintaining her calm, ingratiating tone and nonthreatening pose even as her disconcerting words echoed the growing clamor inside Emma's mind.

Her emotions fraying, Emma got up and started pacing in front of the desk, trying to clear her head of all the commotion and calm the increased tingling she felt coursing up and down her limbs, reaching her very core. "They didn't have a choice," she rumbled, frustration mounting at herself. She felt an obligation to defend her parents, who did what they felt they had to do, and had proven adequate…friends?...partners?...in Storybrooke since. It was hard to think of someone technically younger than oneself as a parent, the 28-year time freeze made her parental relationships even stranger than she had ever imagined they would be.

"There is always a choice, Emma. They could have kept you. They could have figured out something else. They could have tried," came the reply. Her soft demeanor was gone, replaced by pushing, prodding, and goading.

Every sleepless night, every wasted day, wondering why my parents didn't want me. I thought after the Curse broke they did, but now? Do they still? Did they ever? Abused, unwanted, unloved, undesired. Always forgotten. Always alone. Now look where you are. Alone again.

"They did what they could to save an entire Kingdom," Emma answered, slamming her hands on the desk, realizing how weak she sounded. Even defending her parents like that made it sound like they gave her up to suit themselves, never to keep her safe. . She was the one being interrogated, the way she kept flailing against the queen's verbal assaults from the defensive, pushed to admit something she couldn't. The worst part of everything she was hearing was how reasonable it all was. The older woman seated across from her was doing nothing but giving tangible voice to every doubt she'd been fighting over the past few weeks. And it was working.

"You were their only child. And they used you to break a curse. They're still using your powers," the queen goaded.

What do you do with a tool when its purpose is fulfilled? Discard it. Throw it away like trash. Oh, wait…they've done that before. Throwing you away was your only purpose.

"That's not true," Emma argued, but her replies were getting weaker every time.

"Isn't it? How many times have you saved them? How often have you felt more like a "Savior" than their daughter? And all it takes is one tiny mistake, one accident, and you and your powers go from being their salvation to their worst nightmare." The blue eyes across the table burned holes into her very soul, articulating thoughts Emma had only recently begun allowing her brain to form. The whispers were getting louder.

"You don't know them or me." Short, clipped words shot like bullets at her adversary, desperate to find any maneuvering room to clear her mind.

"I don't have to know you, Emma. I've been you... different, misunderstood, alone. And now they've chosen to have a new child. And don't you think that they thank their lucky stars every day that he was born normal?" The queen put a sickening emphasis on the last word, seemingly knowing how devastating the blow would be.

Different. Misunderstood. Alone. Just like you always were .Just like you'll always be. Neal used you, then let you take the rap for his crimes. Pregnant teenager in prison. No man ever wanted you for more than your body. You'll just be alone again.

Alone. Unwanted. Unloved. Unlovable. Undesired. Undesirable. Worthless. Trash.

"They love me," Emma growled, her rage building as it drew fuel from her uncertainty. Snow's face that very morning at Granny's fed the greatest fire. She lost the battle for control over her emotions with an almost audible snap. Her hands started tingling like they had fallen asleep, but only more so. It was almost painful. She was dimly aware of the ignored glass of water she'd given to the Snow Queen boiling like it was on a stove burner.

Still the older woman prodded her. Needled her. Pushed her. "You can't love somebody you don't understand. And do you know what happens when people don't understand something? They learn to fear it. And then they look at it like a monster!"

Monster. That's how Snow looked this morning. Protecting her baby from a danger. A monster. You're a monster. That's how they see you. Monster.

Monstrous.

A threat.

Trash.

Never good enough.

Monster.

The voices inside Emma's head became overwhelming, taking on tangible form in the person of the woman seated in front of her. Her thoughts jumbled, she couldn't focus on any one in particular with any clarity. The more she tried, the more confused she got, lost in the whirling noise. She had to do whatever she could to silence the cacophony. Turning and slamming her hands on the table, Emma willed the pain screaming up her arms to override her mental anguish, drown out the voices. "Shut up!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Regina had once told her in one of their early training sessions that magic was emotion given tangible form. In this case, her magical emotional release manifested as a swirl of light. She was almost knocked backward by the roar of an energy blast that blew a hole in the station wall.

The cinder block-and-mortar side of the station.

Which now featured natural air conditioning.

"W-what did you do to me?" Emma stammered as she looked at the white sparks flicking back and forth from fingertip to fingertip. It was something akin to having an out-of-body experience, as if she was not connected to her own physical body, just hovering and watching it all happen.

