xxv. innervation
"It isn't so simple." The Blue Fairy waves her hand and her wand disappears. She looks around Regina's bedroom with distaste- You want me to sit down in her home?- and remains standing, hands folded primly in front of her. "With Robin Hood, I could spare him from death and he will heal externally in time. Your daughter used her own magic on herself." She doesn't call her Emma, just stares down, aloof and disdainful, and Regina grits her teeth under pursed lips.
Snow frowns. "But she was fine. I saw her when Regina brought her in, and she was…she isn't even hurt." She strokes Emma's face, brushes hair aside, and Regina is silently envious. She isn't outing Emma or their relationship while the other woman is unconscious, but Snow hasn't torn her eyes away from Emma since they'd reached the hospital the night before and the distance she's forced to keep has her fingers itching.
Henry squeezes her hand and Regina slides her arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer to her. "Magic is hardwired to protect its owner," she says. "But Emma wanted to…to…" Her voice cracks and she falls silent.
The Blue Fairy glances her way, taking her measure with assessing eyes before she turns back to Snow. "Your daughter tried to hurt herself. But physically, her magic couldn't do her much harm."
"Physically," David repeats. He's cradling the baby in one arm, pacing back and forth behind Snow. His fingers trail across Snow's shoulders and she recoils. "That's good, right?"
"She tried to destroy her heart." The Blue Fairy glances at Regina again, eyes narrowing. She can't possibly know what had happened when Emma had self-destructed, can she? "She failed, of course. The level of discipline needed to keep an attack going when in that state is…improbable." But she doesn't sound so certain about it. Regina keeps her face even. "Her heart sustained a shock, though. It may take a while for her to wake. I can't do anything that she won't do better on her own time."
Her lip curls, ever so slightly. Snow hasn't looked away from Emma and misses it. "Thank you, Blue," she says, and David- who's been watching Blue- catches Regina's eye in solidarity, his own jaw grinding at the fairy's silent hostility.
Blue departs the room, David leading her downstairs, and Regina sees the clock and forces herself to rise. "Time for school, Henry."
"Seriously?" Henry gapes up at her in wounded betrayal. "School? You're not going to work today."
She folds her arms. "I'm working from home." She glances down the hall for a moment toward her cleared-out guest room, watching the ripples of Blue's other spell over the doorway. "I have other responsibilities here, you know that. And I don't want you missing any more school." She gives him a little push. "Go with David, sweetheart. By the time you get back, your mother might be wandering around the house complaining about the lack of junk food."
Henry looks as though he might protest, and she arches her eyebrow, ready for battle. Instead, he throws his arms around her, pressing himself in so tightly that his words are muffled against her shirt. "Liar. I know Ruby came by earlier with a box." Regina had been surprised that she'd been willing to, from the accounts that Henry had given her of her time asleep, but Ruby hadn't mentioned Granny's injury or Zelena, just handed over the box of pastries- far more than Regina had ordered- and asked if they'd needed anyone to man the station today.
Emma has retained some of the grace of her friends, it seems. And Ruby smiles at her with less wariness than she might've a week before, her memories of their year as allies returned at last.
Life goes on, and with Zelena defeated, the sun seems a bit brighter today, the air a bit cleaner, the birds a bit louder. Only in this room does horror and sorrow still hang heavily over them.
Well, and in the hospital room she'd ventured past earlier in the night, a crowd of Merry Men standing vigil and little Roland outside of it in Mulan's arms, sobbing for his papa. Her memories are back, Robin Hood now someone she'd loathed and not-loathed at the same time in the missing year, and she'd been brought inside to do what she could for his burns.
Which is not enough, not for him to recover. She isn't skilled at healing magic, doesn't have the knack that Emma had developed even now that she's found these reservoirs of light magic within her. Minor cuts and scrapes are easy, but magically charged burns that deep…
She sighs and Henry looks up at her askance. "School," she repeats firmly.
