CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Past
Regina's fingers fisted in the sheets, a sleepy, breathless gasp falling from her lips as she awoke with a head between her thighs.
It felt like déjà vu, for the last time Regina had given control entirely to the woman who shared her bed, she had awoken the next morning with the same sensation. Perhaps, in Emma's mind, it was her way of apologizing for the pain she had caused, despite the fact that she had no reason to feel guilty for it. Still, back then they were in a far different place then they were now, and even though Regina knew that Emma needed sex as a distraction last night, she really hadn't expected to wake up this morning with a tongue halfway inside of her.
Regina stirred, a soft whimper escaping her lips as she began to lift her hips from the bed. She was lying on her stomach, as her backside was still far too sore to put weight on, and her erect nipples were beginning to strain against the mattress. Emma stopped for a moment, realizing Regina had awoken, and she placed a soft kiss on the back of the brunette's knee.
"You gonna get pissed at me again…?" she asked, her voice husked with sleep, and it was then that Regina remembered that the last time this had happened, it hadn't gone particularly well. But back then Regina hadn't wanted to wake up next to the woman that currently was in her bed, and now she found it was the only thing she ever wanted to do anymore.
It's funny, how one's brain can pick and choose the things to remember. And perhaps, in a way, that was what Emma was doing now, for if she had taken everything into account between them when she first thought of doing this, it was unlikely that she would have ever even began. Still, Regina wasn't a fool, and she planned to enjoy it while it lasted, for it seemed that things between them never stayed good for very long.
"No," she breathed, her hips craning for more contact as Emma placed feather-light kisses up her thigh, coming closer once more to the junction between her thighs. "Don't stop," Regina begged softly, a whimper escaping her throat as the blonde's fingers ghosted lightly over her dampened flesh. "Emma, please…"
Emma fucked her slowly, taking her time drawing every moan, every gasp, every plea from Regina's parted lips. She spread her open with her fingers as she slipped both of her thumbs deep inside of her, and her mouth never left her throbbing center until Regina was shaking, panting, begging, coming for her in an intense wave of pleasure that Emma had taken careful time to build and execute. And as Regina lay there, her flushed cheek pressed against the coolness of the sheets, Emma carefully situated herself next to her, face only inches from the brunette's as she looked into her eyes.
Regina wished she could read minds. The expression on Emma's face was hard to decipher, and as Regina tried to catch her breath, she gently lifted one hand and ran the tips of her fingers across Emma's jawline. "Talk to me," she encouraged softly, knowing at the very least, Emma had something that she needed to say.
Emma hesitated for a moment, inhaling a long breath of air before she spoke. "I want to stay here," she admitted in a whisper, and Regina's eyebrows furrowed.
"Manhattan?" Emma shook her head, not expecting Regina to really understand. The brunette felt her throat tighten as she revised her question. "With… with me?"
There was something terribly frightening about that, because in the back of Regina's mind, she knew that Emma would only want to because of what happened with Neal. In the end, it had seemed she had deemed Regina the lesser of two evils, something she could at least begin to understand, but that didn't mean that she wanted it. Regina knew that – it killed her – but she knew that. They had a long way to go if there was even a hope of them being together again in that way.
Emma swallowed hard, and an unexpected tear fell delicately down her cheek. Regina wiped it away with the pads of her fingers, and the blonde took a shuddered inhale of breath as she admitted, "I know it's selfish. You can't pretend with me forever. But it's just… easier, sometimes; hiding from everything while I'm with you. I'm so…" But Emma choked up, another tear slipping down her cheek as she admitted, "I feel so fucking weak, Regina, and you—"
"No," Regina told her firmly, cupping the other woman's cheek in her palm as she looked deep into her eyes. "Emma, listen to me; you are not weak. Having an addiction, being unable to handle seeing your ex like that, that's… it's human, it's—"
"If it's so human, then why am I the only one falling apart?" Emma asked her bitterly, her words being broken by her sorrow. "You don't understand, Regina, you couldn't—"
"No?" Regina countered, feeling her heart begin to beat harder in her chest as she allowed herself to reveal her own weakness. "You really think I don't know what it's like to have something consume you, to take you over completely and destroy your life? I watched my mother go down that path and like the ignorant child that I was, believed I could just touch it, just once, and be stronger than that; stronger than her."
