Author's Note:
Just so you guys know, I have some personal fuckery going on right now that's been making me unable to focus on, well, practically anything enjoyable. Those of you who follow my tumblr are probably already aware, but as I had to delete those posts for my personal safety, I'm going to ask that you don't mention anything about it in the reviews. I'm just unsure right now when I'll have the concentration to sit down and write, therefore idk when the next chapter will be out. It could still be on a time, but just in case it's not, I wanted to let you all know that it's not because I'm slacking off; I just have other things on my mind at the moment.

CHAPTER TWENTY
Choices

"No. Absolutely not."

Emma exhaled a tired sigh as she leaned against the wall of their motel room. She knew this conversation wasn't going to go well. "Regina…"

"How can you even be considering this?" Regina raged, pacing back and forth as she glared angrily at the woman on the far side of the room. She was gesturing erratically, her hands seemingly having more to say than her words. Or maybe it was just to keep them occupied so she didn't storm over to Emma and literally slap some much needed sense into the blonde; by the look on Regina's face, it seemed as though right then she would have liked nothing but.

"Because—"

But Regina wouldn't let Emma get out her explanation. "That man ran out on you; left you pregnant and in prison, and you think he actually has the capability of not disappointing our son? If Henry meets him, you know that he will want to see more of his father, Emma. There's no way around that." Emma opened her mouth to speak, but Regina continued on her tirade, her gaze towards her angry and filled with blame. "And what if that bastard decides that fatherhood is too much of a responsibility? Do you even understand how damaging that could be to Henry? To give him something like that, only to have it ripped away again? I won't allow you to do that to him!"

"Look, do you really think that this is my first choice?!" Emma exclaimed, throwing out her hands in frustration. She didn't like that Regina was blaming her for this when it wasn't her goddamn fault. "I told Henry that his father died, Regina. Do you understand that? I fucking told him that Neal was a firefighter and that he died a hero. How the hell do you think the kid's gonna feel towards me when he finds out I lied?"

Regina looked at her incredulously. "Why the hell would you tell him something like that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Emma shot back sarcastically. "Maybe because it had a better ring to it than 'your worthless thief of a father left me to take the fall for his crime and left me to rot in prison'? Come on, Regina, he was asking. What the hell was I supposed to tell him?"

Regina didn't seem to have an answer to that and it frustrated her. Running her fingers through her hair, she exhaled an aggravated sigh and snapped, "You shouldn't have lied to him! It's going to make everything that much more complicated."

"Hey, it's not like you've been the picture-perfect image of truth to the kid either, you know," Emma responded pointedly. "So don't get onto me about doing what I thought was best for him. You do the same damn thing, Regina."

Regina shook her head. "No, I don't care, Emma. He is not meeting Henry; that's completely out of the question."

"Well that's the only way he says he'll come back with us," Emma reminded the brunette, trying to not let frustration overwhelm her as she pushed herself off the wall. "And considering the guy has apparently hundreds of years of magical knowledge on us, I don't really want to take the chance that he could actually disappear, do you? Because without him, Gold won't help us get back to Storybrooke. I'm not running that risk."

"We don't need Gold," Regina seethed. "We have access to magic; I'm sure we could figure it out eventually."

"And how long do you think 'eventually' is going to take?" Emma countered. "Despite you being the one to cast it, Gold knows more about the curse than we do. You don't even know how the damn thing shrouds the town, Regina; how do you expect to get through it if you don't even know what's hiding it?"

"And you think Gold knows?" Regina shot back. "He could be in the dark as much as I am, Emma. We don't know if we can rely on him." Running her hand through her hair in frustration, Regina's blame overrode all else as she suddenly and harshly informed her, "It was foolish of you to even embark on this little adventure in the first place; only idiots indebt themselves to Rumpelstiltskin."

"Well, fine, thanks for your assessment," Emma snapped, sitting heavily on the bed and grabbing one of the pillows before practically catapulting it across the room. "Fuck. I just… can you not? There's no use bitching at me over something that already happened; I screwed up, okay? I get that. Irresponsible Emma strikes again, whatever. But can we just focus on how to fix it instead of standing here yelling like it'll actually make some kind of goddamn difference?"

