- Timeline is just after Quiet Minds, with the wake that followed and without Zelena's entrance. She'll be around, but the plot is diverging there. Neal is dead and Henry doesn't remember his real life.

- POV will switch as necessary in each ficlet between Emma, Regina, and sometimes Henry.

- Dark!Emma not Evil!Emma! I want to explore how Emma as she is is corrupted by this kind of immense power in her hands (with the best of intentions) without glorifying it or pulling her out of character to do so (hopefully). If something is making you vaguely uncomfortable, it's probably intentional.

- This fic is also being updated in ficlets on my Tumblr (scullysummers, /tagged/darkemma), and I'll continue adding more here as soon as I have enough for a new chapter.

- Cover art is by the lovely i-heart-regina-mills from Tumblr!

i. observation

She has Regina backed against the wall in the living room and she's kissing her for only seconds before Regina begins to reciprocate, hands sliding up to flatten against Emma's abdomen as Emma continues to tease at her lips, stealing kiss after kiss until she's breathless and aching with need. Her hands are pressed to the wall on either side of Regina and she dives in again for more, her tongue trailing across the bridge of Regina's mouth and her lips sparking with their every contact.

Sparking…

She pulls back, eyes wide as she remembers herself. "What the fuck was that?"

Regina still looks dazed, leaning back where Emma had nearly pushed her into the wall and her hands moving slowly back to touch her lips. "Regina. What the fuck was that?"

Regina blinks, patented disdain returning to her features. "Don't ask me," she says, her lip curling. "You're the one who tried ravaging my lips like an animal." Emma discovers at once that the dust at the top of the grand piano is absolutely fascinating. Regina sighs. "It's your magic. If you use too much too quickly, you'll find that your baser urges come to the forefront. Every errant thought is suddenly all you can think about, and if you have as terrible impulse control as you seem to, that's going to pose a problem to those around you. Particularly if they aren't as tolerant as I've been."

Regina. Tolerant. Okay. Though to be fair, Regina hadn't had much say in Emma pushing her against a wall and nearly attacking her. She hadn't seemed all that averse to it, though.

"Like you and killing people?" Emma suggests pertly. Regina is glaring at her like she's incompetent, again, and it's bringing forth unpleasant flashbacks of Madam Mayor and hapless sheriff and that recklessness that had marked her interactions with Regina back then. "Wait, so you're saying that I have stray thoughts about making out with you? Because I…don't." Regina had been dark-eyed and flushed when they'd made magic together, sweat pooling at the notch of her jugular in ways that had had Emma contemplating licking it. Which doesn't count. It's just…Regina as a state of mind. "Not at all."

Regina raises her eyebrows, and dammit, her neck is still invitingly shiny. Emma tilts her head and tries swallowing unobtrusively. "Maybe you just had a lot of 'baser urges' to be ravaged by me."

Regina clears her throat. "Let's get back to the levitation." She's embarrassed, cheeks dark and eyes averted, but she looks troubled, too. As though whatever the hell had just happened had triggered new concerns. "The more practice you have, the more in control of yourself you'll be. Now. The vase."

Emma concentrates. This had been her suggestion after…after Neal. She'd brought Henry back to Granny's that night and headed to her parents' and somehow instead, her feet had led her here. Teach me magic, she'd said, and Regina had stared at her and not quite seen her and said, Yes. And now they're here, the day after Neal's wake.

So yeah. They're both messes. And fucking Zelena is going to pay regardless. Her eyes narrow and she pictures the woman she'd met only briefly in her mind, smug eyes and green brooch and–

"Emma." She jolts back to reality just as Regina lays a hand on her arm and there's a shattering noise from above. The vase crashes into the ceiling, showering them both with shards of glass as Regina throws up a shimmering purple shield around them. "This is what happens when you don't focus," Regina berates her, frustration mingling with something nearing concern. It recalls Regina over a year ago, You can use magic, and Emma hadn't realized until after they'd fought how disheartened Regina had looked. "I can't teach you if you aren't going to put in any effort."

