Here she comes, Elsa, Captain of the Swan-Queen ship, for those who wanted to see her back.

Happy reading and please forget about that horrible "You (Robin) and Henry are the only one to believe in me." Maybe Regina got drunk smelling Robin's breath...?

Enjoy!

Chapter 8

Gift for the Future, Token of the Past

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As Regina had left on her quest for a pony, Emma took the opportunity to try something. She probably should have asked the brunette to help, as she had originally intended, but things had gotten... stranger. So she decided to go along with her plan without her teacher. At least, if the worst came to the worst, she would just blow herself up.

As she approached the ice wall surrounding the town, Emma got out of her car. A few weeks ago, she had been trapped in those same walls, freezing to death, unable to use any magic. Now she could make a wooden horse gallop. And she had kissed Regina, twice. Things had changed. She wasn't too sure of where she stood and where to go, but that kiss had made one thing clear. She had been right to break up with Hook.

The man had an almost desperate love for her, and she couldn't walk all over his feelings like that, going around kissing other people. Women. Villains. Whatever!

Emma climbed up a few rocks of ice before kneeling above where she had last seen that necklace. Closing her eyes, Emma focused on her anger, making heat radiate through her body. She quickly felt the tears run down her cheeks but rubbed them of without a thought. She needed that necklace. She would get it. Her hand started making a hole in the ice, slowly melting it down. Emma's emotions were less and less under control but she refused to stop.

"I want that necklace!"

Suddenly the ice split in two, reviling the jewelry a meter below. Emma gasped and reached down to get the silver snowflake. She quickly climbed down the ice wall and ran to her car, half wondering if the Snow Queen wasn't responsible for that miracle, hiding in a corner, watching her.

A few minutes later, Emma was siting on a bench just outside of the sheriff station. She was feeling a little better now but the magic lesson had left her emotionally exhausted. She couldn't face her father at that point, or any other member of her family. She had asked her mother to tell Elsa to met her there and that had been hard enough on it's own.

"Emma?" Elsa was approaching, looking like she didn't dare being hopeful.

"Hey. Sorry to have dragged you out but..."

Emma pulled the necklace out of her pocket, holding it in front of her. Elsa placed her hands on her mouth, eyes filling with tears.

"You found it," she whispered, taking the jewelry and holding it against her heart.

"Hey. A few lessons with Regina and I manage to break through that ice wall just enough to grab it."

Emma was trying to sound casual but Elsa's emotions were contagious and the eyes started glittering with tears. The queen pulled her into a hug.

"Thank you. Thank you so much. See," Elsa took a step back to look her in the eye. "Getting rid of you magic wasn't the solution. Your magic did this... It gave me back a little bit of Anna."

Emma smiled, feeling both proud and embarrassed.

"You'll thank me when we have all of your sister back. I already called Regina. We'll be able to use a location spell tomorrow morning. Time for her to make it."

"Then I owe you both."

She must have made strange face because Elsa's expression changed to that insistent gaze and ghost smile. Emma felt the red burning her checks and shifted uncomfortably. Elsa pinched her lips, nodding like Emma had just given her the answer to her unspoken question.

"Do you want to talk about it?" the queen asked gently.

"Talk about what?"

God! Even to her that didn't sound convincing. After a instant of trying to hold Elsa's gaze, Emma simply gave up. She sighed and sat back down on the bench.

"I... It's... complicated."

"Because she use to be a foe?" Elsa asked, sitting down next to her.

"No. I got over that a long time ago. It's... Henry, and my parents, and the... people."

"Are you afraid of what people might think of you?"

"No... Yes... Maybe. A little. It's just, I have enough problem without adding... this."

"This...? What is upsetting you like that? You didn't seem to take it so hard with Hook."

"It's not the same. Hook was... you know... a guy."

"I... I'm sorry I though it was a common thing here. For women to have feelings for women and men for other men."

"No it's not. I mean it should be but really it's not. How is it back in Arendelle?"

"It doesn't exist, as far as I know. I never heard about it, or read about it. And I read a lot growing up."

"So you didn't even know it was possible a few weeks ago? And you're just... OK with it?"

Elsa just smiled at her, elegant and composed when Emma was feeling agitated and messy.

"I don't really see what could be wrong with that. Indeed it seemed strange at first but love is love. As long as those feeling are true, it doesn't matter what form they take."

"Wow! No one talked about love here! I just... like her."

"Well I don't see what's wrong with that."

Emma fell silent for a moment, letting the kind and honest words sink in. It didn't really solve her problem, or made it any better, but at least she had put her finger on what was bothering her so much. She liked a woman. And not just in a physical way, which would have been a lot simpler. She liked her, as a person, regardless of her gender.

"Besides..." Emma turned to Elsa who was talking with an impish smile. "She has both of her hands."

Emma just stopped for a second, her moth opening.

"Did you just make a dirty joke?"

"Me? Well that wouldn't be very queenly."

Emma laughed out loud, may be more than the moment deserved but it felt good. Elsa chuckled along with her, a half proud half embarrassed smile of her face.

This time Henry had sworn to stay at her parents' place for the night. Considering Emma and Regina were making a habit of kissing out of the blue, she didn't want the boy to notice anything strange. She would be gone the next day, making sure Henry stayed at Regina's at least for the weekend. She owed it to both to Regina and her son, who had a tendency to take his adoptive mother for granted and didn't always make the effort of reminding her how much he loved an needed her.