Regina just folded her arms across her chest, glaring at the blonde from the other side of the room. Emma sighed heavily.

"Look, he… Gold created the curse, didn't he? So he must know how it works. And I have to… I gotta believe that he can figure out a way back for us, okay? Because otherwise we're probably fucked."

Regina side glanced her, but said nothing for a long moment, trying to calm herself down. It took a little bit, but eventually she reminded her, "Magic is still unstable in Storybrooke. Even if Gold does figure out a way for us to get back, he will have no way of casting it. In the end, dear, this is on us."

"Then maybe he can figure out a way for us to do it," Emma responded, voicing a solution that she had already come to earlier without Regina's help, knowing that it was probably better to mention it now than have Regina find out way after the fact. The woman really did not like being kept in the dark. "I mean, even if he can't cast it, you could, right? So we just follow his instructions when he has some."

Regina shook her head, not even giving that option a chance. "No, no," she told her strongly, suddenly looking fiercely protective for reason's Emma didn't understand. "For that to happen, Gold will have to be aware that I can syphon magic from you in the outside world. Do you even understand how dangerous that could be for you? You'll become the Holy Grail for those wishing to reclaim their power, and I won't put your wellbeing at risk like that!"

Oh. Shit.

Emma chewed on her bottom lip as she looked away from her, saying absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, that seemed to voice more than words could, and Emma braced herself for the backlash that was sure to come from her thoughtless decision making.

Regina turned towards her, horror washing over her face as she realized Emma's pointed silence could only mean one thing. "Oh God," she breathed. "What the hell have you done…?"

Emma shifted from her position on the bed, feeling terribly uncomfortable because of this newfound wave of guilt that washed over her. Rubbing the back of her neck, Emma chanced glancing at Regina, and the look on her face cut through her. She looked so goddamn frightened on her behalf that it made Emma feel like absolute shit.

"I… might have told Mary Margaret," she hesitantly admitted. "That's… kinda why we were arguing on the phone; she doesn't trust you being able to control magic again. She says all it's done is allow you to hurt people, even though I told her that we found out because you healed me when I was sick."

"Why…?" Regina asked softly, before she allowed her anger to take over again and she suddenly snapped, furiously pushing over one of the end tables as she swore loudly, "Fuck, Emma!"

Emma noticeably started at the exclamation; it wasn't often that Regina swore, and when she did, it was always to accent a furious sentence, not just to scream out her frustration as she took out her anger on unsuspecting furniture. Regina almost seemed like a normal person then, not this regal political figure that she had always come off as, and god, it was strange.

But Emma didn't really have a chance to respond, as Regina whipped around to face her. "How could you be so utterly inept?! I told you what would happen if people found out, and yet you thoughtlessly spewed this information to your mother like it was completely inconsequential? Do you have no sense?!"

"Well she asked how we found Baelfire!" Emma tried to defend, although the more she tried to rationalize it, the less sense it even made. Regina was right; she had warned her about this before, but Emma hadn't taken it seriously. She had thought Regina was just overreacting, but maybe she really wasn't. And that… was so not good.

Emma had really fucked up this time.

"She knew we weren't close before, and yet all of a sudden we found him?" Emma exclaimed, still trying to defend herself even though she knew it was probably pointless. "Come on, what the hell else was I supposed to say? Besides, she was telling me that Gold wasn't having any luck with magic, so I thought maybe us having access to it could help. I was trying to get us back to our kid, Regina; don't fault me for that!"

"You…" Regina started, looking like she was about two seconds away from throttling Emma for her lack of judgment. "You told Snow to speak to him about it? Are you out of your mind?! That man is power hungry, and you just handed him a goddamn feast on a platter! Do you really believe that he'll just leave you be once we find a way back? He's going to use you for his own gain, and once word gets out of your power, everyone else who lost theirs will be lining up to try to take you from him!" Regina's hand connected with the desk chair, knocking it to the ground as she exclaimed angrily, "You thoughtless imbecile; I can't believe you would be so stupid!"

"I'm sorry, okay?" Emma exclaimed, not really knowing what to do anymore. She had thought she was making the right decision by allowing Gold to know about their ability to do magic, but she hadn't really considered what that could mean outside of allowing them to get back to Henry. "I'm sorry, I fucked up; I just… I wanted to give us a chance to get back to Henry. Isn't that what's important?"

