The first clue that something was really, really off, came in Regina's dreams. She dreamt that she and Emma were shopping for groceries. They were in separate aisles and Regina couldn't understand why the items around them kept shifting. Emma had stopped making sound but was gesturing wildly for Regina to take one of the plastic bottles of water that appeared in front of her.
It took far too long for Regina to wake and even longer to figure out that Emma was gone. The smell of the darkly cloaked, pale creature that had crawled up beside their bed, yanked Emma away and dragged her into the hallway, lingered in the air. When Regina shot up, bleary-eyed and confused, her first thought was that the groceries had all gone off.
"No!" Regina's protest was choked by her own fear. Before she knew it, her feet were hitting the floor, and she had skidded into the hallway to find a rat-eyed creature with dark slick hair and grey-black skin, hovering over Emma, sucking streams of blue electric light into the slits where his mouth should have been.
There was a roar—Regina's voice tapering into a high-pitched shattering scream as magic overtook her—and an explosion of flame from her hands.
What Emma heard at that moment, was a sound like lions, hyenas, screaming monkeys and who the hell knew what else, all cascading together in some enraged mash-up. Emma couldn't breath, couldn't move, could only listen as Regina poured every ounce of energy into sound and electric fire.
The demon was thrown up and over Emma, against a wall. Stepping closer, Regina concentrated her rage, her frustration. The stream of fire that erupted from her hands incinerated the creature while Emma herself rolled over onto her side, gasping for breath. She wheezed and started to pound her own chest in a panic, until Regina knelt behind her and wrapped her up in a hug. There was still some magic left between them and it glowed and surrounded both women and then Emma was breathing regularly against Regina's chest.
Soon, however, their magic dissipated and then disappeared altogether.
"Where are you going?" Emma whispered the words as Regina shifted away from her and got up to leave.
"My office. I'll be right back." Regina had a familiar look on her face, as though she already knew what was about to happen.
"Wait, but…" Getting shakily to her feet, Emma followed. Her feet slipped on the floor as she struggled to regain balance.
She found Regina writing down something with a black sharpie on a white card and moved aside when she stormed out with only the words, "Stay here," in a tight, furious voice.
"Hell no!" Emma could hear Regina stomping at the entranceway as she walked out. Walked out and into the rain wearing nothing but a t-shirt and yoga pants.
The rain was pouring in sheets over the windy street. Emma arrived just in time to see Regina call Rumpelstiltskin.
"But he's hiding…" Emma's voice was drowned out by a crash of thunder.
Of course Rumpel wasn't hiding, not anymore. He was waiting for the two of them to arrive. What he didn't expect, was to win his fight so quickly.
"Here. Now leave us the hell alone." Regina shoved the white card into his hand and stepped back.
Moving closer, Emma could see the word or name 'Bae' written on the card. She swiped wet hair from her eyes and cradled her bare arms. Her tank top was white and already soaked through, but no one even looked at her.
Rumpelstilstin just stared at the card, then caressed it, then said,
"You found my son?" as though Regina might be one of his favorite people in the whole world after all. "When you were in hiding, you were working to find my child?"
"Not for your benefit exactly." Regina rolled her eyes. Rumpel looked like he wanted to hug her.
"What?" Emma shouted.
But Regina and Rumpel just stared in silence at one another, as though some silent truce had been made, before he turned and slowly walked away. He was a speck in the distance when he flung a hand in the air and threw blue electricity and purple smoke in an arc toward Regina.
Moments later, a glass egg, containing all of the magic in all of Storybrooke, was cradled in Regina's arms.
"Do with it what you will dearies!" Rumpelstiltskin laughed and he could be heard booming as if from the sky itself, but his voice was shaky and choked.
While Regina stared in dumbfounded silence at the vessel in her arms, Emma let her have it…
"Lies, Regina, there are so many fucking lies with you! You were in Philadelphia to find Gold's son? Jesus!" Emma bent at the waist and shouted into the street. "Fucking fuck! Dammit Regina!"
"I gave him what he wanted. He'll leave us alone now." Regina brushed wet hair from her eyes and knelt beside Emma in the rain and the blowing leaves and the dirt. They were both soaked to the bone. "Emma…Emma…" She forced blue eyes to meet her own. "That was my final card. My last card to hold over Rumpelstiltskin, to keep him from controlling me. That's it. He's won. And I don't care. I only care about you…You and Henry." She shook her head, defeated by the understanding that it might not matter. "We took away all the magic. All of it. Now he's just a man, looking for his son, and we can just be…" She smiled and tried not to cry, "We can just be a family. I want that."