The evening had been a little awkward as Regina had stayed in her vault to work on the location spell, while Emma had the house to herself. She didn't fell comfortable here on here own and found herself basically doing nothing. The reasonable plan would have been to sleep. She really needed to reload her batteries and let the magic lesson wear off. But she wanted to talk to Regina.

Not talk-talk but normal-talk, just to now that things weren't irremediably weird and changed.

When the front door opened at eleven pm, Emma was sitting on the stairs, half asleep, starting to worry a little about Regina. The brunette came in on her tiptoes, before making eye contact and startling a little bit.

"What are you doing here?"

Emma shook herself awake, too tired to make the effort to stand up.

"Hey. Wanted to talk to you."

"Oh... Yes, I guess we should have that talk."

Regina's voice got cold and distant. She turned around to take her coat of, breaking eyes contact.

"Not that talk, Regina. I'm way too tired for that."

Regina put her coat down and walked back in front of the stairs, looking confused.

"Are we good?" Emma asked. "I mean you're not angry at me or anything?"

"No... I'm not."

"Good, cause I really need to talk to my friend."

Emma had let out that last word very, very carefully. She watched Regina's face go from confusion to surprise, and from surprise to worry. The woman clasped her hands in front of her, looking a bit uneasy, before climbing up a few steps and sitting down next to Emma. A good twenty centimeters away from her. Emma tried to pull herself together but it really wasn't working. That conversation with Elsa was playing round and round in her mind, twisting her stomach a little more each time.

"So... what is it?" Regina asked a little brutally but not sounding mean.

"I'm freaked out. No, I'm actually down right terrified."

"Terrified by what?"

"You. No. I mean, not you you... Just you... You're...A woman. Oh gosh! That sounds awful."

Regina stayed silent for a moment, then chuckled, and started to laugh. Really laugh. Emma turned to her, confused and lost. The brunette was bowed forward, one of her hand in front of her mouth, trying to control her amusement.

"What's so funny about that?" Emma asked, feeling a little hurt to be mocked.

"Of all the things you could have said... I'm a villain. I'm a murderer. I'm evil. I'm... twice your age. And the only thing that bother's you is that I'm a woman?"

"Well...yea? I mean you use to be evil, and a villain, but that's not the case anymore. And Hook was no angel so... Yea I can live with that."

"But not the fact that I'm a woman."

Emma turned away, blushing heavily. She bowed forward to catch her toes. She really wasn't comfortable with Regina laughing at her. She didn't feel like laughing at all, and was hurt by the woman's lack of understanding.

"Have you never been attracted to a woman before?" Regina asked very gently, obviously trying to make up for her clumsiness.

"No, never. Have you?"

Emma was still a little hurt but she managed to turn to the other woman. Regina was looking at her with kindness and... a strange little bit of joy.

"Yes. I even had feelings for one, a long time ago."

"Really? What happened?"

Regina sighed heavily.

"The same thing that happens every time I touch something. I broke everything. She was part of a itinerant circus that came every fall to the King's caste. I had met her long before that, back when I was a kid, and when we saw each other again things changed. It wasn't really a relationship. She came every fall and it was nice when she was there, singing for me, and I felt empty when she left. When I became The Queen, I offered her to stay with me in the castle but she refused. She wanted her freedom, so, of course, that's exactly what I took from her."

"You forced her to stay?"

Regina nodded slowly, the painful memories making her forehead wrinkle and her smile tense.

"I locked her up in a room and she never spoke again. The voice that had filled my heart for years, I never heard it again. After three years I let her go. But she never came back."

Regina chuckled bitterly.

"Still want to kiss me now?" she spat.

Actually, Emma really wanted to. Just a little, on the cheek. But she couldn't get herself to do it.

"That was who you were, not who you are. I too had my share of horrible decisions and down right mean actions. I'm not saying that it makes it OK, or that everything we do should be forgiven if we really regret it, but you can't live in the past. It's going to eat you up."

"Like you have any idea what it feels like to have to live with a bad decision. A real bad one."

There was no meanness in Regina's voice, just pain and disbelief. She saw Emma as the savior, and of course the savior had to be a white knight all good and shinny in his golden armor. Well that wasn't the truth.

"When I was thirteen I had a man as my foster parent. He was a good man but very strict and he had an gift for bring in people down. I was just hitting puberty and... I don't know I was lost and confused about my gender and body and... And I lied to one of the social workers, saying that he had touched me."

Emma took a long pause, looking at the floor, trying to gather her courage. She had never told that story to anyone, and she would never tell it to her family. That was one of the darkest moment of her life.

"I didn't think that anything would happen, but next thing I knew the police was here, questioning me, and I got too scared to say the truth. I lied again. He was named Robert Read, and even though he never got sent to jail as the officers were suspecting me to lie, he lost his job, his family and everything. Two years later I learned that he had died in a car accident. Drunk driving. Two full year where I could have said something but I never did."

Emma was crying, tears rolling down her face in silence. She didn't want to cry. Regina never shade a tear over her past mistakes, never asking for anyone's pity. Yet Emma couldn't stop herself. She could wipe her face angrily as many times as she wanted, the tears kept falling.

"You screwed up..."

If Regina's words cut deep but it was the brunette's hand on her back that really affected Emma. They stayed silent for a long moment, until the blonde felt like she could talk again.

"We make quite a team. The murderer savior and the repented villain."

Regina didn't answer. There wasn't anything to say really.