"Of course that's what's important," Regina snapped, her fingernails scraping the back of her neck as she began to pace again. "But you… damnit, Emma, you have no idea how bad this could get! And I…" She looked over Emma, her helplessness beginning to show beneath her anger as Regina regrettably told her, "I don't know if I can protect you from that. Do you understand me? I don't know how, because protecting people isn't what I did!"

"Regina…" Emma tried softly, the apology evident in her voice as she picked herself up off the bed to cross the room towards the other woman. She placed her hands on Regina's arms, making the brunette turn to look at her. Emma needed to… she needed to fix this. Somehow.

"You don't… I mean, we don't know if that's going to happen yet, alright?" she tried, set on giving the woman 'what ifs' to try to dismantle her pessimism. "Maybe Gold won't want my magic, maybe he won't tell anyone. Maybe… maybe in the process of getting back, we actually find a way to break the curse for real this time, and magic no longer becomes inaccessible; or hell, maybe it'll just disappear all together."

Tucking a piece of stray hair behind the brunette's ear, Emma gave her a soft, encouraging smile as she tried to comfort Regina by continuing, "And besides, for all we know, it might only be you that can syphon magic from me. I mean, True Love and all that, right? We're connected. So don't… please don't freak out about this just yet; we don't know what's going to happen."

Regina pursed her lips, her arms tightening around her form as her eyes connected with Emma's. "I don't want to have to spend the rest of my life afraid that someone is going to take you from me, from Henry…"

"You won't," Emma promised, even though she knew it wasn't exactly within her power to do so. But still, she didn't want Regina freaking out about this when they didn't even know right now if it was warranted. "Trust me, Regina, I spent a hell of a long time looking for my family; do you really think I'm going to allow anyone to take me from it?"

Regina exhaled a defeated breath and shifted her gaze away from the woman in front of her. Something Emma had said had clearly hit a sore spot, and distress etched across her face as she said softly, "I really wish you would stop referring to us as family. We're not married; we're not even together anymore. I don't understand how you could possibly think that, whilst continuing to reject the idea of us ever being together again."

Emma's heart clenched in her chest, Regina's words both surprising her and bringing her a pain she hadn't really expected at the woman's rejection of the term. Her hands fell from Regina's arms, lying uselessly at her sides as she stared at her, unable to really form a response. That had hurt her, and Emma didn't really even know why. Because Regina was right, wasn't she? It didn't make any sense.

And yet she couldn't help feeling that Regina and Henry… they were the family she had always been looking for. Yes, she found family in her parents, but that wasn't where she belonged anymore. She didn't need to be raised by them; it was her time to find and create a family of her own, and they… they were it, weren't they? Emma may have had a hard time accepting that to the point of allowing it to become an actual reality, but that didn't mean that it was any less true.

"You don't… feel like we are?" Emma asked her hesitantly, trying to keep the upset from her voice but failing miserably. Her broken tone caused Regina to look at her, and her face to soften at the wounded look she was confronted with.

"I merely… fail to see the logic behind it, Emma. That's all. And when you… when you say things like that, it hurts more than if you never considered me that at all, because you're saying one thing, and doing another."

"I…" Emma tried, but found she had no words. What could she say in her defense? Regina was right. It was probably a horrible thing to say to her, considering Regina really did want them to be a family. But that was the thing, wasn't it? Emma did too. She wanted all the bullshit to not matter and just be where she belonged, but it wasn't that simple. Still, she couldn't help how she felt inside, and despite everything, Regina and Henry felt like the closest thing to family that she ever had.

"I'm sorry," Emma apologized softly, unable to look Regina in the eye. She felt like such an idiot, and the hurt that consumed her over this wouldn't allow her to just act like she was okay. Because she wasn't. And it was so fucked up, because she hadn't expected that such a simple term would actually affect her that badly. The emotion felt like it came out of nowhere, and Emma didn't really know how to handle it, or what it even meant. "I shouldn't have—I wasn't thinking. I won't say it again."

Emma heard Regina release a hesitant breath, before fingers were touching her chin and forcing her to look back at the woman in front of her. "Don't ever apologize for how you feel," she quietly responded, her eyes searching Emma's for an answer that the blonde couldn't give her. "Just don't… please don't hurt me with it."