"Sorry. I was just…" She stares at the glass, settling to the floor around them. "Angry."

Regina waves her hand and the vase is made whole again on the coffee table. "You're the one who didn't want to give in to your anger in Neverland. What was it you called me? A monster?" She's prowling again, pacing back and forth in an arc behind Emma, close enough that Emma thinks she can feel Regina's breath warm against her neck.

"You know I didn't mean…" She stops, because it would be a lie to say she'd never thought of Regina as a monster. But that had been before, back when curses and even Evil Queens had been an impossibility and Regina was just a vengeful mayor on a power trip. That had been before she'd watched Regina crouched in front of a hospital bed- No matter what anyone tells you, I do love you- and before the trigger and Neverland and Pan's curse. "You're not a monster," she says firmly. "Anger doesn't make you a monster."

Anger makes Emma determined, makes her focused, makes her want to protect the people she still has left. Anger is constructive now, and her intent has to matter more than silly old mantras left over from old Star Wars marathons. "Just as long as you don't break any more vases," Regina says, sliding her hands into Emma's like they'd been before all the kissing. That they're never going to talk about again. "Try lifting it again."

Regina centers her, slows the magic so it isn't pouring out all at once, and it's not enough anymore. It feels like tripping a step before the finish line, like jolting out of a dream just as it intensifies, like teetering at the precipice of orgasm but it's so slow, too little sensation trickling through, and Emma surges forward with impatience. She's had enough of this strained control when she has so much within her, when she can't afford to be cautious with a Wicked Witch on the loose, and she summons up every last bit of power she can feel thrumming through her veins and hurls it at the vase.

The vase explodes, combusts inwards then out at the two of them, and Regina snaps out a curse but it's getting fuzzy and Emma's vision turns grey for a moment before her legs collapse beneath her. She topples forward and is caught by arms that nearly fold under her weight. "You idiot," Regina grits out. "Are you this incapable of following simple directions?" She sighs. "Of course you are. I've met your parents."

Emma ignores her. "I can't move. Why can't I move." She struggles to plant her legs back onto the floor but they don't even twitch. "Regina, why can't I move?" She can feel rising desperation, a sudden terror of being trapped like this, and she's sparking again, little flashes bursting through her fuzzy vision. Her chest heaves and her breath is ragged and she chokes until she's lowered down onto the couch, Regina stroking a calming hand against her cheek.

"You used too much of your magic at once," comes Regina's voice, dark irritation half-concealed under a soothing tone. "You're going to be fine. Just rest it off."

"I can't move!" More magic erupts somewhere around her, wild and uncontrollable, and she would be thrashing around if she could. This feels like a cage, a prison, and her emotions are turned so high that she can't control them anymore.

"Stop it!" Regina commands, and something else washes into her, magic like a gentle warning instead of a tidal wave. Her eyesight returns and she blinks into Regina's face, very, very close, her fingers soft against Emma's cheeks. "You're going to set my house on fire at this rate," the other woman mutters. "Close your eyes. Take a nap. Listen when I tell you what to do next time."

She can wiggle her toes now. It's a start. "Wait. I can't take a nap," she remembers suddenly, mentally slapping herself for what had seemed like such a good idea at the time. "I told Ruby to drop Henry off here."

Regina's lips press together. "What?"

"It was going to be a…I thought it'd be nice for you. For him. After Neal." There are few visible signs that Henry had ever lived here on the ground floor of the house, just a photograph on the mantle that Emma had slid out of sight when she'd first come in. "He likes you and I wanted to thank you for working with me–"

"My son is not a bribe." Regina spins around, her hands smoothing against her side and curling together in what looks like anger. Then she turns back, eyes frantic, and maybe she isn't angry at all. "I didn't prepare a dinner. Or anything for him to eat. What about his old video games? Does he prefer Marvel or DC now?" She paces, heels crunching glass into the floor. Regina nervous is almost endearing when she isn't being snippy about it. "Do you ever think ahead, Miss Swan? You couldn't have mentioned this before?" There's the snippy. Regina wrings her hands. "I'd better go cut up some fresh fruit."