"Be a family? What can we be if you won't tell me everything?" Another crash of thunder blocked Emma's words. The object in Regina's hand glowed brightly.
"I'll tell you. Ok? I'll tell you everything. But honestly, that was…it was an accident, even finding Bae. I had a few leads, nothing more. I chose Philadelphia based on rumors, a handful of clues. I hired someone and they found him quickly. He told me to keep his information close, to give it over to his father only when it seemed like the right time…" Regina sighed and sat back, despite the water and the mud and the soaked leaves that made their way onto her bared lower back. She sat and held all the magic of their old land in her hands and contemplated her future.
"How is now the right time for those two? You gave away your last card to save me, but what about Rumpel's son? Is this the right thing for him?" Emma clutched her stomach which suddenly hurt.
"I don't know." Regina admitted, slumping over her knees and cradling herself.
That was how Snow found them—sitting in the rain, close together but a universe apart. Later, they would ask her how she knew to come over and she would call it 'mother's intuition' and shout at them both for not calling, signaling yet another weird shift in her relationship with Regina.
They were driven to Snow's apartment since none wanted to deal with the aftermath of the attack at Regina's. Emma studiously avoided looking at Regina as the other soaked and shivering woman held tightly to the magical egg. Snow continued to bark orders at Emma and Regina as they entered the house.
"Get warm, then get some sleep." Snow paused, watching Emma's tense shuffling and avoidance of Regina's presence. Henry had already been put to bed in a bed set up for him downstairs, thereby leaving one room for Emma and Regina to share.
"I'm going to sleep. Now." Emma muttered before taking the stairs three at a time. She heard mumbling conversation behind her, even as she dove into bed in her old room and burrowed beneath the covers. After some time had passed, she also heard a shower turn on. It could go either way at this point, she thought tiredly. She could ice Regina out, go home, let the distance between them grow. It would be so easy to take off again. She just needed some sleep. After that, who gave a shit. Not her. No way.
Another option presented itself when Regina knocked timidly at the door. She waited for the grumbled order to let herself in and then did just that.
"You're ridiculous." Another growl and angry flinging of sheets encouraged Regina to slip into bed—still far enough from Emma. "Where's the damned ball of magic?"
"With Snow." Regina replied after a moment's hesitation. She was wearing an old grey Tallahassee Eagles t-shirt that Emma had once stolen. "I couldn't trust myself, I need some time away from magic…"
"Why? Is magic like crack or what?" Emma laughed and turned her back to Regina, ignoring the sad sigh she had evoked.
"I don't think that I've ever tried…crack, I mean I have no idea…" Regina sighed again. "Nevermind. May I get some sleep now? You can continue to berate me in the morning…"
They were quiet for all of ten minutes before Emma harrumphed and turned back over.
"Tell me about Philadelphia, because I'm not going to sleep anyway." The covers were up to Emma's nose so Regina couldn't see how easy it was for Emma to let go of her anger.
"What else do you want to know?" Regina's eyes were closed still.
"Why were you sleeping with all of those women?"
"Are you fueling your anger toward me with this irrelevant question?" Now Regina's eyes had opened. She scowled in the darkness.
"Yes." Emma decided.
"Ok, fine." Regina resolved then to spill all the beans—to tell Emma every damn thing that she had ever done and felt and thought. It was a strange relief even as it delayed sleep further. "I just felt so alone which wasn't entirely uncomfortable. To have no attachments, no responsibilities. I missed Henry but I was numb."
Burrowing deeper in the bed, Regina resisted the urge to sigh contentedly. She blinked when sleep nearly crept up on her. "I don't know how to explain it. Feeling as though I had lost everything just sent me to this incredibly shut down place. I could just float through my days. With nobody to worry about me. I could have been hit by a car and none of you would have found out or cared." She fought a yawn and gestured against Emma's protests. "I'm saying that that's how I felt, not that I was right." She was warming, finally. And Emma was moving slightly closer. "I don't know where to start with all of this."
Neither did Emma, not really. "Just keep going." She decided.
"I had already found Bae, so my scheming was through. There was nothing left to control or collect or concern myself with. I found you, by the way, Miss Bounty Hunter extraordinaire, before you ever found me." This made Regina chuckle and Emma growl. "I slept with all of those women—and a small number of men—because it gave me a sense of control. I also just enjoyed the mere fact that I could seek pleasure, anonymously, without worrying about consequences. I stopped, however…" Regina shifted an inch closer to Emma, feeling her tummy flip at the thought of those first beginnings.
