A/N: Apparently, I lie like a dog and there is one more chapter to come. In the meanwhile, enjoy. Thanks!
The water that Emma splashes across her face is cold and she finds herself sighing in relief if for no other reason than because it doesn't hurt and right now just about everything hurts but most especially her heart. There are dusty tear tracks still staining her pale cheeks and she wonders if that's the hardest that she's cried since Neal's horrible death months ago.
Probably.
It never seems to stop.
Life never seems to stop hurting.
She thinks about New York and sharing pizza on the floor with Henry.
She thinks about not waking up with a mind full of chaos and a head full of confusion and fear. But it'd all been a lie and this is home even today. Even now when it feels like she has no idea what's real and what's not.
Her eyes shutter for a moment and she tries to not think about the woman tossing and turning fitfully on the bed in the other room or the fact that she'd just asked the parents that she's wanted all of her life to go away.
She tries not to think about a stolen child and broken faith.
But there are things that don't go away just because you want them to; the truth always finds it way out, and apparently, today had been its time.
That doesn't mean that she's ready to deal with it.
She has no idea how to even begin to deal with it.
So for tonight, she'll focus on what she can – on the woman that she can.
Emma turns off the water, dries off her face and hands and then opens the door to the master bedroom and steps back into it, stopping abruptly when she sees the dark figure bent down over Regina's not quite resting form, a hand extended to gently touch the sleeping queen's left cheek.
"How the hell did you get in here?" Emma demands. "We put a protection spell up against you. Blue – the Blue Fairy helped me put it up."
"I presume that the spell that you used would have been meant to keep out those who would do Regina or anyone else currently occupying the house harm," Maleficent says as she gracefully straightens up, appearing to reluctantly pull herself away from Regina's unconscious form. "But as I have no actual desire to hurt her or you, I myself would not be stopped by it."
"And if my parents had still been in this house."
"Then I would not be able to be," Maleficently says with chilling certainty.
"They told me what they did to you," Emma says, stepping closer. Her eyes are on Maleficent who is still looking down at Regina; clear worry on the older woman's face as she regards the sleeping queen. "And…I'm sorry."
"Those aren't your sins to atone for, dearest."
"I know, but you have to know I won't let you hurt my parents."
"No, I didn't expect that you would." She reaches out and touches Regina's cheek once again. "You know, she's never sleep particularly well. As long as I've known her, she's been fitful like this. So undone by all of her demons."
"You forgave her for what she did to you?"
"Trapping me as a dragon and allowing you to kill me?"
Emma offers up an uncomfortable thin smile at that reminder. "Yes."
"It might be difficult to understand, but we went through a lot together."
A tilt of the head and then with breathless realization, "You love her."
Their eyes meet and Maleficent chuckles coolly, looking at Emma with entirely too much understanding to be comfortable. "No more than you."
"I –"
"But in answer to your question, I forgave her because the Evil Queen who betrayed me is not the girl that I knew or the woman who is here now."
"And yet you and your…friends…tried to bring the Evil Queen back out."
"She came to us and dared us to do exactly that. She put herself in danger. For your parents. For your mother. And besides, I always knew she wasn't who she was pretending to be. I've seen too much of her to be fooled."
Emma shakes her head, unwilling to let her off. "You let them hurt her."
"They are not my enemies."
"But she is?"
"No, she's my friend." Her voice is soft and wistful when she says this, her eyes moistening for a moment before she glances up towards the window.
"Is there something out there?" Emma queries, moving to stand beside her and stare out towards the dark empty street in front of Regina's mansion.
"Nothing that I can see nor hear, but I have been gone from the others for long enough now, I think; I should probably be getting back before –"
"Before they asks questions about your loyalty," Emma finishes for her, a hint of cold and anger in her voice. "You betrayed them, too. If they think that you're working against them, will they put you in the ground as well."
Maleficent laughs at that, a smirk on her lips. "I have no fear of them."
"Neither did she."