He kisses her on the cheek, and then starts toward Emma, carefully placing his lips against her forehead. She doesn't move, and he bites his lip, looking disappointed. "Fine. Love you, Moms."
Once he's gone, David and the baby with him, Snow says with eyes still fixed on Emma's face, "How long is a while, Regina?"
Regina shakes her head, then realizes that Snow won't see it. "I can't say. A few hours at best. A week or longer at worst." She remembers the feel of Emma's heart, the explosiveness of her magic as she'd touched it, and she doesn't know. "She'll be safe here. You should sleep."
"So should you." Emma is always jittery, fingers dancing and legs rocking and eyes moving, but her mother is still like a rock, unmoving and focused. "The dreams are worst if you try to keep them away."
The dreams. She'd forgotten about the fire room that had burned Henry after he'd eaten her apple. "If that's supposed to make me want to sleep…"
"You can take Henry's room," Snow breaks in. "I mean, I guess there isn't anywhere else, but…" There's a light tint of pink in her cheeks. "It'll help. It helps to be around whoever woke you up."
"I'm not leaving Emma." It's as close as she's going to get to telling Snow about any of it, about how her plan had been to sleep in this bed if Snow would just leave. And she takes the coward's way out a moment later. "I'm the only one who can help if something goes wrong."
"Thank you." Snow curls her fingers around Emma's hand and then wheels around, and Regina sees red eyes for the first time since this hell had begun, wet and ringed with dark circles. "You knew. I don't know how you could have–" She bites back whatever she'd been about to say, and Regina watches her warily. "I'm sorry. I want to blame you, but that isn't really fair, is it?"
"I don't know." She's exhausted and she doesn't want to fight with Snow again, not over Emma when Emma's in front of them with her head spread out across her pillow and her face dull and grey. "I suppose not."
"I thought she would never…I don't really know her at all anymore, do I?" Snow seizes Regina's hand with both of hers before Regina can pull away, wide-eyed and determined. "Tell me how this happened. What made her…where did she go, Regina?"
Snow, Snow, Snow. Snow looks for reasons, for bridges to carry people back from darkness to light, and she's still struggling to understand the world that exists within those bridges, the shades of grey that they wander within. "She didn't go anywhere. She's just been struggling for a long time." Since she'd returned to Storybrooke, since all she'd found there had been grief. (Not all, thinks the part of Regina that she's been trying desperately to ignore all night and morning.) "I gave her perfect happiness and we pulled away the curtain and revealed that it had all been a dream."
"I didn't know she was suffering. I love her! How couldn't I have known–"
Snow looks to her beseechingly and all she can think to say is, "Did you know I was in pain when I was married to your father?" Which is too much, to draw a comparison there, to acknowledge that Snow had loved her, too. To bring in their decades of baggage when there's already a world of hurt to confront, Emma lying still in front of them and another hurdle to cross just down the hall.
But Snow sags at the words, drops to the floor bonelessly as though she'd been shoved, her hands still locked around Regina's. "Regina." She's on her knees and she's holding onto Regina and she's looking up at her with red eyes. "Why can't I hold onto any of you?" she whispers pleadingly, and oh, Regina hasn't cried since the moment when Emma's magic had been surging around them but now she can feel her throat closing up and the tears threatening to burst through and dammit, not over Snow White. Not now. Not anymore.
"Emma never wanted…she loves you so much, Snow."
Snow laughs, soft breaths that catch in her throat. "You haven't spoken to her recently."
"She loves you." Of that Regina is certain, even when Emma had hidden away from her mother in Regina's arms and in magic. "This is her…idiotic, misguided, bighearted–" She cuts herself off as Snow's brow furrows at the emotion in her voice. "This is how she protects you. I wasn't so noble," she says dryly. "I hid my feelings from you because I wanted you dead."
Snow laughs again in little sobs, and Regina leans forward to pull her up, the two of them stumbling to a stand together with their hands still locked. "I don't know how to live in a world where love isn't enough."
It stings in ways Snow can't possibly understand, and Regina snaps, "Well, get used to it," before she can stop herself.