She vanishes into the next room and Emma forces herself to relax her body again. This isn't a prison. Regina is a…well, not friend, exactly, but an ally she can trust to at least not hurt her while she's helpless. And she's going to learn to use magic without wearing herself out.

Her eyes drift closed, and the last thing she thinks of before she succumbs to exhaustion is Regina against the wall, kissing her back like this is all they'll ever need to endure.

She doesn't quite fall asleep as much as lie in a hazy limbo, vaguely aware of her surroundings and the sounds of Regina cleaning up somewhere nearby. She can feel her energy slowly returning, her headache receding and her thoughts reaching some kind of clarity, and then there's a low banging from somewhere nearby that Regina doesn't react to.

A high-pitched bell follows but Regina seems oblivious, and Emma can't find the urgency to speak until the front door is creaking open and Regina jolts. "There's some fruit on the bottom shelf of the fridge. Help yourself, but save your appetite for dinner," she calls.

Henry says, "Uh. Mayor Mills?"

Emma manages to open one eye. Regina is staring out the doorway, looking chagrined. "Oh, I'm sorry, Henry. I thought you were…" Her voice trails off. "Ruby," she says unconvincingly. "Ruby comes here a lot." She steps out of the room into the foyer. "You're welcome to some fruit, too, of course."

"Thanks." Emma can imagine the smile Henry's giving Regina, polite and a little bemused, and new pain that has nothing to do with magic and vases shoots through her. "So, are you Ruby's mom?"

"What?" Regina sounds horrified. "How old do I look?"

"Sorry," Henry says quickly. "You just seemed a lot like a mom there."

More silence, and Emma's half-slumber is all but faded. "No," Regina says softly, and Emma aches like almost, almost, almost and regret that she can't quite feel but hates herself for it. "I'm not a mom."

They vanish into the kitchen as Regina launches into an explanation of how their work had exhausted Emma, and Emma can just barely hear them talking in low terms. "…just don't understand how this all connects to my dad," Henry is saying. "Mom seems to know everyone here, but I know we've never been here before. I don't know what she's keeping from me."

"Mary Margaret is rather popular in town," Regina acknowledges through what sounds like gritted teeth. "Her friends are your mother's friends." It's not exactly a lie, and then she breaks right into, "How have you been coping with the news about your father?"

Regina prods and asks careful questions designed for Henry to respond to without asking more, and she doesn't talk about curses or fairytales but somehow every question he does shoot at her gets a truthful answer. Emma envies her that even as she knows that it's taken far more than this one conversation for Regina and Henry to get to this.

Still, the irony of this moment, listening to Henry's misgivings about what Emma's hiding from him as he confides in Regina, isn't lost on her. She bites her lip and inhales deeply, stretching arms and legs that are just beginning to move properly, and forces thoughts of frustration from her mind. She has Henry now, has always had Henry, and Regina has paid the price for her happiness. She's not so awful to begrudge them their newfound ease.

She isn't.

"I do like your town," Henry is saying hastily when he and Regina return from the kitchen. "It's…homey. Like a big family. I don't even know the people in the apartment opposite ours in New York, and here I feel like I've already met everyone."

"We don't get many visitors," Regina murmurs. "There's a lot of excitement over new arrivals." She brushes past Emma. "Why don't you make yourself at home? I'll go see if I can find something for you to read." Emma waits until Regina vanishes up the steps before she peeks out at Henry.

She'd thought he'd sit on the couch opposite her, but instead he's seated on the bench in front of the grand piano, eyebrows knit as he raises the fallboard and his fingers settle on the keys. They move as though from memory, and soon a tentative melody is emerging from the other side of the room.