"I wasn't trying to," Emma breathed, wishing that for once, she didn't feel like she was falling when she looked into Regina's eyes. It was disorienting in a relationship already filled with chaos. Regina's hold on her chin loosened, her fingers beginning to gently caress the porcelain of her cheek, and it was then that Emma realized just how close the other woman was to her.

Regina gave her a small, sad smile as she brushed the hair from Emma's eyes, her fingertips then trailing down the contour of her cheek bone. Emma could do nothing but stand there, entranced in a feeling that had been lost to her for a long time. There was something… different about the way Regina was looking at her, was touching her right then. It was simplistic. It wasn't in desperation, in comfort, or in an attempt to satisfy Emma's demons with sexuality. It didn't even really seem like it was about her at all. Regina looked trapped in a moment, and Emma wished she could read minds, because there was a part of her that ached to be in that moment with her.

Because despite how saddened Regina looked by it, she looked at Emma as though she still found the beauty within it, within her.

"What?" Emma asked, her tone barely above a whisper. She didn't want to disrupt whatever this was.

The fullness of Regina's palm pressed against her cheek, the sensation warm and comforting as she gently told her, "I wish I knew how to let you go…"

Emma's brow furrowed, not expecting that in the slightest. "You… what?"

But Regina just gave her another small, saddened smile as she told her, "You cannot help the family you're born to, but when you're older… that's when you get to choose your own family. And…" Regina took a breath, her hand falling from Emma's cheek to her neck as she told her, "because of how we're bound to one other, I know that you didn't get choose me, just as much as I didn't get to choose you. But I want that. I want you to choose me, Emma; I want us to choose each other. Because neither of us have ever really had the freedom to do something like that, to just… decide for ourselves what it is we wanted in life."

Emma felt her breath leave her, because that was it. That was it exactly; the reason she hated all this, the reason she fought so hard against her feelings for Regina. She couldn't be sure that they were what she wanted, because True Love didn't really give her a choice. And it took her aback, to know that Regina felt the same way, because the woman had tried so hard to prove that she was different so that they could be together again. But Regina spent her entire life having other people make her choices for her, that a part of her probably just expected that that was the way it would always be.

But Regina didn't want that, because she knew that a choice that wasn't one's own was meaningless. And that was how Emma felt about her whole life lately; her relationship, her past, being the Savior… nothing felt like a choice, but merely a path she had to go down that had no intersecting roads, no means for an escape. She would just walk from here to there, and that would be her life. That was it; she was just some puppet on strings that only danced when someone or something else willed her to do so.

And in that moment, Emma finally realized what Regina saw when she looked at her; a reflection. Emma was the person trapped on the other side of Regina's mirror, and there was something really beautifully fucked up in that revelation, because despite how badly Regina wished to free Emma from her confines, she couldn't even save herself. So she pressed against the glass and willed it to be gone, so maybe this time when they touched each other it would be because they wished to, and not due to them helplessly mimicking the other's actions as they did what reflections were expected to.

Emma wanted to shatter it.

Regina's hand fell from her skin as she exhaled a helpless sigh, but Emma quickly grabbed it in her own and forced the woman to touch her again in some wave of desperation. "So take it," she told her fiercely, this plan coming together in her mind that probably didn't have any basis, and yet she grasped for it anyway.

"What?" Regina whispered, perplexion etching across her face at Emma's request. She didn't understand what it was that she was asking.

"Take it from me," Emma reiterated, probably sounding halfway insane by how desperate that came across. She pressed herself against Regina, wrapping the other woman's arm around her waist so that this would be easier for her. Emma knew they had to be touching. "I'm made of it, aren't I? And you can… you can take that, you have taken that; used it. So just take it all, get it out of me, then… I don't know, expel it from you until it no longer exists. You can do that, can't you…?"

"Emma, it… it doesn't work like that," Regina tried to explain, looking at her sympathetically. "You're made of True Love, yes, but you're made from your parents'… not ours. And if I took that from you… I told you before that it would kill you, and I wasn't exaggerating. It's the very essence of who you are. You are a physical incarnation of their love, and us… we don't have something like that. We've never created life together. What exists between us is quite literally untouchable."