"Regina!" Snow says, hurt again, and ghosts dance around Regina's eyes, of Daniel and her mother and Emma being eaten alive by blue lightning, and then Snow says quietly, "Oh."
"Love is everything," Regina agrees, softening her voice. "It's…Henry is everything. Emma is everything– for you," she amends swiftly. "But sometimes there's more at stake than just hugs and kisses can cure. You're not the first parent with a child who's struggling with things you'd rather ignore," she admits, swallowing her pride.
"What did you do?" Snow looks to her and there's bare faith behind her eyes, no more condescension. No more denial. Only Snow, trusting Regina with her heart once more. With Emma. "Henry gave you ultimatums, didn't he? Emma would never ask me for anything."
"Henry didn't give me ultimatums." He'd talked about magic and he'd been miserable when she'd used it, but it had been she who'd made her own decision to give it up for him. "I just learned to listen."
"To…" Snow nods, exhaling slowly. "I can do that. If I can manage to get her to talk, anyway." They share a rueful look at that, the two people who know Emma's reticence best in sighing agreement.
"You won't be able to if you're too exhausted to think. Though in that case…have you slept at all in the past fifty years?" She gets a half smile for the effort and says with gentleness, "Go. Go home and rest. Take some time with your son…does he have a name yet?"
"Neal," Snow supplies. Regina stares at her. Snow gives her a helpless shrug. "We're trying out Baelfire as a nickname. It might be a little less…confusing."
"Take some time with Baelfire. I'll watch over Emma."
"Soon," Snow promises, settling back down on her chair. "And Regina?" She's already reaching for Emma again, eyes back on her. "Love might not have been enough for you for a long time. I might've– we might've taken love from each other. But you're not alone anymore. You still have family." She offers her a wan smile. "Not just Henry. You have us- David and Emma and me. And you have…maybe there's still something else to salvage."
It's the first time anyone has given voice to her secret thoughts, has motioned in the direction of her guest room with anything but caution. Regina shakes her head, unwilling to consider the ideas that have been creeping up in her mind for weeks now. "She's tried to hurt people I love. She's angry and bitter and…"
"And so were you, once upon a time." Snow closes her eyes. "You can't tell me you haven't been thinking about it." When she opens them again, they're still red-rimmed but knowing, and Regina scoffs and stalks out of her room.
There's another shimmer from the door to the guest room and Regina knows it means Zelena had been standing there not long ago, listening to their conversation. "Subtle," she comments when she steps into the room and her sister is sitting on the bed against the headboard, knees up and hands linked over them.
Zelena glares up at her, silent.
"Snow White thought I should talk to you." Regina sits down opposite her, crossing her legs and watching the ghost of…something…cross Zelena's face. "Snow White is a fool."
There'd been a time when she might've offered Zelena a second chance like the one she'd gotten, where she might've talked about their mother and destiny and hope. But today Emma is lying unconscious in the next room, Emma would have been dead if not for what had transpired between them, and she isn't feeling so charitable. "You poisoned me. You…you traumatized Emma. And most of all," she leans forward and Zelena's face darkens. "You kidnapped my son. Unforgivable.
"The only reason you're here is because there's no one capable of dealing with you in the sheriff's station and we don't know yet if your magic is totally gone or not. I don't want you here," she presses forward, savagely glad when Zelena's face closes off even more.
"I don't want to be here, either," Zelena grinds out. "So forgive me if I'm not feeling much sympathy."
An odd familiarity strikes her, as though she's seen this position before in this very place. Oh. Emma sits like this when she's feeling defensive, knees up or legs crossed and gradually closing herself off from the world. She remembers for a moment the night Walsh had– the night Zelena had taken Henry, when Emma had lost control and been huddled in the woods, eyes full of red-rimmed fire.
Her resolve weakens and she scoffs at her own sentimentality. "Did you enjoy it?" she says, changing tacks abruptly.
"What?"