Footsteps sound on the stairs, this time hurriedly descending, and now Emma's eyes are wide open as Regina leans against the doorpost, head tilted and eyes speaking a language Henry can't possibly understand. She doesn't seem to notice Emma, struggling to sit up and falling back down. Neither of them do. "You play beautifully."

"I don't," Henry says, his fingers still tracing out forgotten music. "I mean, I've never played before. We never had a piano." He pulls his hands back. "I don't know how I know this."

"Perhaps it's an old muscle memory you've forgotten learning," Regina suggests, entirely truthful. She smiles, so pained that Emma twitches again with sorrow she has no right to. "Or maybe you're just a natural."

Henry returns to the keyboard, a new song at his fingertips as he shakes his head slowly, and Emma thinks join him with such fierce desire that she can feel the magic glowing between them as Regina walks forward, blinking with confusion at her own movements. She doesn't see Emma, brow furrowed as she focuses on giving them this, on forcing Regina to sit beside Henry, and she doesn't see Emma's satisfaction when her magic has done something good and done it well.

Regina's hands dance between Henry's, drawing out a refrain as Henry plays on haltingly, and the music rises and falls around the room like a thousand tiny sighs.

ii. augmentation

She'd come to Zelena's house just over a week ago, hunting for signs of Rumple, and she'd run from it with the weight of a realization she'd never dared to contemplate before. But today Emma is walking beside her and she feels…not quite as off-kilter. Safe, almost.

Damn.

"Why did you want me here today?" she says, mostly to stave off the warmth that rises through her at that revelation. "Don't you have a pirate lurking about with nothing better to do than follow you around?"

Emma shrugs. "I don't think he'd be much help against Zelena or Gold. And we can do more…" She waves her fingers at a leaf in their path. It floats on, carried by the wind. "Crap. Wait." She squeezes her eyes shut and focuses. The leaf is instantly pulverized, tiny pieces of dust shooting out at them. "I thought too hard, didn't I?"

"I didn't know you were capable of thinking at all," Regina says mildly, but she sneaks a sidelong glance at the other woman. Emma's powers are unpredictable at best, and since she'd returned to Storybrooke, she's been like a live wire, magic flowing off her in waves that are both wasteful and destructive. It's the kind of power she'd have once nurtured, grooming Emma to be a weapon as lethal as a magical atomic bomb.

And where that once might have tempted her, now it concerns her instead. At least Emma is receptive to proper training. She's kicking another leaf now, stomping down on it with her boot. "Okay," she admits, "I didn't want to be around Hook today. Not right after Neal…" She sighs. "He's kind of aggressively flirting with me. And awkwardly." She rolls her eyes. "He thinks he's pretty enough to get away with it."

"And you're the only one not to fall for his charms." Regina squashes a leaf before Emma can get to it, decisive and sharp. "How romantic."

Emma's lips twist into a grimace. "Shut up. I just lost…a guy. I'm trying to figure that out before I deal with Hook again."

"Were you in love with Neal?" It's more than she cares to know, honestly. Emma Swan's love life has gotten in her way multiple times in the past and the only part of it that concerns her is the part where Henry goes sailing with a pirate and she only finds out after the fact.

But Emma's always been difficult to read around all those men flitting through her orbit, and this is more openness than she's gotten from her since the curse had broken. "I don't know. I was angry and hurt." Emma shrugs and ducks her head. "And then it seemed petty to be mad when I thought he'd died. My parents saw it as some epic love story like theirs. I think I did too until I sat in jail for eleven months over it." She barks out a laugh as Regina's eyebrows shoot up. Of course. She'd known that Emma had been pregnant in prison, but she hadn't pieced together Neal's history with her and that time.

"But he was good. He had his reasons, and he was a hero in the end." Emma says it with conviction a hair too forceful, and another leaf explodes up at them. "I cared about him. Of course I loved him. I was just finally ready to let go, and then he had to go die on me." She laughs again. "And I'm sure Hook will find some way to piss me off even more about it. It's enough to make me swear off men altogether."