"But I wasn't," Regina admitted softly, feeling emotion begin to well up in her throat, "because people like us, Emma… we can't just touch something once and let it go. If it masks its horror with a feeling of freedom, we drown in it without question, because all we want is to no longer feel like a victim of circumstance and cruelty. And yet, in the end, it's probably all we're ever going to be, because if something isn't destroying us, we feel apt to destroy ourselves. It's all we've ever known."
Emma's brow creased as she blinked away her tears, not understanding at all what Regina was referring to. "Regina, what are you…?"
Regina looked at her incredulously. How could she not know? They were so alike, and because Regina saw so much of herself in Emma, she believed the other woman would as well. But Emma had been so consumed with herself as of late, that perhaps she hadn't realized that the person she was bound to was so very much the other side of the same coin.
"When I… when I realized that I was in love with you," Regina began softly, trying to show Emma what she meant in a way that she could relate to, "I wanted all of you. I wanted to… to touch, to feel, to love, to consume, to be a part of everything that you are. But there was a part of you that I left untouched, because I hadn't known it was there. But when I did…"
Regina's hand cupped the side of Emma's face, her thumb slipping over her bottom lip before, without any warning, she focused on what it was that she needed, and pulled. It wasn't physical, but Emma felt Regina begin to take the very essence that made her her, and her lips parted in a gasp as her eyes widened in shock. It was like a hunger, consuming Regina from the inside out as she tasted the purest power she had ever felt. She wanted to devour her whole, take everything that Emma was and keep it for herself, and the desire was frightening in its ferocity.
And should it have been anyone else but Emma, Regina knew she would have syphoned every ounce of magic from her soul and left her to wither. The feeling of her, it was the most intoxicating thing she had ever felt.
Still, what Regina felt for the woman she stole from gave her the strength to stop, or at least, she had believed so. However when the time came for her to pull away, Regina found that she couldn't. Panic erupted inside of her and it took a moment to realize it was because Emma had a vice-like grip around her wrist, holding her hand where it was. "Emma…?" she gasped, perplexion settling across her face. "Stop, I… I need to let go."
Emma stared into her eyes, her chest heaving from the feeling of being robbed of her sense of self, and she asked her in a scratchy voice, "If you don't, could it… could it kill me?"
"Yes," Regina stressed in a panic, needing her to understand that now was not the time to play games like this. She was just trying to make a point, and fuck, she should have just spoke instead of acted. "Emma, let… let me go now."
Emma shook her head, and fear ignited in Regina that perhaps Emma was trying to get her to kill her, until the blonde told her in a weak voice, "Heal yourself."
"…What?"
"You're not… you're not as fucked up as you think you are," Emma told her heavily, walking a dangerous line for reasons Regina couldn't even begin to understand. "Darkness isn't the only thing that's inside of you, so… so I don't care if you don't think you can't do it consciously, because you healed me once before with my… with whatever you're taking from me, and I… I need you to do it again."
"Why?" Regina demanded breathlessly, still unable to understand why Emma was doing this. This was some kind of test that she wasn't nearly prepared for, and the subject terrified her to death, because her body reacted to the physicality of their touch. Her body ached for the magic that resided inside of Emma, and once that barrier broke, Regina was able to control her consumption unless she stepped away from her.
And right now, she couldn't.
"Because if you don't," Emma told her softly, simply. "I'm going to die."
Regina felt like she was going to vomit. She was already taking way too much from her, and the stronger she got, the weaker Emma became. She tried to use her magic to blow Emma back from her, but the addict inside of her couldn't allow separation from the source, and the longer Regina fought and failed, the more desperate and fearful she got.
Emma was starting to look very, very pale.
"Emma, stop it!" she exclaimed, her voice five octaves higher than it should have been as her throat constricted with anxiety. But Emma didn't move, using every bit of strength she had to keep Regina touching her. Stubborn until the day she died, which Regina was in an absolute panic about coming far too soon.
"I trust you, Regina," Emma told her softly, giving her a small, drained-looking smile. "Don't… don't let me die, okay?"
No, this was very much not okay!
But the longer it went on, the more frightened Regina became that she was cutting this far too close, and the desperation inside of her struggled for an answer she didn't know how to find. Because she couldn't, God, she couldn't kill Emma because of her own worthless fucking addiction to power, and it terrified her to death that perhaps, senselessly, it was stronger than her love for the woman before her. But love, True Love, was supposed to be the strongest of all things in this world, and Regina refused to lose her over something that, in the end, meant so very little when put up against how completed she became when Emma found her way into her life.