"Living my life. How was that for you?" She tilts her head. "Were you planning on wearing my face forever? Loving my son for me? Running my town? Living with my…" She breaks off. When they'd moved Zelena into the guest room, she'd been overwhelmed with relief at the sight of Emma's belongings in it. For all Zelena had done to Emma, it seems that she hadn't taken advantage of her in at least one way. "Was it good for you?"
"It was enough." There's a hollowness to Zelena's voice, an emptiness in her eyes, and Regina knows, knows with all the experience of someone else who'd reached an ending and found it lacking. They let their vengeance consume them and then…who else are they, if not vengeance? How do they ever find a way to be any more than that?
Regina had found tiny hands and inquisitive eyes and a little body gathered in her arms, had found family and bit by bit expanded it until now her heart is so full that it overwhelms her sometimes with how much she loves the people she's let into her life. She'd found a woman whose life she'd taken from her, a boy who she'd lied to for a year, a woman she'd tried to kill dozens of times–
And Zelena has nothing, an empty receptacle left craving meaning in her life again. Zelena who could have been her sister instead of her enemy. Zelena who stares down at her lap like Emma and hides her face but can't hide the desperate need for…for…
Connection.
Regina wavers again. "No," she says. "It wouldn't be. I spent eighteen years running this town when no one knew who I was and it was never enough. And it wasn't until it was over- until my revenge failed and my enemies had defeated me- it wasn't until then that I found most of the people I…" She hesitates.
"Love," Zelena spits out in a half-snarl, and it's easier than ever to see naked longing on her face, barely locked away behind her sneer.
"After Emma's awake," Regina says, and she doesn't know what she's promising or why except there's another piece of her heart snaking out now, struggling to find purchase in someone new. Someone who looks so much like she once had, and she's beginning to understand Snow's compassion for a fallen queen and hates it, hates Zelena, hates this whole damned situation she's been thrust into. "I'll be back then."
Zelena puffs out an irritable little sigh and turns away before Regina can see her reaction, and Regina stands, exhaustion finally taking hold of her. She's relieved to see that Snow had slipped out sometime during her stilted conversation with her sister, and Emma is finally alone.
Emma is never so still when she's sleeping. She tosses and turns, shifts every few seconds and lets out unintelligible murmurs, and if not for the fact that Regina tends to be safely ensconced in her arms when she's moving, she'd probably never sleep. It's unnerving to see Emma like this, breathing lightly with eyes closed but unmoving, and she doesn't react to Regina crawling in beside her and placing a tentative hand on her hip.
Regina watches her, still exhausted but suddenly weighed down with a burden she's been struggling to avoid. It's been easy not to think since she'd been pricked by that needle, to wake up and jump into action and there'd been Henry-Zelena-Emma-Snow and so much to absorb, too much to focus on when she'd been needed.
But now she can see Emma and wonder about the week of self-destructive darkness Emma had been immersed in, the wariness of the town around Emma in the hospital and the quick rundown of the events of the week that Henry had given her. "Zelena's been really tough on Emma," he'd said, and Henry rarely sees any weakness in Emma.
But whatever Zelena had done, it hadn't been what had sent Emma down this path. Zelena had provoked and Emma had responded and Snow can blame herself all she wants, but it had been Regina who'd seen it coming and not been able to stop it. Regina who'd tried to be everything Emma had needed and had failed miserably.
She closes her eyes for a moment and opens them again to fire raging around her, and she dreams for hours and hours until there are gentle hands brushing aside her hair and whispering her name.
She opens her eyes. Green eyes stare back, and Emma lets her fingers trail down along her jaw to her chin and settle on the bed beside them. "You were crying in your sleep," she murmurs.
"Bad dreams." Regina's eyes are glued to hers.
Emma doesn't look away, and Regina can feel her skin heating up at the intensity of Emma's gaze. Emma whispers, "Hey."
"Hey," Regina echoes.
Emma doesn't smile, just winces for a moment and puts a hand on her chest instinctively. Regina covers it, faint magic still pulsing between them. Emma shivers. "I'm not dead." She says it with vague unease that prickles at the back of Regina's neck.