Emma felt herself deflate despite the fact that she had known it was probably a long shot. Still, helplessness and disappointment washed across her expression, and Regina exhaled a soft sigh as she gently leaned her forehead against hers. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I should have never said that when I didn't have a solution to give you. I just… I got caught up in an unrealistic fantasy, and I should have never voiced it out loud."

Emma closed her eyes, trying to suppress the conflicting feelings in her gut as she asked her, "But do you think if you did…" Fingertips brushed olive skin, and then hands were tangled together as Emma voiced something she found she couldn't keep inside, "If you had the choice, do you… do you think you still would've chosen me…?"

The question was so terribly vulnerable sounding, like for some reason the answer would sum up Emma's entire self-worth. And it scared her, because outside of being bound to Regina, she didn't feel as though she was good enough for her. She hadn't treated her well at all these past couple months, and yet, unfathomably, she reached for an acceptance she didn't believe she deserved. But then again, after everything that Regina had done while she was the Evil Queen, it was doubtful that she thought she deserved Emma either. And yet she too desired something that a part of her believed she shouldn't be allowed to have, because touching it was the closest to happy either of them had been for a very long time.

"I'm not answering that," Regina whispered, her voice suddenly sounding strained with emotion as she tried to pull away from her. But Emma tightened her hold on Regina's wrist, not allowing her to go just yet.

Emma opened her eyes, and blue eyes caught brown. "…Why?"

Regina's bottom lip trembled and she bit down, trying to control herself enough to speak. Her eyes were beginning to mist over, the sight of it slowly drilling a hole into Emma's heart as she watched Regina become overcome with an emotion she didn't understand. But she wanted to, she needed to know what the hell was making Regina look that way, and so she waited for the explanation that seemed to take an immense amount of self-control for Regina to voice without breaking down completely.

"Because," she finally breathed, her words soft and broken as she turned away from Emma's prying gaze. "Because I'm terrified to find out that our answers may not be the same…" A tear slid down Regina's cheek then, and Emma didn't think, she just moved.

Grasping her face in her hands, Emma's thumbs wiped away the remnants of Regina's distress as she closed the distance between them. The angle was bad, the kiss unexpected by the woman in her arms, and their teeth bumped together as Emma tried to find where she belonged. They moved past it though, seamlessly falling into a routine as easy as breathing once the familiarity found its way back to them.

Emma pressed herself against her, weaving her fingers in dark hair as Regina allowed her entrance, the small whimper of encouragement quickly becoming muffled by the blonde's tongue. In all honesty, Emma had no idea what she was doing, but in that moment, she just felt like she had to. Regina's lack of answer said enough for her to understand, even though, in the end, it might have only been that Regina merely wished that she would still choose her if given the opportunity, and not the certainty that she actually would. Regardless, her desire for it meant something to the woman who, for her entire life, hadn't been anyone's first choice of anything.

But Regina had been right to fear voicing it, because their answers wouldn't have been the same. Not because Emma was sure that she wouldn't choose Regina, but because she simply didn't know. It was hard to imagine, this world where she wasn't bound to the woman in her arms, and Emma had no idea if it would change anything. So what was the point really, of imagining something different? There were too many factors to consider, and in the end, it wouldn't mean anything because this was their life now.

There was no choice, there was just them.

"Fuck the answer," Emma breathed against her lips, hands finding skin as they fell beneath the brunette's shirt. Regina grasped the bottom of Emma's tank top and took a step backwards, bringing Emma with her as the blonde told her between heated kisses, "It's not… not fucking real anyway…"

"And this is?" Regina asked, her breathing becoming uneven as her back found the far wall, encouraging the blonde to press her up against it. Her teeth found Emma's bottom lip and she nipped lightly at it, pulling it towards her before releasing it and sliding her own hands up Emma's shirt, exposing her pale skin to the heavy air in the room.

"I don't know," Emma admitted, her lips having found their home at the base of Regina's neck as she breathed out her uncertainty. Sometimes though, this closeness was the only thing that made any goddamn sense to her anymore. "But it's the closest thing we've got right now."

[x]

Emma's cell phone rang from the nightstand.