"Stopped…why did you stop?" Emma wasn't really jealous anymore, but she was enjoying the sound of Regina's voice. And knowing more about her was calming. She couldn't help but let go of her anger toward Regina. It was annoying but Emma had to resign herself to being a pretty forgiving person. Her hands were at the back of her head as they talked and her eyes were on the ceiling. She didn't move away when Regina laid a tentative hand on her stomach.
Regina was quiet for a long time. Then she said, "I stopped when women who looked exactly like you began to show up. Don't ask me…" for just a moment, she looked like the Regina of days long past. Her eyes flashed in the darkness. Then she continued on another tangent. "Then you came into town and just sort of made yourself at home. Which was nice. Really nice. I never had that, not really…that sense of stability and family and just domestic happiness. I was willing to let the complications go, just to rest in that moment. Then the dreams began. My mother. Rumpelstiltskin…."
"Do you still dream about her?" Emma angled herself so she could read as well as hear Regina's response.
"Yes." Regina nodded after a moment's hesitation.
"What do you dream? Is she dangerous? Is she around here somewhere?" Now Emma was genuinely curious. Cora sounded like a murderous lunatic from Regina's descriptions.
"She's in another realm. I don't think she can come here. I don't know how dangerous she is, or if she is even the same person she used to be."
"What, like she's another entity posing as your mother?" Emma asked.
"I think…maybe…I'm not sure, of course, nor do I wish to find out." Then Regina's tone was thoughtful. "Have you really forgiven me? For everything else?" She felt the need to push. "There was a time when I would have killed you and never cared."
Emma rolled her eyes, frowned. "What do you want me to say about that?" Emma reached with the hand closest to Regina and touched lightly, at the curve of Regina's hip. "Do you want me to hate you? I mean I don't even think I'm wired that way." She withdrew again and turned over. As she fell asleep, she felt Regina's fingertips against her arm, tentative and brief.
When Emma got up the next morning, the other side of the bed was empty. Thinking Regina must be downstairs already, Emma took her time showering and changing before going down to join everybody. It wasn't until she was on the stairs that it occurred to her to wonder if Regina was even around.
She had to pause and ask herself if she really cared. Her anger was gone but her frustration triggered old patterns of thought. If people left her first, it would simply fulfill her own resignation with being abandoned…or something like that…Emma couldn't quite remember the words of the one and only shrink she ever encountered. What she did know, all at once, upon arriving downstairs and spotting Regina and Henry deep in quiet discussion at the kitchen table, was that those days were becoming a shadow of the past.
"Why are you crying?" Henry asked, confusion scrunching his forehead.
"No reason." Emma sniffled. "Umm…I think I just get emotional when demons try to suck my chi or whatever…"
Regina frowned and lifted her coffee cup to her lips.
"So no more magic, huh?" Henry still looked confused. Emma hadn't moved from where she stood, but was staring at him and Regina like she really might just keep crying.
"No sweetheart. We'll have to do things the old…umm…new fashioned way. I suppose." Regina laughed again and shook her head. "This is a strange world."
"No more magic wars, that's one thing." Emma finally joined them at the table, tentatively sitting across from Henry and just to the side of Regina.
"No more screaming envelopes whenever the Mayor receives a piece of mail." Snow called down from the top of the stairs.
"Damn Harry Potter books…" Regina muttered.
"Hehehe…" Henry giggled to himself, having sent many of those 'howlers' himself.
Just after Snow, James and Henry left for school and work, Emma sidled up to Regina.
"Dinner." Emma blurted out, after staring down Regina's shirt instead of meeting her eyes. "Can we continue our discussion over dinner?"
"Yes." Regina replied curtly but she seemed pleased. Then she looked apprehensive. "What might we cover, do you suppose?"
"I'll make an agenda." Emma frowned though she was joking. "We just…I just…need to keep talking before we go any further."
"Any further than what?" Regina leaned in and whispered, her lips brushing Emma's ear. "I've already had you every way I wanted, how much further do we have to go?" She pulled back briefly, her eyes serious. "That was it, Emma. I have no more secrets and no more magic."
"No?" Emma searched the lips and eyes that had spelled out so many lies for her on so many occasions. "Where did Snow hide the orb?"
"I have no idea." Regina sounded truthful. Time would tell.
Emma stood her ground though her frown disappeared. "If you're lying about anything else…Regina, I'm telling you…You have no idea what I'm capable of."
It took a minute for Regina to succumb to snorting laughter.
Their eyes met and Emma could read the apprehension on Regina's features.
"I know this doesn't fix everything, but I don't care." She said the words even as she stepped closer and pressed her lips to Emma's.