The magic wasn't for her, it was for Emma. And when Regina realized this, when she thought less about herself and more about the woman before her, loving her, protecting her, saving her, sating her every desire and need, was when something was born inside of her that felt lighter than anything she had ever experienced. It wasn't like when she healed Emma, because this… it wasn't instinctual. Regina reached for it, grasped for every thread of it and manipulated it into something of her own making and suddenly, the aches she felt subsided, and the throbbing fell away to nothing as she became whole again.
And then Emma let go.
Regina choked back a relieved sob before shoving the blonde hard in the shoulder, pushing her away from her as she struggled to get into a seated position. "Don't you ever do that to me again!" Regina demanded, wrapping her arms into herself to force herself to stop shaking. She felt manipulated and dirty; the worst parts of her being brought to light and exposed for all to see. She despised it with everything that she was.
"I'm sorry," Emma apologized softly, her eyes falling closed as how weak Regina had made her suddenly hit her full throttle. "I just… wanted to help," she breathed, sounding very close to passing out. "Since you… helped… me…"
And then she was out cold, and Regina was sobbing, finding herself quite unable to deal with everything that that experience had made her feel.
[x]
"I am being careful; it's not—fuck, it isn't like… out of everyone; I mean, I'm the last person that she would ever—"
Regina blinked heavily as she awoke, confusion washing over her as it took her a moment to remember where she was. She hadn't realized she had fallen asleep again whilst crying. It seemed Emma had already awoken as well, and although she was taking her phone call in the bathroom behind a closed door, Regina could still hear her words loud and clear. Hoisting herself into a seated position, blinking the sleep and dried tears from her eyes, Regina listened carefully, trying to figure out who she was talking to.
"—That isn't your decision, Mary Margret!"
Oh. She should have known. Emma sounded frustrated beyond measure, and hearing the word 'her' meant that Snow was arguing, once again, about Regina's involvement in all of this. She shouldn't be surprised, but it still irritated her.
"Well you don't have to trust her," Emma snapped after a moment. The second's ticked by and then Emma told her mother, "You can take that to mean whatever you want; it doesn't change anything. And I have to—I have to go, okay? I've already wasted enough time, and I can't afford to let him disappear again. I just… I don't know, thought you would want to know what was going on."
A skeptical expression crossed Regina's face, because she was certain that however that conversation went, it hadn't included the whole truth. It didn't sound at all like she revealed to Mary Margaret who Baelfire really was.
"Yeah, I know," Emma responded softly, so low that Regina had to strain to hear. "I'll talk to you later, okay? Just… lemme know if he has any ideas."
Emma made a murmured sound of acknowledgement followed by a 'bye', and when the bathroom door swung open, the blonde noticeably started when she noticed Regina was sitting up in bed. "Shit, sorry," she apologized, unable to meet the woman's gaze as she held onto the threshold of the door, putting all of her weight against it. "Didn't mean to wake you up."
"You don't look well," Regina told her softly, her eyes drinking in Emma's haggard appearance. It seemed she still hadn't recuperated yet from Regina draining her.
"I'm fine," Emma assured her, though it was less than convincing as she almost stumbled getting herself over to bed to plop down on the mattress. "Just, you know, still a little dizzy. Whatever, it'll pass."
Regina pursed her lips, lines in her face becoming etched from disappointment and anger as she told her exactly what she thought of her little stunt earlier, "You never should have done that. It was terribly foolish of you. If I had—"
"You wouldn't have."
"How can you be so sure of that?" Regina demanded, hating how confident Emma sounded in that because she herself wasn't at all. They played with fire, and perhaps it didn't kill her, but Emma ended up burned all the same.
"Because," Emma began as she moved to lie on her side, her exhaustion still very much a predominant factor after what had happened. She pursed her lips for a moment, looking up at Regina beneath her lashes as she pushed the hair from her eyes. "You… said it yourself, you know? That you would do anything for me. And, I don't know, I… I believed it. Maybe you should too."
Regina's throat tightened and she averted her gaze from her. "You're an idiot." There were more words, more reasons, but they never came. It didn't matter anyway; Emma had done what she had done, and thought herself right for it. And perhaps she had made some sort of a point, but 'doing anything' for someone didn't always guarantee a successful outcome, because sometimes there were just things that one could not feasibly do.