"Fuck, fuck," she exclaimed, her breathing uneven as her nails scraped against the headboard. It had jolted her out of the moment, and Regina too, as her fingers stilled inside of her and she looked over at the offending object. Emma grasped onto the back of her neck, forcing Regina to look back at her and come back to the pleasure they were sharing as she pleaded, "Just ignore it… just fucking ignore it…"

"It could be important," Regina panted, her hand stilled between the blonde's spread thighs. They had barely begun, but the foreplay had been both long and passionate as they began to strip away everything that defined their relationship. It wasn't about punishment, distractions, or depression. It just… it just was, and for one goddamn second, Emma just wanted to enjoy having Regina in a way that wasn't brought about by one of her mental breakdowns.

"This is important," Emma told her, her fingertips ghosting across Regina's cheek, down her neck, before falling to her chest. Her breathing was uneven and every inch of her body felt like it was on fire, and for the first time since the curse broke, she felt like she and Regina might actually be on the same page after all. It was the closest Emma felt to being okay about being bound to the woman that shared her bed, and considering she didn't know how long that was going to last, Emma didn't want it to end prematurely. "We need this, Regina; fuck everything else right now. Please."

Her plea caused Regina's gaze to shift from the ringing phone, and she worried her bottom lip for a moment before nodding. "Okay," she relented softly, dipping her head down to place a soft, open mouthed kiss on Emma's shoulder. "But if it rings again—"

"I'm breaking the fucking phone," Emma breathed before tangling her fingers in chestnut hair, bringing Regina to her to kiss the distractions from her mind. Rolling her hips, she encouraged the brunette to continue, a breathless gasp becoming silenced by a pair of lips as Regina complied with her request.

It was strange, to feel so connected to someone through their shared inability to have a choice in the matter. In the end, they were probably doing nothing but playing into the preconceived notion that they were meant to be, and should Regina have welcomed the fact that she didn't get to choose the love of her life, this probably would have never came to be. But she was lost in it just the same as Emma, and because of that, the blonde found solace in the only person who understood how it was that she was feeling in that moment.

Maybe it was nothing but backwards logic, but right then, it was the only thing that felt like it made any sense, and the relatability was a comfort that neither of them knew they needed until they had it.

Regina's kisses were bruising until the sound of the phone ringing died out to nothing, and she pushed one of Emma's legs up to situate her body between them. Emma felt a third finger stretch her, and the guttural moan that followed was muffled as Regina began using her hips to push deeper into her. Emma broke the kiss as she grasped for the skin of Regina's back, her head falling to the woman's shoulder as she breathed out her praise. "Fuck, fuck… Regina…"

Regina began to put her entire body into the movement, jolting Emma from beneath her with every thrust of her hips against the back of her hand. Emma grasped for her, trying to find a way to touch her as well, but the angle Regina was at didn't allow it, and in the end all Emma managed to do was bang her palms against Regina's back in frustration and desperation, the pleasure causing her to arch her back and close her eyes as she thought 'screw it,' allowing herself to just succumb to the feeling Regina was giving her.

They had all night anyway.

Regina's lips found her neck, her jaw, then laid their rest at the base of Emma's ear. "Say my name again," she demanded, the words tickling Emma's skin and sending a shiver up her spine. Regina didn't top, and yet right then, there was no question as to who held the power. Emma couldn't even remember giving it to her, and yet she allowed her to keep it as she complied.

"Regina…" It was a pleading moan as fingernails broke skin, and Emma slammed her hips harder into the brunette's lithe fingers, knowing and not really caring that Regina's knuckles were sure to bruise her pelvis.

"Again," Regina demanded, and it was then that Emma realized that this wasn't about power; it was about keeping her in the moment. It was about Regina's fear that perhaps Emma didn't think about her anymore when they were together, or that Emma distanced herself from it all by separating the woman that she loved from the woman Regina really was when they were together like this. And maybe she had done that before, but Emma didn't relate as well to the woman she fell in love with; she related to the woman who Regina actually was.

"I know," she gasped, turning her head to force Regina away from her ear so she could look at her. Fingertips traced her jaw as Regina continued moving within her, and Emma could finally see the vulnerably etched across the woman's features. "Regina, I know," she breathed. "And I'm here, okay? I'm here. Just don't… don't stop. Fuck, please…"

Regina exhaled a shuddered breath, trying to suppress an unwanted emotion as she nodded her understanding. And then her lips were on Emma's, the blonde beginning to pant against them as Regina moved within her once more, giving the woman beneath her the desperation for pleasure that it seemed, in the end, she wasn't meant to have.