"On the contrary, Savior, she has great fear of them because she has things to live and die for now. She has those whom she loves. She now has her son whom we both know that she would lie down her life in a minute for. Surprisingly enough, she has the two people that she has hated for so long and she would likewise stand in front of them as well. And you. I'm fairly certain that there's little that she wouldn't do to protect you from harm."
Emma smiles uneasily at that, her hands pushing into her pockets to hide her awkwardness. Then, quietly, "You know, you don't have to do this. You can choose a different path. Fight with us. Help us defeat them and –"
"Then what? Forgive the two people who stole my child away from me? As you will assuredly forgive them for manipulating your life as they did."
"They're my family," Emma says softly.
"And they stole mine away from me. Some things are beyond forgiveness."
"You said you were able to forgive Regina because she isn't that woman who put you under the library anymore. Well my parents aren't –"
"Do you believe that going into the lion's den was Regina's idea?"
"I know it wasn't."
"Then you tell me how much they've actually changed. You tell me how much your beloved parents have actually have earned a second chance after what they did to me. Tell me, do you think they have?" There's a long pause and then her face changes to a cold sneer. "No, I didn't think so. In any case, I haven't changed nearly enough to give them it. Not enough to give up my owed vengeance. And I will see them pay for what they did."
Emma's eyes close. "I'm sorry," she says again.
"I know. And I'm sorry for the heartbreak you will feel when this is all over, but as I said, Savior, there are some crimes that are beyond forgiveness."
She looks over at Regina, then dips a hand down and touches her face once again, her fingers curling in and gently caressing the smooth skin there.
"The first time I met her, she was falling and she still gave me hope. It's probably not the kind of hope that you would understand, but there was something about her, something beautiful. And it fell away. It blackened and grew into something monstrous. I thought the girl was gone; she isn't."
"No," Emma murmurs, even if she doesn't completely understand.
Mal looks at her hard for a moment, evaluating and then nods. "A word of advice - don't ever trust a fairy."
"I'm not sure who to trust, anymore."
"You know," the older woman replies. And then just like that, Maleficent's face hardens into something cold and unreadable as she straightens up and is gone leaving just a cloud of dark smoke behind.
Once it clears, Emma lets out a tired breath and then drops her head into her hands, her eyes sweeping over Regina as she waits for her to wake.
Her phone buzzing is what brings Emma out of a half-slumber about an hour later. A glance down and she sees that it's her mother calling.
Of course it is.
She's never known when to back off and just provide a little bit of space.
"Give it a rest," she mutters, shoving the phone back into her pocket.
"Problem, dear?" a low half-choked voice says from her side. Emma turns abruptly and looks into the swollen eyes of a woman who just moments earlier had been sleeping. To her great relief, Regina is awake now (though she looks tired and worn out enough that such consciousness might be a temporary state of things as opposed to a long-term one) and aware, too.
"Hey, you're awake," Emma says nervously, standing up and moving closer.
"I think so, yes," Regina mumbles as she tries to straighten up beneath the blankets and gets stopped by the confusion of where she is. She glances around, blinking slowly as she takes in the warm familiarity of her room.
"You're safe," Emma assures her.
"So I see." Emma thinks that she's about to ask what happened, but the question doesn't come and she assumes that Regina doesn't want to know
"How are you feeling?" she asks instead, after a moment of awkwardness.
Regina smiles thinly, the small delicate lines across her face crinkling for a moment and a whisper of emotion flashing turbulently through her dark eyes. If Emma didn't know better, she'd call it fear. "I'm fine. Are you?"
"Yeah. Sure. You know me, right? Pretty good at rolling with things."
"Mm. You might be the one with the…questionable lie detector, Emma, but I think that maybe I can read you pretty well by now, too." Then, her voice almost disturbingly quiet, Regina asks, "How did you find me in time?"
Ah, and so there's the question.
"You have a way of making a life-long impression on people," Emma tells her with a slight chuckle. "Maleficent let me know you were in trouble."
"Oh."
"There's a story there, isn't there? Something between you and her?"
"There is."
"You two were a thing?" Emma asks, an eyebrow lifted. Not that the mental images she's seeing are bad ones, but there's a risk in thinking of Regina that way…it tends to lead to other thoughts that are too complex and too deep to want to delve into. Especially with everything going on.