"Maybe," Emma murmured in agreement, using her arm as a makeshift pillow as she looked up at the woman sitting next to her. "But I was still right."
Regina scoffed at that, but didn't argue against her. In the end, she really didn't want to have this conversation. She had spent so much time focusing on Emma's problems that she hadn't even realized how uncomfortable it would be for her to share her own, despite knowing that it would allow them to relate to one another. It was… that wasn't how that was supposed to go, and now Regina needed to run as far away from it as she could.
"Your mother called," she mentioned instead, not posing it as a question, as she already knew. Emma murmured a small sound of acknowledgement and Regina's gaze found the blonde's face once more. "And?"
Emma let out a loud sigh, apparently not too keen on talking about it. Picking at the bed sheets, she hesitantly revealed, "She… well, I guess Gold has a theory – you know, about why the curse didn't break right – and Mary Margaret is, uh…"
"Blaming me, of course," Regina finished for her, figuring that it would be Snow's first assumption. When something magical went wrong, it must be her fault. Although to be fair, more often than not, it really was. Still, the audacity of the woman only stood to aggravate her, as she was fairly certain she was not the one who caused the curse to become defective.
"Yeah, kind of," Emma admitted, sounding guilty on behalf of her mother. She sighed heavily, running her hand over her face to try to clear her thoughts. "I don't know. She doesn't know, really. But I guess Gold now believes that the curse didn't break right because it ended up conflicting with another, whatever that means."
Regina's eyebrows rose. "He believes there was another curse?" she asked disbelievingly, because if that were the case, it most certainly wasn't her fault; the only one she had cast was the one that brought them all here. Still, it was viable; two curses surrounding the same target could counteract with each other quite terribly, and cause one or both to become unstable.
But who else would have cursed the entire town?
Emma shrugged at Regina's questioning look. "That's the only thing he's come up with that even makes sense apparently, even though I don't…" A frustrated sigh slipped past her lips and the blonde moved to lie on her back, looking up at the ceiling. "I mean just… go figure, right? Everything's always such shit, so why wouldn't there be another curse? That's just how life goes for us."
"Emma, I don't… I think Gold may be mistaken," Regina told her, trying to not let the woman get wrapped up in unwarranted pessimism. "It might make perfect sense, but in all reality, the only two people capable of cursing an entire town are myself and Gold, and if neither of us did it, then it doesn't seem viable."
Emma said nothing, and it spoke volumes.
"What?" Regina asked, looking down at her. "What are you not telling me?"
Emma took a deep breath, her eyes flicking to Regina's for a moment before hesitantly telling her, "Nothing. It's… it's nothing."
Regina didn't believe that for a moment. There was a certain way that Emma looked when she lied, and right now her expression told far more than her words could. "Emma."
"…I didn't tell her."
Regina's brow furrowed. "What?"
"About Neal," Emma answered, exhaling a long breath as she fisted her hands and pressed them over her eyes. "I acted like he was some random guy, because I don't know how to fucking tell her… anything, really. I don't even know how to deal with it; I just fuck off and fuck you and try not to think about how I can't just put it off seeing him again forever and I just… I can't talk about it with her. I don't know how."
Regina pursed her lips into a firm line before informing her, "You're deflecting the conversation."
"Yeah," Emma actually admitted, sighing softly as she sat up to lean back on her hands. "Just… let me right now, okay?"
Regina chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, before finally relenting with a nod. She just had to hope that, when Emma was ready, she'd reveal what she had been hiding from her. Regina didn't like it, but she didn't want to push her; Emma was in a fragile enough state as it was.
Silence enveloped the room for a moment, and then Regina admitted softly, "Emma, I… I don't want that man near our son."
Emma's eyes found hers, taking a moment to read what lay beneath Regina's expression. Finding what she was looking for – apprehension, possessiveness, fear – Emma's brow furrowed as she told her, "Regina… Neal, he's—he's not gonna end up being some kind of replacement for a proper family. I mean, are you kidding me? I can barely even look at him, let alone even think of being with him again, even if it was just for Henry's sake; and you know, I think when you put our parenting skills up against each other, it's pretty damn clear that biology means absolute crap. He's not Henry's family; at most, he's his sperm donor as much as I was his incubator."
Regina shot her a dark look. "Don't you dare talk about yourself like that. You're more to that child than some random woman who gave birth to him, and you know it."