Regina touches Emma's hand before another leaf can suffer her magic, and it sparks like static electricity that races into her bloodstream, faster and faster until her heart is pounding from the power of it. "Miss Swan, are you propositioning me again?"

Emma's hand flies away from hers and she snickers as Emma glares at her. "You're still a bitch."

"Thank you." She smirks again and doesn't think about the fact that Emma's magic is still surging through her like she's been shot full of adrenaline and it's a struggle to keep her breaths even. "But at least I'm not a lovesick pirate who doesn't know when he's being shot down."

"Yeah, yeah, point in your favor." They reach the far side of the house and Regina lags back for a moment, just long enough for her to hold out a hand and shoot a short blast of diluted magic- nearly lavender in color- toward the woods behind them. Her muscles unclench and her eyes clear and she breathes again, feeling the loss of Emma's magic like she's been trapped in a desert and her last canteen yanked away from her.

"Hey." She blinks and looks ahead of her. Emma's turned around to frown at her. "You okay? You look kind of flushed."

"I was overcome by your sexual advances," she drawls. "Is this how all the ladies feel around Hook?"

She expects another flustered insult, but this time Emma's ready for her. She takes a step back toward Regina, cocky like it's two years ago and they're at each other's throats again, and purrs, "Regina, if I wanted you overcome, you would be."

She's suddenly close enough that her breath is hot against Regina's skin and Regina's tongue darts out to lick suddenly dry lips, so taken aback that she can only manage a husky, "You could try," before Emma smirks and turns again, smug and red on the back of her neck.

Emma clears her throat once. Then twice, and Regina feels as though this might've been her victory after all. That sensation of safety she'd felt around Emma before is all but gone, and that isn't quite as strong a relief as she'd have thought it. "Uh. Anyway. You were here earlier this week, right?"

"Yes." She feels the stirrings of panic again, trapped on all sides by too many dangers.

Emma slows so they're walking together again, and this time she's regarding Regina with curiosity, as though she can sense Regina's heart skipping beats and too much, all too much. "What did you see?"

A bottle of whiskey. An arrow at her head. A lion tattoo. "Nothing important," she lies, and she brushes against Emma again, feeling vaguely centered just by the soft scrape of leather against wool.

"Okay." Emma is still watching her and she remembers that Emma insists her vaunted superpower always works on Regina. "Nothing magical? No hints of what you can't remember?"

It's a relief to be able to be honest again when Emma's staring at her like that. "None."

"Damn." Emma wiggles her fingers. "Maybe she's in there. Think we can take her?"

"If turning her into powdered intestine will solve anything." Emma groans and stalks ahead. "Or you might misfire and disintegrate me instead," Regina calls after her.

Emma slows again, lips twitching. "I'm sure I'd be heartbroken about it." She pauses. "Hey, you wanna do dinner with Henry and me again?"

"Of course I do," she says automatically. A moment later, her eyes narrow. Twice in one week. Emma is nothing but solicitous around her lately, but she's never been that free with Henry when she's had him to herself. Neither of them have been. They cling to whatever motherhood they can have to call their own, never a unit for as long as they'd been several nights ago in Regina's home.

What could possibly be motivating Emma to be so generous with a son who doesn't even remember enough to know he'd want to see her? She stiffens, the pieces coming together in her mind. "You're leaving."

"What?" Emma spins so quickly that she nearly crashes into the side of the house.

"After we finish this. You're taking Henry back to New York, aren't you? This is just some consolation prize for me?" She's caught between fury and despair, knowledge that her son had been at her fingertips again and he's going to be stolen away. Again.

Emma squirms and doesn't look at her. "It's his home."

"Storybrooke was his actual home for eleven years and he did just fine there."

"Really?" Emma does turn now, eyes flashing. "You mean when he was kidnapped by a pair of psychopaths? When he hated magic so much he tried to blow it up? When he was poisoned by his mother?" She holds up a hand before Regina can snap back. "I know. I know there's more now and you've worked through that. But he was happy away from all this."