"For a moment," Regina says, grimacing slightly as she adjusts in the bed.
"She still cares about you. A lot, actually."
"I know; it's complicated."
"What isn't, right?" Emma says as she hands Regina a glass of water, watches as she downs it and then takes it and places it on the dresser.
"Emma, talk to me. What happened? What is…what are you upset about?"
"First you. Promise me that you're all right. I pulled you out of a hole in the ground tonight, Regina, so give me a moment and let me…are you okay?"
"I am," Regina says simply, almost casually.
"They buried you alive," the blonde pushes back, her jaw clenching.
"I remember being put in the grave…somewhat…and a feeling like I couldn't breathe, but I don't remember anything beyond that," Regina insists. "And I assure you, I have gone through much worse than that."
"Is that supposed to actually make me feel better?"
"Yes. Because I survived. Again. A little worse for wear, but I'm alive."
"Right, but you almost weren't. I felt…I think I felt your panic. I know that sounds really strange and doesn't make a lot of sense, but I felt like…I felt like you were afraid and like you couldn't breath. You were afraid, Regina."
"For just a moment and then, whatever Maleficent did to me, it was all gone and there was nothing but quiet and peace and I promise you, I wasn't afraid – not my mind, anyway, though perhaps my body," Regina assures her. "As for why you felt what I was feeling when I was, perhaps because you're my student; maybe our shared magic binds us together."
"Oh," Emma answers softly and if Regina didn't know better, she'd think that perhaps she sounds underwhelmed by that answer. Emma shakes her head then, a flash of anger surfacing. "I don't know how I'm supposed to –"
"You're not –" she stops, wincing again, her hand lifting up to her head and feeling around gingerly for a wound. "Did you heal me?" Regina queries.
"Apparently not well enough," Emma replies, moving towards her as if to check the head injury for herself, her hands already glowing with light.
"I don't feel a wound back there anymore so you must have healed me."
"But you're still in pain."
"Because that bitch still hit me," Regina growls, looking almost feral for a moment – quite the feat considering that she's still laid out on her bed, blankets wrapped around her body. "I'm going to feed her to the dogs."
"Why don't we hold off on murderous plots for the moment," Emma chuckles but she sounds more than a little bit relieved to hear the old familiar Regina – the woman that she knows will never completely give up.
"Fine," Regina grunts. "Now, explain to me why you look–" her voice trails off and she takes a moment to study Emma before saying, "You know."
"About what my parents did to Maleficent? Yeah, I know. My question is, why didn't you tell me? Why did you…you lied to me. Just like they did."
Regina frowns at that. "I know and…but it wasn't my place nor my secret to tell no matter how much I might have wanted to. Considering the vengeance I carried against your mother for nearly five decades, it would have been hypocritical for me to spill it. But…I am sorry that I lied to you."
"I believe you."
"Do you? Or are you just saying what you think I want to hear?"
There's a moment of silence between the two of them while Emma just looks at Regina and tries to see the truth in her eyes, tries to read her as she always has. Finally, "I believe you. That's…I mean that. I really do."
"Okay. So what don't you believe?"
"That anything about me is actually real. That I have anything do with having created any part of myself. I'm the Savior; I've learned to deal with that and accept it. That was what I was made to be." She laughs. "I thought Gold was the one who did it, but turns out my parents helped it along."
"They didn't make you who you are. No spell can do that."
"But people can, right? Gold made you who you are."
"No, I did. I made my choices." She leans foward and then reaches out for Emma's hand and coaxes her into sitting down on the bed. "My mother and Rumplestiltskin certainly didn't help me, but I chose to be the Evil Queen."
"And me?"
Her fingers weave in with Emma's. "You chose to be Emma Swan. An infuriatingly obnoxious woman with a relentlessly brave heart and a kind soul. And both of those things are of your own making. No one else's."
"You're so sure about that," Emma says dully. "And right now, I just feel like I don't know who I am. I feel like I don't know how I'm supposed to respond to any of this. Am I allowed to be angry or I supposed to just accept this because that's what the Savior does." A humorless chuckle and then, "Who would have thought I'd be babbling all of this out to you?"