"Not yet," Regina corrects her wryly. "I would tread lightly around Henry for a while if I were you."
Emma arches an eyebrow. "Henry?"
"Or someone." Her fingers slide between Emma's and she tries hard not to think about what has to come next. For Emma. For both of them. For this moment, they can have this. "How does it feel?"
"Hurts." Emma closes her eyes and Regina feels their absence, feels her heart squeezing painfully at the loss of Emma's gaze. "I missed you."
"You didn't know I was gone."
"Yeah." Her eyes open again, and it's like she suddenly can't keep herself expressionless and sleepy anymore, can't close the shutters and hide away agonized guilt that only firms Regina's resolve. "I think I did."
xxvi. suffocation
Her heart aches. "It's healing," Regina promises, and when she lays her fingers across Emma's chest, it hurts a tiny bit less, Regina sharing her burden with her. "It might just take some time. It's going to feel like…heavy depression, I suppose."
"So not very different than yesterday, huh?" Her teeth are gummy and gross and she wishes she'd brushed them while they were still upstairs. Now going up there without Regina seems an insurmountable task. She drinks her water and sits forward on the couch, legs curling up under her, and Regina takes her glass and silently refills it in the kitchen while Emma presses her hand to her chest and feels her heart throbbing beneath it, dull and raw like a new sunburn. "Is this normal?"
"For a suicide attempt?" Regina's voice gets funny when she talks about it, dangerous and restrained at the same time. Emma doesn't dare comment- to correct her or confirm, she doesn't know. "No. It's next to impossible that you'd be able to hurt your heart like that. It's even more impossible that you survived. I can't imagine that we'd be able to find much information about it."
Emma drinks more water. Regina sits beside her, back straight and her thumbs pressing tightly against her phone. Emma can see shockwaves arcing out from where she's squeezing the touchscreen, echoes of vibrating curves against her finger. "I'm sorry."
"You're–" Regina's eyes flicker, fury burning hot for a moment before she takes a breath and shakes her head. "You don't need to apologize to me. You didn't do anything to hurt me." She lets go of the phone to touch Emma's heart again, fingers trembling.
She thinks about Zelena's airy dismissal of that night and she says, "Yeah. I did. I shouldn't have pushed you into fighting at Zelena's house. I know you've worked hard on…being careful." It's the easiest way to avoid addressing just what Regina had been careful about, what Emma's been steeped in for so long.
Regina's breath hitches and her body curves forward slightly into something softer, kissing the side of Emma's forehead. Emma loosens too, daring to reach a hand to touch Regina's back, and the other woman crumples into her embrace. "You don't need to apologize," Regina repeats, head dropping down to her shoulder. Emma's heart throbs with need, different than the pain from before. "I've been where you are."
Are. Not were. Regina knows just as well as she does that you can't burn up all the darkness within you and call it a night. She slumps, taking Regina with her, and Regina reluctantly pulls her knees up to the couch, too, and curls up beside her.
Tension fills the room like dirt in a grave, rising and piling on until it's stiflingly painful, but Emma still can't breathe unless they're close enough to touch. Regina seems unwilling to leave her side, either, which she takes as a good sign. She has no idea where they're holding right now, but she can't imagine it's a pleasant place. "What did you do?"
"You know what I did. Mortally wounding a few men would have been merciful from me." Emma can feel Regina's lashes tickling her neck as her eyes close. "You'd have had a long way to go before you'd be where I was."
"No, I meant…" She shivers. "When there's nothing left. And it feels like…" Like she'd been dancing around with a stick of dynamite and a match, waiting for one to set off the other, and then the match had lit the string and there'd been no explosion. "Like everything's the same, but…"
"Empty," Regina finishes. She laughs tiredly. "I don't know. I don't know what I did. One day, hating Snow White just wasn't enough anymore and I turned to find love instead. You just…live your life, I suppose. Go through the motions of goodness until you start to feel it." She sounds skeptical about that, uneasy with talk of good and evil as she's ever been, and Emma feels a surge of affection toward her for it. "I'm not the one to talk to about that."