Emma looked like she was about to retort, but Regina didn't give her the chance as she outwardly deflated and allowed her paranoia over the situation to consume her. "I merely… I know that we have to bring him back, despite how many reasons we both have to not want to, and it's… it's difficult to believe that it won't change anything. He's Henry's biological father, your first love—"
"That means nothing, Regina," Emma told her firmly, and like a part of her couldn't even believe they were having this conversation. "And you know it. With… you know, with what we are to each other, would you leave me if your first love suddenly showed back up in your life?"
Regina's stomach tightened as she avoided eye contact and reminded her pointedly, "You've already left me, dear."
"Yeah, and let me tell you how well that one worked out for me," Emma shot back sarcastically, gesturing to the space between their half-naked forms just inches from each other on the bed. "I did such a great job of it, obviously."
Regina exhaled a disbelieving breath as she hoisted herself off the bed, needing to establish some space between them. "Sex is meaningless," she harshly reminded her. "You use my body as an escape from your problems and I let you; that doesn't, in any way, mean that you are mine."
"Fine, maybe not," Emma responded, accepting her point as valid. "But I'm pretty sure that, whether I like it or not, I'm gonna be yours more than anyone else's for the rest of my goddamn life." Her eyes connected with Regina's. "Tell me I'm wrong."
Regina stayed silent.
"Neal fucks me up," Emma admitted, her throat sounding a little tight at those words, "but he doesn't fuck us up, and I'm not about to let him fuck up Henry either."
Regina continued to say nothing, shifting her weight between her feet as she tried to formulate a response, a reason for why she still felt so utterly uncomfortable with this entire situation.
"You still haven't answered my question."
Regina looked over at her, taken a little off guard as she was torn from her thoughts. "What?"
"If your first love came back into your life, would it change things? Would you go to him, and leave what you felt for me behind?" Emma asked her, a small sliver of vulnerability painted across her face despite how confident she was trying to sound. "Because if you can answer me that, then maybe you'll understand why Neal is so very much not a factor in anything."
"Daniel is dead," Regina bit back angrily, her gaze boring into Emma's. "So it's not a relevant comparison, because he will never come back into my life even if I wished him to. Neal is here, now, and he is not going away. So I would appreciate it, dear, if you did not try to comfort me with anything related to that."
Emma looked like she had been slapped across the face. Her jaw slacked, and surprise and upset etched across her face as she reached for and stuttered over her response. "Oh… oh God, Regina, I'm—I'm sorry, I didn't… I didn't know."
Regina wrapped her arms around her torso and turned away from her, fighting the urge to not get emotional over it. "I know," she admitted softly, because Emma hadn't, and it would hardly be fair to blame her for it. Still, it was not something she needed to remember right now, on top of everything else.
"How… did he die?" Emma asked hesitantly, clearly unsure of whether or not she should even ask. Regina said nothing though, continuing to stare at the far wall as Emma chewed on her bottom lip. "It's fine, Regina, you… you don't have to tell me. It's okay."
Regina swallowed, feeling tears prickling the back of her eyes. She shook her head to try to hold them at bay while she ran her fingers through her hair. "You are not ready for that conversation, dear, believe me. You even said yourself yesterday that you wished to know nothing about my past."
"I was angry," Emma told her softly. "That doesn't…" Releasing a soft sigh, Emma looked out the far window and admitted, "That doesn't mean that I don't need to. If we… I mean, there's always going to be an 'us', you know? No matter how much I fight against it, that's not gonna change. I get that now. I still fucking hate that apparently neither of us have a say in it, but I get that there's nothing I can really do about it anymore."
"And I… I can't promise that knowing about your past is going to change anything for the better, or that it won't make things worse," Emma continued after a breath, her words soft and honest. "But it's probably stupid to avoid it forever, because one way or another, I'm gonna find out. And I just…" She took a deep breath, gaze finding Regina's once more, "I think it's probably better if I find out from you, you know? That's… that's what you wanted, right?"
"Yes," Regina breathed, and it was the truth, despite how very not ready she felt for it. Inhaling a shuddered breath, Regina allowed herself to sit on the edge of the bed, her arms still wrapped firmly around her midsection. She stayed silent for a long time, and Emma merely watched her as Regina tried to come to a decision she didn't know if she was ready to make.
"Why do you want to have this conversation?" Regina asked after a long moment, glancing at the blonde out of the corner of her eye. "Is it merely because you find me easier to deal with than Neal right now?"
