It had been early, maybe 4:30am or so, when Snow and Regina managed to wake Emma. What had seemed like a deep sleep saw Emma in some kind of trance. Snow said that her eyes had opened a few times but she had stared off into space.
After they woke her, Emma talked her mother into resting and was left alone with Regina. Neither woman seemed to want to sleep now.
"How did this happen?" Emma moved her head to the side to watch Regina's face. She wanted to see the other woman's expression, to make sure she knew how she was really feeling. It wasn't always easy with Regina—to read her emotions or match her words with them.
"I went home. " Her hand traced over Emma's shoulders, squeezing and kneading as she moved. "I slept in a guest room at the house, alone."
"How was that?" This was something Emma vaguely remembered. They had argued about it, because Emma wanted to go also.
"Fine, it was fine…" Regina hesitated.
"'Gina?"
"It…" Now her hand snuck beneath Emma's shirt, rested on her stomach.
"It was fine. I had a few bad dreams…"
Emma frowned. "And then what happened to me?"
"You apparently came up here for a nap. Snow said you were already in an odd mood, distant, like you were someplace else. You went to sleep mid-afternoon and didn't awake when she knocked. She called me and I came." There were dark circles beneath Regina's eyes and she stifled a yawn.
"You can rest. I can keep an eye on you." Emma brushed hair back from Regina's face and kissed her lightly.
She ended up watching Regina through a fitful sleep during which she scowled the entire time. When she woke again she immediately rolled into Emma's arms.
"I need you." Regina whispered. She seemed grumpy and Emma wondered just what she had dreamt about.
A soft knock on the door stopped them both. Extracting her hand from Emma's crotch like it was on fire, Regina sat up again as Snow entered the room carrying a tray of toast and eggs and bacon. Enough for all three of them, so Regina had to contain herself while Snow perched on a chair at the end of the bed. Much to Emma's annoyance, Regina actually got out of bed and sat at the window, as far from them as she could get.
"We're all coming to Philadelphia with you both." Snow ate a piece of bacon daintily as she spoke. It was sort of funny.
"What? No. No. I'm going alone." The blood had rushed from Regina's face.
"Hmmm…" Snow's eyes were like fire. "Let's agree to disagree while you think it over, Regina."
Emma and Regina exchanged a startled glance in the face of Snow's slightly menacing demeanor. When breakfast was over, Snow quietly took away their plates and smiled the same frightening smile as she left the room.
"Huh. Weird." Regina slid back onto the bed, staying above the covers this time.
It was an oddly relaxed day otherwise. Emma couldn't remember the last time she'd been able to laze about in bed, reading books and getting served tea and coffee and by evening, a generous glass of wine.
"Ok, now I'm officially bored." Emma yawned, glancing with interest at the wine Regina had brought. "I need a shower and I need to put on real clothes." Regina hummed approvingly. Emma's voice had more energy and her eyes were clearer. "Too bad you can't join me." She couldn't help but add.
"Full house." Regina's smile was wry. "Besides, Henry needs help with some math homework. I'll be downstairs when you want to join us all." Her smile broadened when she added, "I'll leave the glass."
It had to be the calm before the storm, Emma thought. Unless…perhaps they could just skip the Philly trip? Sell Regina's place off, make a clean break. But then her thoughts roamed and she wondered back to Jefferson's death. His suicide had seemed to unlock something in Regina's dreams. The problem, Emma realized, was that she didn't have a fucking clue about magic and how it worked. Rumpel had supposedly taken the magic from the land and contained it, but there were still sparks between Regina and Emma after the deed was done. And the glamor or whatever Regina called it—how had that even occurred without magic? Was it really Cora herself who contained the rest of it?
She pulled clean yoga pants and a tank top on, but then zipped a hoodie overtop that, and then she walked carefully downstairs. Her feet were bare. It was the first thing Regina looked at—really sort of longingly—while having an apparent argument with James about the old property rights of their land and how they applied to Storybrooke.
Since that was the most agonizingly boring conversation Emma had ever stumbled upon, she sat next to Henry at his end of the kitchen table while James and Regina continued to have it out in front of the sink. Emma noted with interest that the bottle of wine was gone and Regina's cheeks were flushed. Their eyes met and Emma smiled sweetly at the other woman.
Henry's homework actually took up a lot of time and it was Emma's turn to help. But by the time they had finished, it was half an hour past his usual bedtime, so she walked him upstairs while he chattered on about the relationship between one of his favorite comic books and the use of spheres in engineering.
"He's so super smart." Emma plunked herself next to Regina when she came back downstairs and stared in awe at the woman who had obviously given Henry some odd pedagogical process linking comics with school work.
Regina shrugged. "Yes, well, he takes after his mothers." This inspired a chuckle. "So darling, can I tell you…" She looked down. "I don't think you should come. You're vulnerable. That creature that attacked you, and now the glamour—I'm not putting you in danger."
"Oh, well then. That's a zinger." Emma didn't miss a beat. "I don't give a damn about the dangers. I think we all have to go with you, to remind you that you have attachments and people who care about you and a reason to fight whatever it is that attacked me. To the place where Cora first started haunting you." Emma cleared her throat and shrugged, not at all nervous about meeting Cora. Or Cora's ghost. Or whatever the fuck…right.
Not nervous at all…
They both slept badly that night, each waking every hour to check on the other. By sunrise, they had given up and chose to go downstairs to make coffee and sit in the kitchen, immersed in their own heavy thoughts.
From Regina's perspective, the last few days seemed almost to have unraveled all of the good things that had happened in Storybrooke since her return.