"You were happy away from all this," Regina corrects her, but her stomach is sinking because Emma isn't wrong. Emma is making decisions that infuriate and offend her, but she isn't wrong, and that awareness has her nauseous. Has her raging. "You're running again."

"No."

"That's par for the course, Emma. You're dealing with your own issues with…this Neal, and with the pirate, and–" She plays a hunch, one she'd been silent about until now. Until she's seething with new fury that she can't direct anywhere but at herself or Emma. "And with your parents having another child–"

A direct hit. Emma's eyes darken to stormy grey and her fists clench. "You don'tfucking know what you're talking about."

"No?" This is what she's good at, finding a wound and pressing into it until it turns red and raw. "So you don't think anything of your parents losing you and promptly getting to work on a new baby? A spoiled little princess who has everything you never did?"

She doesn't know how it had been during the missing year, but she remembers the moment she'd seen Snow here, the bitter disbelief that had bubbled up at the sight of her abdomen. Snow remains the spoiled princess herself, driven to claim her own happiness and oblivious to the pain she causes others, and Regina had been forced to remind herself then that Emma hadn't needed someone she hated angry on her behalf.

Today, though, Emma will be as callous with what she holds precious as she's ever been, and Regina is fuming just enough to turn her disgust into a weapon, to seek to destroy and hurt as she's been hurt before.

There's a blue glow around Emma's hands, rising and shrinking with every short breath. Regina's eyes latch onto it with hunger she struggles to tamp down. "You took that away from them. From me. You."

She thinks about Henry and tears her eyes from the magic. "They seem to have gotten over it," she says, and a shock of magic blows from Emma's hands into her chest, throwing her against the wall.

It's the most potent Emma's magic has ever been, like fine wine to the taste, meant to be savored but submerged in instead. And it's tempting like magic has always been, pure power rushing through her veins, nearly tearing them apart with the force of it until she's dazed and helpless.

And suddenly it feels all too familiar to be restrained by magic like this, to be impotent in someone else's hands and she stares at Emma and sees only another woman with too much power and too little concern for her. "Please…" she manages in a strained voice. "Please…" I'll be good spins through her mind but she doesn't know if she's said it when Emma drops her in a heap and rushes to her.

"Fuck. Fucking fuck, I'm sorry. I keep doing this." Emma shakes her head, frustrated. She holds out her hand and this time there's no magic between them when Regina takes it. "Isn't there some way to make the magic stop?"

"You can't stop it. It's a part of you." She aches all over, suddenly, Emma a more lethal threat than even this mysterious Zelena. "You're leaking it everywhere now that you've started using it, and you have to get it under control before you hurt someone else." She takes in a shuddery breath and says in grudging apology, "And I'll have to learn to stop antagonizing you until you learn."

"Yeah? But what will we talk about then?" But Emma's hanging her head in a self-deprecating sort of way that Regina dislikes immediately. "You don't need to walk on eggshells around me. I– I hate that." She's uncomfortable again, shifting from foot to foot. "Look, here's the thing. This place is toxic. For whatever reasons you want to invent…fine. But I can't be here anymore. And we both know that Henry is better off away from here, too."

She doesn't quite ask for approval but there's a plea in her voice and Regina can't respond. She can't agree even though Henry has friends in New York and happy memories and a whole life she isn't a part of. She doesn't have it within her to be that selfless when it comes to Henry, to a boy she'd rather die than be without (how she's still alive, one year later, she doesn't know). She stares blankly and Emma says, quick and apologetic, "I'll come back with him. Every school break. I swear. He might not remember you, but he'll make new memories. I wouldn't keep you two apart again."

She toys, for a moment, with the wistful contemplation of Emma Swan under a sleeping curse, lying in the cursed hospital while Regina remains victorious, the town still under her thumb and Henry free of custody battles and home with her at last. And feels sick at the thought of it an instant later. "He's happy there," she says uncertainly. She wonders how Zelena had cast this curse, if she could walk over the town line unscathed.