Emma worried her bottom lip as she shifted on the bed. A small shrug followed. "Maybe," she admitted softly. "But last night was…" Emma struggled to find a word to describe it, but came up blank and sighed. "I think you've earned the right for me to hear you out, at the very least. But it… it doesn't have to be about this, if you don't want. And it doesn't even having to be right now. Just… something, someday, that you think I should probably know. And I'll listen, okay?"
While Regina was glad that Emma finally understood what she meant to her, what she would do for her, it still didn't diminish her anxiety about the conversation. There was a part of her, a very large part of her, that needed to tell Emma everything, for the woman was so much a part of her that to keep her in the dark seemed so terribly wrong. Yet Regina hadn't spoken about that part of her life for so long that she didn't know how to start, nor if she even could.
Silence passed between the two women again as Emma waited for her to come to a decision. A hand slid across the mattress and tentatively covered her own, and Regina looked down at it and then up into Emma's eyes before she began softly, "Daniel was our stable boy."
Regina tore her eyes away from Emma's face as the woman squeezed her hand reassuringly, and the brunette's voice hitched as she told her, "He was… kind, gentle. He saw me as a person, and not some faceless title of nobility, or someone's—my mother's property. Which I had… spent a great deal of my life believing as though I was nothing but."
A tiny, yet sad smile graced her lips and she breathed, "He saw who I really was, when no one else had even bothered to look before. He made me feel like I mattered, because to him… I did."
Blinking rapidly to try and keep her tears at bay, Regina inhaled a deep breath and continued, "But I knew my mother would never allow me to marry him. I was… she told me I was meant for much grander things, and it seemed nearly everyone was beneath what she believed I was worth. Until, one day, Daniel and I were meeting secretly in the fields, as we so often did, and a… a wild steed ran past us, a young girl holding onto it for her life as she screamed for help…"
Regina's jaw locked and she allowed herself a moment's pause, trying to keep her emotions at bay; all the anger, the resentment, and the regret was bubbling up inside of her, yet she tried to force it down to continue her story. "I saved her," Regina whispered. "I saved her, and what was supposed to be the right decision ended up destroying my entire life."
"My…?" Emma asked her, yet the word didn't come. The woman was still wary about saying it out loud, but it didn't matter because Regina knew what she meant.
"Your mother, yes."
Emma's brow furrowed, her expression stating plainly how she didn't understand how Regina began to hate her mother if all Snow was guilty of was nearly getting herself killed. But Regina wasn't finished, and Emma must have assumed so, because she didn't ask the question she was obviously wondering. She kept herself quiet, waiting for Regina to continue.
The brunette swallowed the lump in her throat, her mind flashing back to a time she would rather forget, and tears began to well up in her eyes. "I think my mother planned it. Somehow, I… I don't know how, but the next day, Snow's father came to our castle and—" Regina sniffled, dabbing the undersides of her eyes with the pads of her fingers. She hated this; she hadn't even gotten to the worst part and already she was crying. She didn't know how she was going to make it through this story.
"Leopold's Queen had died, leaving Snow without a mother," Regina told her softly. "And… and despite the fact that I only had a handful of years on the girl, he believed I would be best suited for the role, and asked for my hand." Regina swallowed hard, still staring at the far wall, and revealed, "My mother, of course, accepted on my behalf without a care as to how I would feel about it. Leopold was… he was near my father's age, and while that wasn't exactly uncommon in the Enchanted Forest, it still made me…" Regina exhaled a small sigh, feeling foolish because of her mother's lectures about the subject being ingrained in her mind. Still, she revealed to Emma, "I was not comfortable with it."
Emma scrunched up her face, her thumb slipping over the back of Regina's hand. "That's… I get that." The blonde shifted uncomfortably in her seat, a question on the edge of her lips that took her a minute to even ask. "Were you, uh… how old were you, exactly?"
"Eighteen," Regina told her, then laughed bitterly as she wiped a stray tear from off her cheek. "Although my mother was already well on her way to deeming me an 'old maid' before that; most girls within noble families were married off right after they first bled. Age did not matter; merely the ability to produce heirs."
"Oh, ew," Emma responded, her face masking into one of disgust as she thought about how old those girls had to have been. "That's totally fucked, Regina; especially if most of the dudes they got married to were a lot older."