In her own mind, Regina had to return to her motivations for leaving Storybrooke in the first place. She had to return to that familiar loneliness which had so deeply embedded itself in her psyche. To prepare herself for Cora or for whatever—whomever—she had to face, she had to access darker places within herself. Months spent making up for all that she'd done could not wipe blood from her hands. She had to believe—what else could she believe—that her past was coming now to destroy her. First the demon, then the glamour, what would come next?
As she watched the family interact—Henry and Emma shared the last of the corn flakes while Snow and James cut fruit and tried to force everyone to drink some green smoothy concoction—Regina thought about her own family and grew quieter and quieter. Henry's bloodline was not her own, and in their old land, that kind of thing had mattered a great deal. Regina's place in his life seemed so precarious when she first left for Philadelphia and while it wasn't precarious now, she felt distance between them as well as between herself and Emma.
She went for a long walk, passing countless people who should still hate her but for many reasons had chosen to forgive the curse. Lunch was a solitary affair, had with a paper in hand and an over-eager ex-girlfriend refilling her mug with too much coffee.
"You have to trust them. Everything will be all right." Red squeezed her shoulder and wished her luck.
"I should really go alone." Regina tried to be firm but found herself whispering in Snow's ear while Emma and the others were upstairs after dinner. She and Snow were tidying up. It was yet another mundane, domestic experience that Regina never thought she'd have with the woman whose life she had tried to so hard to end.
"Regina, no. We've had this conversation." Snow's tone was be pleading as she threw down the sponge she'd been using.
"At least let me face the place of my first exile alone. You and the rest of your family can stay someplace nearby." Some knowing look exchanged between them and then Snow nodded. Emma tromped downstairs quickly after. She shot a suspicious look Snow's way and then ushered Regina up to bed.
"I should go home!" Regina's words were met with a firmer hand on her back.
"No, you should stay with me. We'll pack in the morning." Emma insisted. She said 'no' in the same tone as her mother. It was weird, for just a moment.
"I'll see you both early." Snow called upstairs as they ascended. "Regina you had better not try to sneak away!"
"…fine…goddammit…" Regina swore under her breath the whole way. She had a change of clothes still, and could wear an old pair of Emma's yoga pants to bed. Her shirt was long sleeved and if she threw a jacket on over everything she could sneak away and drive off without worrying about her outfit. There was still money in the loft and she could use it to buy new things—if that was even necessary.
As she settled in bed next to Emma, she began to feel that familiar old sensation—of being trapped or held in by her circumstances. She watched Emma fall almost instantly to sleep and willed herself to do the same.
Sleep claimed her almost by surprise. When Regina opened her eyes again, she could see Emma's back turned to her. For some reason it made her feel lonely. For a moment Regina only wanted to wake Emma up.
Instead she snuck out of bed.
It wasn't hard to dress in the darkness. Emma snorted quietly in her sleep, convincing Regina that she really was out. She stole one of Emma's hoodies. It wasn't fashionable, but it smelled like the woman she would be leaving behind.
By the time she made her way downstairs, she was already crying.
So it was with a sense of relief as well as slight panic, when she met Henry at the foot of the stairs.
"Mom?" He gazed sleepily at her. "I had a bad dream. Are you ok?"
"I'm fine sweetheart." With that, her plans were thwarted. "You should be in bed…"
Henry gave her one of those knowing looks that had started when he got hold of the book of fairytales. "Yeah…" He started, crossing his arms. "Then what will you…" He blinked and stopped himself. "I need you to sleep next to me. I'm having awful dreams tonite…"
"Henry, you're too old for…" Regina sighed. "Ok. Come on then."
So at sunrise, Emma padded downstairs in an oversized sweater and plaid pajama bottoms. She made her way to Henry's bed and upon finding her girlfriend pinned down by their son's splayed form, got into bed at the very edge of the chaos. She met Regina's brief muttering with quiet laughter and they both sat up to rearrange the kid so that his head wasn't half off one side of the bed.
"It worked." Emma said happily. "He set an alarm for when he thought you might get up."
"How could he have known the right time?" Regina sighed. "Never mind."
"Regina?" Emma whispered after a few minutes had passed. "We're a team. Ok? I'm sticking with you." Her arm curved over Regina's waist, rested on Henry's shoulder, and then within a few minutes she yawned and kissed the sudden wetness on Regina's cheeks.
After some time had passed, Regina said,
"I'm sorry, I felt far away from you and…" her words were muffled by Emma's mouth and a hard, wet, uneven kiss.
"I will always find you Regina. I will always mph!"
"Shut up, don't say that." Regina hissed and smooshed her fingers against Emma's mouth. "That joke has been overdone."
"Yeah? Ok." Emma grinned.
Their eyes met in the darkness.
"I love you." Regina whispered. Then she turned over and let Emma cover her and Henry.
Regina surprised herself by being the last in the household to finally get up. Henry and Emma were packing as quietly as they could while Snow and James made breakfast. No one said much when Regina walked quickly upstairs to grab a shower and change into her own clothes. But when she came back down, Henry greeted her with a hug and a grin. "We tried to be quiet, but it's sort of time to go."
They drove back to Regina's place first, where Emma forced her to pack a bag and stop pretending that she was walking straight to her demise.
Then Henry rode with his mothers while James and Snow took their own vehicle. For a while, Regina could pretend that they were just like any other family on a road trip. She and Emma took turns driving. They sang songs and played stupid car games and everyone managed to sleep at some point.
When they were an hour from the city, Regina fell asleep in the backseat while Henry and Emma ate burgers and chatted up front.
"What's that?"
Regina heard Henry's voice from a distance. She felt the car slowing and heard Emma flick the signal to pull them off to the side of the highway.
"Gina? Babe, wake up…"
But Regina was already up, staring in disbelief at the blue aura surrounding the city, glowing in the same colors as her and Emma's magic.