"He is." There is nothing but sincerity on Emma's face. "And he's safe."

"Except all those pesky flying monkeys," says an unfamiliar voice, and they both spin around, Emma reaching for her gun and a fireball in Regina's hand at once. There's a short little man standing behind them, smirk on his face and eyes glowing a dangerous red. "Hey, Emma."

Emma. Emma who's standing stock-still beside her, eyes wide like she's been slapped in the face. "Regina, I need you to hold my hand," she says, voice tight, and Regina takes her hand with her free one, feels the magic whirling through her system like a hurricane. Her breath hitches and she focuses on letting her own magic pass back to Emma. They're compatible in ways that are astounding and terrifying and all that raw power clings to Regina's magic and calms with her.

The man tilts his head. "Sweet. Is this why you wouldn't marry me?"

"This is Walsh?" Regina asks, as Emma grits out, "I wouldn't marry you because you wound up being one step down the evolutionary ladder."

Her hand squeezes Regina's tighter. "Wait. How do you know Walsh?"

"Henry told me. He didn't mention he was working for Zelena." That would explain why the engagement didn't work out, though from the sound of it… "You dated a flying monkey?" She laughs, pitched a little too high to be anything other than relief, which is just about being saved another parent to worry about. Just that. And some vague concern about Emma making romantic decisions without her memories. She'd done it to an entire kingdom in the past and been gleeful about it, but it feels too close to violation now. With Emma.

"I'm actually just a normal guy," Walsh says, spreading his hands in an aw-shucks, what can you do? all-American way. Regina hates him at once. "Nothing to be ashamed of." He leers at Emma and she grips Regina's hand as tightly as she grips her gun in the other hand.

She looks…off-kilter, shaky in ways that Regina hasn't seen from her before. Emma is always Action Girl, running into every situation with the kind of idiotic self-assuredness that she gets from her Charming genes, and seeing her like this- vulnerable, off her game- is as worrying as seeing her lose control of her magic. And another piece of the puzzle that is Emma Swan's lack of restraint right now in the first place. "What the hell does Zelena want from us?" Emma demands. "What happened last year?"

"Oh, lover, plenty happened last year." He leers again, baring his teeth in an almost monkey-like grin. "You know, I thought I'd failed by letting you make it back here, but as it turns out, it's been a welcome treat."

"As it turns out, seared monkey is stringy but edible," Regina says conversationally, hurling her fireball at the man.

Walsh spins and dodges, his movements still oddly simian. "It's a treat because it means that your son is in town for Zelena," he snarls at Regina, and both women move as one, their magic exploding from their joined hands with more force than even Emma's blow from before.

Regina can feel the magic singing in her veins, power seeping from every pore of her body, and it feels like being backed against the wall and kissed by Emma Swan again but more. Dangerous and exultant and like toppling over a peak and feeling wave after wave of release with every surge of energy that passes from them. She can hear Emma panting beside her, both of them suddenly sweat-drenched with sheer exertion, and this is every temptation she's sworn to never surrender to again, locked in the unpredictable raw power that is Emma Swan.

There's a responding burst of magic- tiny, compared to theirs, but just enough to run- and Walsh puffs out of existence again. And it takes long moments before Regina remembers- Henry!- and she yanks her hand away as quickly as she can and is left wobbly and bereft.

Emma slides to the ground, too spent to move again, and she barely gasps out, "We need to…" before Regina is pulling out her phone and dialing Snow's number.

She speaks curtly and hangs up without a goodbye. "He's fine. No sign of Zelena. But we're not going anywhere without him again."

"Damn straight." Emma leans back against the wall, sleepy-eyed with the unsteadiness from facing Walsh gone. "So that was some magic, huh?"

Some magic. Potent, overwhelming, and driven solely by their fury. It's everything Regina's spent the past year and a half struggling to overcome, and it's what Emma has in spades. "Some magic," she agrees softly, and thinks instead of dinner with her son.