"Because you think it's a load of shit."
Regina kisses her again, lips pressed against her neck. "Indeed. But it's what Henry wanted from me, and I think…I think there may be something to it. He's a very clever boy."
"I don't feel very good right now." She's tired and nervous and she isn't angry or scared, but she's also only been around Regina. And she's exhausted her anger toward Regina many, many months ago.
"You were always good. Whatever that means." Regina still sounds dubious, but her voice strengthens with her words. "You have a family who loves you unconditionally. You have Henry. Zelena is defeated and whatever darkness you'd directed toward her…it isn't going to go away because she isn't a threat anymore, but once you open yourself to love again, it might get easier to live with it."
"Yeah? That's all?" She laughs. Open yourself to love again. Sometimes she forgets that Regina is, at the core, still a fairytale character, still believes that people can be fixed with a few magic words.
Regina nudges her like she knows she's being mocked. "That. Trips to Archie. Magic lessons again. Talking about your goddamned feelings instead of repressing them until you start hurting innocent people." Well. Maybe Regina isn't completely lost to Snow White's sunshine world. "Where do you want to start?"
"Did you save Robin Hood?" She asks the question that's been niggling and she's been afraid to bring up for fear of Regina's face darkening even more.
But Regina looks gratified, almost relieved, and maybe it was the right question after all. "The Blue Fairy-" Emma cranes her neck down just in time to see Regina's nose wrinkle with distaste. "Was able to repair most of the damage. I had been…occupied."
"With me."
Regina sits back, pulling out of Emma's arms, and Emma winces at the dark look she gets in response. "Yes."
"Right." Emma touches the spot where the throbbing is emanating from. "How exactly did you manage to save me? Because you said earlier that it was impossible that–"
The door opens and Regina nearly jumps up in her eagerness to escape. Emma stares wide-eyed at her, fumbling through worst-case scenarios until she sees who'd arrived and wishes she'd spent that moment fleeing the room instead.
Her mother stands in the doorway, hand to her mouth and eyes teary, and Snow takes a step forward before she stops herself. Her face tightens, her eyes clear up, and she steps backward instead. "Emma," she says in a voice so controlled that Emma barely recognizes it. Snow overflows with emotions, even when they're frustrating and Emma can't understand them at all. To see her without them is…
She's fucked up everything. She'd tried to run again and now she's still alive and everything is so hard, more messes to mop up and more people to make everything up to. "Hi," she says, wavering, and she's about to flee when there are voices behind the door and Henry flies into the house and her arms.
"Mom! Ma," he corrects himself. "You're okay!"
There are the moments when Henry's arms are around her that all she is is love, that she can't imagine how she'd ever looked into the world and seen anything but light. And Regina has moved, drawn in by Henry- always drawn in by Henry- and her hand is on his shoulder so her knuckles are surreptitiously touching her side and Emma feels so full for a moment, understands how open yourself to love could ever be enough.
"Yeah, I guess so." She grins down at him for a moment and watches the way his eyes dim once the relief ebbs away. And the good feelings fade just as rapidly.
He pulls back and she says, "Can we talk?" just as David rushes into the house with the same energy as Henry, eyes lighting up when he sees her.
"I did not install a revolving door," Regina grumbles, but Henry backs away with her and closes his hand around hers on his shoulder. She falls silent again, mollified, and David is free to wrap Emma in an embrace of his own.
"We were so worried," he murmurs in her ear, and she puts her hands against his back and closes her eyes so she can't see Snow, still frozen in place in the doorway as the others brush past her. "Zelena put us all through the grinder, didn't she?"
He's still holding her when she understands what she's been given. A way out. It's all Zelena's doing, she's been a helpless victim, and the town will embrace her again as their savior. And it can't be David who's come up with that angle. David is goodhearted and believes the best in people and he'd willingly accept it, but what has to be a blatant lie to anyone who'd been down in the crypt- or heard about it from someone who'd been down there- would have to have been constructed by someone far more crafty.