Because the damn phone was ringing again. This time, however, it was Regina's.

"Fuck," Emma swore furiously, picking up one of the pillows and chucking it at the wall as Regina stopped. There were only so many times they could get interrupted before it ruined the moment, and already Regina looked like she wanted to answer it.

"It could be Henry…"

"It fucking better be Henry, because if it's anyone else I'm gonna punch a freaking hole through Storybrooke's protective whatever just so I can get through it to strangle them," Emma snapped, the abrupt change of emotion in the air causing her temper to skyrocket quite suddenly.

Regina shot her a look that clearly implied that she thought Emma was being overdramatic, and okay, she probably was, but it just really sucked to finally feel something that wasn't born from misery, only to have it ripped away right afterwards. It was just horrible timing, and as Regina shot her an apologetic look and climbed off of her to go answer her cell, she left Emma feeling empty and cold.

She had needed this. She didn't know why, but she just… she really, really had.

Fisting her hands over her eyes, Emma lay back against the pillows and groaned in aggravation as Regina answered her cellphone. Seemingly without checking first who it was, because after "Hello?" the second thing that came out of her mouth was an impatient, "What the hell do you want?"

That got Emma's attention and she sat up, shooting Regina a questioning look. The woman did not look happy, but she said nothing as she waited for the person on the other line to explain themselves. A frustrated sigh was released then, and Regina took the phone from her ear before tossing it in Emma's direction.

"It's for you. Apparently some people in this world lack the concept of patience."

Emma's brow creased as she caught the phone, and when she looked down at the name on Regina's screen, her expression darkened. "Can't this wait?" she snapped as she placed the phone against her ear, furious because of all the people who could have interrupted this, it had to be him. His voice alone was a surefire way to kill the mood, and Emma spited him for it.

"Well hello to you too, dearie," Gold drawled, sounding terribly amused by Emma's obvious aggravation. "I do hope I wasn't interrupting anything important, but when you didn't answer your own phone, I started to get worried."

Yeah, right.

Regina collapsed heavily onto the bed next to her, her frustration curling off her like smoke as she flicked her hand towards the phone and mouthed, "Speaker." Emma obliged and pressed the button before throwing the phone down on the mattress.

"Just say what you called to say so we can be done, Gold."

A chuckle was heard from the other line, and Emma's hand fisted in the sheets. This was so not what she needed right now. But Gold thankfully stopped his taunting and got down to business as he mentioned, "I heard you found my son."

"So?"

"So I was wondering when I might expect the both of you back," Gold responded pointedly. "Because I may have found a solution to our little boundary problem, and should Baelfire not wish to come back, I would hate to keep that information to myself and leave your son trapped in a town that neither of you can reach…"

Emma's eyes widened at that information, and her gaze caught Regina's, who's breathing had shallowed. Both of them had been living with hope that there was actually a way, yet before this, neither of them had any clear path to get back. If what Gold was saying was true, then they didn't have to play guessing games with magic, and they could get back to Henry within the week. That was… that was big.

Still, Regina didn't seem very happy with how it was voiced, and she snapped back with, "Don't threaten us. If you have a way back, then tell us how we are to go about it; we don't have time for your mindless little games."

"First I want a guarantee that Baelfire will be with you when you return," Gold told them, his tone leaving no room for arguments or bargains. "Because until you can give me that, I don't exactly have an incentive to help you, now, do I…?"

Emma looked at Regina but said nothing, because in the end, they both knew how they could guarantee Neal's return… if only Regina could find it within herself to agree to it. The seconds ticked by, and Regina looked like she was fighting an internal battle as she weighed her options. But they both knew that this was their best chance, the most reliable solution, and eventually Regina released a frustrated sigh and snapped, "Fine, you have our word. Now what is it?"

"Well, dearie," Gold began, the triumphant smile evident in his tone. "Perhaps then it's time I tell you who exactly it was that I sent skittering over the town line once the curse broke, mmm…?"

TBC…