"Strange bedfellows we have become," Regina murmurs to herself and then with a deep almost frightened frown, seems to think better of her words and decides to change tracks. And then smiles as much as she can considering the pounding in her head. "You know how I know that you are who you are all of your own making? Because you chose to be my friend."
"Because my special white-light nature made that happen."
Regina snorts at that.
"Okay, fine, that sounded ridiculous to me, too."
"Good. Now about your parents –"
"Are you going to tell me to forgive them?"
"No. That would make me just as much of a hypocrite as I would have been if I spilled their secret. What I'm telling you to do is to talk to them. Don't close off your heart to what they have to say. They have their reasons for what they did and they might not be good reasons and you don't have to forgive them if you don't want to, but Emma, I know you and if you don't at least hear them out, if you don't give yourself a chance to listen to them, then the only person you will never forgive for this will be yourself."
"I'm angry," Emma admits. "And really…I'm really hurt."
"You have every right to be."
"But they're my family so –"
"Don't force yourself to forgive them before you're ready; that wasn't my point at all. I simply want you to listen and not become what I became."
"Maleficent said that you were so different in the beginning," Emma recalls. "She said that you gave her hope – a weird kind, but still hope."
"I was and I did and then I became someone terrible. But you're not me." Her palm slides settles over Emma's heart and for a moment, all the two of them can do is both stare at Regina's hand, so gentle against Emma's skin.
"Why did you do it?" Emma asks, her eyes lifting to meet Regina's, her heart pounding fiercely. "Why did you put yourself in that kind of danger?"
"For your mother," Regina replies. "I owed her for what I did to her. If it wasn't for the threat that I had represented to her and to your father and to you, then she might not have felt the need to do what she did. That's a not defense of her actions – we all have to account - just an explanation."
"Is that the only reason?" Emma presses, her eyes narrowing in curiosity as she looks down at the hand that is still settled over her beating heart.
"For you," Regina admits, swallowing hard. She looks down and away for a moment before sighing in resignation and looking back over at Emma.
"Why?" Emma presses.
"Because we're friends."
"They buried you alive," Emma reminds her again, her voice catching in the middle as she remembers her father's bloodied hands and dirt flying around and then that single horrible moment of seeing Regina in the grave.
"I didn't think they were going to do that," Regina chuckles humorlessly.
"That's your defense."
"I'm alive. I keep telling you that."
"And one day you won't be."
"You would have done the same for me."
"Because we're friends," Emma elaborates, cocking her head thoughtfully.
"Because you're Emma and you would save me even if we weren't friends."
"But we are."
"We're something," Regina admits, suddenly sounding so very tired.
"You're exhausted," Emma notes as she starts to pull away from Regina, sliding away from the softness of the palm that had been rested atop her chest. "I'm sorry; this could have waited until morning. Or until you –"
"Emma, come here," Regina says and then she's pulling the blonde back and wrapping her arms around her and Emma's not sure if she's supposed to be giving or receiving comfort because then there's a face pressed into her shoulder and she hears Regina sigh loudly, an emotional catch in her throat as she tightens her hold on Emma. "Just…close your eyes. Okay?"
She thinks she should fight this, should fight against the warmth of Regina's arms and just how good it feels to be held, but her heart is breaking and everything in her mind is chaos and the one thing that isn't – the one thing that remains the same is the defiant stubborn woman pressed against her.
The one that refuses to die and refuses to let her give into the anger in her.
The one that had endangered her own life in order to protect her.
So Emma curls in deeper and she doesn't mean to start crying – she really doesn't, but the tears come and Regina's hold just tightens and there aren't any words, no senseless sounds; she hears a heartbeat and soft breathing.
She thinks she feels a blanket cover her – cover them both – but then her eyelids are falling and Regina is adjusting her hold, but not letting go and all she can think is that she's afraid – so very afraid – but at least she's safe.
For this moment, anyway.
She sighs, breathes, and lets all of her burdens just slip away for tonight.
TBC...