"That was the way of things," Regina told her softly, shrugging lightly. "Therefore, my feelings of discomfort over the situation were harshly reprimanded. I was to become Queen, and that was all that mattered. My life, from thereon out, was meant for nothing else but the satisfaction of the King, which my mother made sure I—that I understood exactly what…"
Regina's words dissolved into a choked sob as she placed her hand over her mouth in some desperate, yet useless attempt to hold herself together. But her mind was trapped in memories she did not wish to revisit, and there were some things that Regina could never voice out loud anyhow. Not to Emma, not to anyone. They invaded the darkest corners of her mind that elicited nothing but shame and disgust, and if Regina could not even accept them, then it was unlikely that anyone else would either. And she couldn't bear having someone think of her the way she thought of herself.
"I'm sorry," Regina choked out, feeling the need to apologize for reasons beyond her understanding. She knew she was privy to having emotions and feeling them, and yet speaking about her past tended to jolt her back into a mindset it took years for her to overcome.
Emma looked a little at a loss about what to do to comfort her, and after a moment a tentative hand got placed on Regina's lower back, rubbing slow circles with her thumbs at the base of her spine. "It's okay," she whispered, not really knowing what else to say. The blonde was still fidgeting uncomfortably though, having so many questions but seemingly unwilling to push them upon Regina when she was like this.
Finally though, Emma told her softly, "To be honest, every time you talk about your mom, it kind of… freaks me out. I don't really know why, but it just… something about her seems really fucked up." She tried to catch Regina's gaze, but the sorceress would not give it to her. "And I… you know, I don't really care if 'that was the way of things', she still sounds like she looked at you as a possession and not an actual person."
"She just…" Regina tried, wiping away more fallen tears with the base of her palm. "She merely wanted what was best for me…"
"Sounds like a load of bullshit, if you ask me."
"Well I didn't," Regina snapped, finally turning to look towards her, eyes bloodshot and angry. "My mother may have been sadistic in her lessons, but I know she believed she was doing the right thing. She thought she was teaching me, trying to… to make me into the best version of myself that I could be. It may not be the purest love in the world, but she did love me."
Regina had to believe that. She just had to. It was the only thing that made living it bearable.
Emma pursed her lips, but said nothing to contradict her. It was obvious that Regina's feelings on the matter weren't going to be swayed, and as she already held so many conflicting feelings about the woman who raised her, Regina really didn't want to raise the issue. Cora was dead, and that part of her life was over; it was best to just forget and move on.
"So," Emma began hesitantly, trying to steer the topic of conversation back to what they were meant to be talking about. "You… you married Leopold, and then Daniel, he… did he die later?"
Regina shook her head, taking a shuddered inhale of breath as she tried to suppress her tears. Her throat was already tight and scratchy, and she still had more of this story to tell. It took a few long moments, but she finally spoke again. "No, Daniel… he and I, we were—we were going to run away together."
"I had gone to him, after Leopold proposed," Regina explained, trying to focus on the comforting hand on her lower back instead of her own plaguing memories. "I… I asked him to marry me; to run away from that place and be with me forever. And he…" Another sniffle followed, despite her efforts to hold it in. "He fashioned me a makeshift ring from off of one of the saddles, and I bound myself to him instead of the King."
"Oh," Emma breathed, realizing how bad that would have been should anyone have found out. "Oh, fuck. Did someone—?"
"Your mother," Regina answered, the words coming out forced from the tightness in her esophagus. "She saw Daniel and I kissing and ran off, and I feared she would tell… so I—I followed after her."
"She was so upset," Regina remembered, tears stinging the back of her eyes as she stared out the far window, seeing nothing but her past outside of it. "But I… I explained to her that I loved Daniel, and eventually she… seemed to understand, was even happy for me that I had found love. So I made her promise to not tell anyone what she saw, especially not my mother of all people, and Snow… she—she swore to me that she wouldn't…"
"Shit," Emma swore softly, piecing everything together in her mind as she watched Regina choke back another sob and wipe at her eyes. She looked sick to her stomach as she found herself assuming the worst, and assuming it correctly. "She told her… didn't she?"
Regina pressed a hand to her lips, feeling her tears fall delicately to her fingers, and nodded as she tried to control her emotions. "The day Daniel and I were to… to run away, my mother—she found us in the stables. Snow had told her everything."