Monstrous. Look what you did. One little slap and you destroy buildings. People you love aren't safe around you anymore. No wonder they fear you.

Just like any other monster.

It was somehow the least surprising event of her day when the Snow Queen wiggled her fingers, making the supposedly magic-proof cuffs disappear. "Ah," she breathed in relief as she massaged her wrists, "All I did is show you who you really are."

"M-make it stop," pleaded Emma, now hoping for help from the woman who until moments ago had been tormenting her.

"I can't. It's you, Emma, and... It's beautiful." With a flick of her fingers, the Snow Queen disappeared in a swish of snowflakes.

She walked through the station's newest window and gaped at the damage, wrought by her own hand and out-of-control emotions. What had once been a solid wall of cinder block and mortar now lay in rubble at her feet, solely due to her haywire magic. "What have I done?" she murmured, shock overtaking her system.

After a brief moment when she felt incapable of doing anything more than stand and stare, it seemed as if half the town ran up to the station. Her parents, Elsa, Henry, Hook, Tinkerbelle, Gold, and Belle all approached the scene of the destruction. Everyone was there. Except Regina.

"Emma! You all right?" her fath – David asked, first to speak.

"We were so worried," Snow chimed in, but the memory of how the woman shied away from her made the comment ring hollow.

Nevertheless, Emma couldn't let anything happen to them because of her magic. "Wait!" She shouted, hoping against hope the group would actually listen and stop.

"Seems you didn't need my help after all," Gold observed, limping along behind everyone else with Belle.

Hook must have been feeling residual guilt, as he approached her from the outside, putting himself between her and any external threats. "Swan, what did that monster do to the Sheriff's Station?"

Monster Monster Monster Monster Monster Monster. You're a monster. A pirate who spent literal centuries pillaging and plundering just called you a monster.

"The 'monster' who did this was not the Snow Queen. It was me," Emma growled, hating every word that came out of her mouth.

David, bless him, looked like he refused to even entertain the notion that she could do something so destructive. "What?" he asked, incredulity written across his face. He was the only one. Rumple looked suspicious, Belle was analyzing the evidence in front of her, Henry looked perturbed, Elsa had a sympathetic, pitying, understanding expression, Snow was just as fearful as the morning at the bed and breakfast, and Hook looked wary, like he was calculating how to respond to a threat.

He was. He was facing a monster.

"Just keep your distance. I don't know if I can control myself. I don't want to hurt anyone," she ordered, hands spread wide to show them the sparks flying from her fingers.

Her parents and Hook started approaching cautiously, ignoring Rumple's warning to listen to the other magic-user. "We should heed her words."

Elsa spread her own hands out, approaching her like a skittish horse. "Emma, we can help," she said in a slow, calm tone.

"Just stay away!" she shouted.

Hook used that moment of distraction to grab her hand.

Several things happened all at once. Somehow, her magic reacted to counter what her mind saw as a threat. Emma shouted at him to let her go while a surge of energy through her still-tingling hands sparked to the nearest object. In this case, it was a light pole. The metal pole snapped at its base in exactly the right place and angle, and fell like a tree cut by a lumberjack straight at Hook. At the last moment, David pushed him out of the way, absorbing a glancing blow from the falling metal.

Snow rushed to her husband, groaning and holding his shoulder on the ground. "David!"

As he attempted to stand, she gave Emma a glare of pure outrage. "Emma!"

In that moment, Emma knew she was no longer her mother's daughter. Not only had the woman shielded a baby from her while she accidentally boiled breastmilk was one thing, but to turn on the same daughter and blame her for something that had been an instinctual response to a perceived threat combined with David's bravery…was just too much.

Emma was an orphan again.

Dimly aware of Snow calling after her to turn around and come back, she turned to flee the scene, protecting everyone she still cared about from herself. Hook, Henry, and David joined in the guilty chorus, but her ears were deaf to their cries. Her only conscious thought was to take herself far away, where she could do no more damage for them to fear.

No more monster. No more threat. You're supposedly the Savior, the hero, right? So save them from YOU. Run. Do what you do best.

Her Bug left them in a cloud of gravel and smoke as she did as much of a burnout as the decades-old car was capable of doing.

It was surprisingly easy to drive through clouds of tears.

Monster.

A/N: Hear that sound? We're just about at rock bottom. Poor Emma. It broke my heart to write this, but this was the event that really started me thinking of this plot, so it had to be done.

Thoughts?