Her tears were unstoppable now, her sorrow choking the breath from her as Regina struggled to finish, "And she… my mother, she pretended to understand, pretended to care for my happiness, and yet—" The sobs got louder then, her whole body beginning to shake with the force of them, and strong arms wrapped around her form in a gesture of comfort. "His heart," Regina gasped out, using every ounce of strength she had inside of her to tell Emma the whole story. "She… reached in and—there was… it was just dust and he…"
"Jesus," Emma breathed out in horror, cradling Regina's head in her hands as she the woman collapsed against her, unable to say anymore. "She killed him?" Regina tried to nod against her chest, but her answer really didn't matter anyhow, as Emma merely seemed to be reaffirming it out loud, to outweigh her disbelief that something like that had actually happened. It was so very much not part of the world that she knew.
"I'm sorry," Emma whispered against Regina's skin, placing a kiss on the woman's forehead as she tightened her grip, trying to protect her from a past that she could not touch. "Fuck, Regina, that's… that's terrible."
It had been such a long time since Regina had allowed herself to feel any of this again. Putting the sorrow she felt for Daniel's death in the deep recesses of her mind, she focused on her blame and anger. But here, now, all there was was despair and agony as Regina replayed the night in her mind, hating herself for ever allowing it to come to pass.
It took a long while until Regina was able to speak again. Eventually though, her eyes had no more tears to shed, and she just laid her head on Emma's chest, staring at the far wall. She felt so terribly numb.
"It was my fault," she whispered finally, unleashing a burden that Regina had, for so many years, tried to pretend didn't exist. To her, back then, it was everyone's fault but hers, for it was so much easier to unleash her revenge on others, instead of on herself.
"No, Regina—no," Emma insisted, the fingers that were threading in Regina's hair fisting for a moment to get the woman's attention. Even still, Regina didn't look at her. She couldn't. "That's fucked up. Your mother was the one who killed him, not you."
Regina shook her head, sucking in a deep breath as she pressed the pads of her fingers beneath her eyes for a moment. They felt puffy and raw. "No," she breathed. "I… I knew what my mother would do, should she have ever found out. I was selfish in trying to keep him, I was foolish in trusting a child to keep my secret, and Daniel… he lost his life for it."
Emma noticeably blanched at her words. "You… what do you mean you knew what you mother would do to him? Jesus fucking—how mentally damaged was that bitch?" she exclaimed, her horror over the situation apparent in her tone. "Christ, I just—how did you…" Emma stumbled over her words, not really knowing how to express herself after learning that. "I mean, I just… I can't even imagine your childhood. I've had my share of bad experiences, believe me, but fuck—none of my foster parents were murderers."
Regina worried her bottom lip, not really knowing how to justify her life, yet trying anyway. "It was… that was just the way I grew up; it was all I knew—"
"No, fuck that," Emma told her strongly. "I don't care if it was 'all you knew', because you should have never had fucking known that in the first place."
Regina released a soft sigh, wishing she could appreciate Emma's protectiveness over her in that moment, but the truth was, it did nothing to repair how damaged her childhood experiences had made her. "You cannot change the past, dear," she quietly responded. "So it's not worth getting angry over something you can't control, and it's pointless to complain when you're reaping the benefits from what kind of person it shaped me into."
Emma noticeably bristled in defense. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Regina turned her head to look at her finally, and the darkness of her eyes pierced the light she was confronted with. "Why do you think I need to be subjected to pain, to feel as though I'm satisfying you?" she countered softly. Guilt flashed in Emma's eyes, but Regina reached up to cup her cheek.
"I'm not saying its okay," she continued, "to have this kind of thought process. It's not. But I'm not the only one walking around with the scars of my past, Emma. I'm not the only one trying to turn abuse into trust. What we do to each other… it's how we cope. It's what we need. And despite the fact that every day, I wish that both you and I had never gone through the things that we did, in the end, if one of us had had a happy childhood, we would have never been right for each other. We would never relate, and we certainly would never be able to help each other heal."
"And are we?" Emma questioned softly, looking as though the answer to this question might make or break her. "Helping each other heal?"
Regina pursed her lips, wishing that she could say with some confidence that they were, but she couldn't. "Maybe not right now," she admitted softly. "Things between us… deteriorated, and until we can repair that, the only thing we can work towards is trust."
Emma swallowed, her eyes shifting away from Regina's gaze as she asked, "And what if we can never fix it?"
Regina gave her a soft smile in return. "The fact that you even asked that, instead of telling me for the thousandth time that it'll never happen, shows me that for once, dear, we may actually have a chance at it after all."
TBC…