She opens her eyes and sees Snow again, and this time something hard and stubborn is visible past the mask on her face. Of course. No child of Snow's could ever be anything other than pure and uncorrupted.
She feels defiance first, stubbornness second, and maybe this isn't the healthiest reason for owning her mistakes but she's still glad when she says, "It wasn't Zelena, David. It was me. I did some pretty shitty things on my own." She reaches out for Henry before David can do any more than shake his head and open his mouth to object. "Can we talk?" she says again, and Henry bobs his head and follows her into Regina's study.
"I know," he says before they're even seated. "It was the magic, right?" His eyes shine at her expectantly and she's taken by surprise. "I didn't know when I didn't have my memories but now I do and I get it. Magic made you this way. It's why you tried to make me leave town and why you were letting people get hurt." He sounds in a rush to convince her and himself and get this whole conflict over with, and he sounds so very twelve years old. "Magic does bad things."
"Yeah." She remembers clawing at herself and cursing her magic and she hadn't thought it had sounded so much like an excuse until it's Henry saying it and she can barely tell the difference between David's earnest trust and Henry's. "No," she corrects herself. "People do bad things. Magic just helps us along sometimes."
Henry watches her warily and the door creaks slightly as Regina slips inside. "I had to get away from your parents. Snow was talking about staying for dinner," she bites out, but her eyes hold no hostility, only concern for them both, and Emma doesn't know how it is that she can feel tension with Regina and tension with Henry but it all fades away when it's the three of them together.
Henry scoots over and Regina takes the invitation to join them on the couches and declines it politely, settling instead behind her desk and rifling through papers while Emma tries again. "I wanted to take you back to New York because I've been…Henry, I've been so miserable here. And I was so happy there. And I guess I thought that if I took you back and pretended that I didn't remember anything, we might've been able to recapture that happiness."
Henry's brow furrows. "Why are you miserable here? This is your home. You love this town."
"I love you," she corrects him. "And your mom gave me eleven perfect years of memories of what we could have had, and suddenly…I would have taken that, Henry." Her eyes are glassy with tears she won't let free. "I would have taken eleven years with you and never met my parents or saved this town and I know that you'll never be okay with that, I know you need me to be a hero, but when you didn't have your memories–" She stops at a choked sob from Henry. "Henry?"
He's nearly crying, face turning red and screwing up in preparation, and Regina is halfway around the desk by the time Emma makes it to the opposite couch. "I don't want you to be a hero sometimes," he whispers. "I don't…I'm not good, either." He gulps in a breath. "I want Mom and I want you and I wish we'd left town that night when we were supposed to and none of this would have ever happened. I don't even care about Zelena." Regina joins them, wraps her arms around him as Emma does and he wipes furiously at his tears. "I'm not the truest believer anymore," he says hopelessly, and Emma knows the fear that comes with renouncing a title so heavy.
And Regina says, "No, no, sweetheart. You've been the hero this whole time. You saved me, didn't you? You figured out that Zelena was here and you took the dagger from her and you woke me up. You've been stronger and braver than anyone else in this town."
She glares meaningfully at Emma and Emma takes up the thread, remembering herself. "You're the one who told me, kid. Heroes don't get the easiest path. You stuck around and you kept us all together and wanting to be somewhere else when you were doing that only makes you even more of a believer."
Henry shakes his head. "I stopped believing in you, Ma," he whispers, and she feels her heart freeze over. "I didn't want you to be a hero anymore. When I didn't have my memories…I just wanted everything to be easy again."
She takes in a shaky breath and Regina grips her elbow in tight solidarity and loosens her grip on Henry. "Henry," she murmurs, pulling him to her. "You believe because…because somehow your mom raised you that way." Regina's eyes shoot up and she gapes at her. "You believed in heroes and happy endings because of this town, because of where you grew up and who you grew up with. You and I…we didn't believe in that stuff when it was just us."
Henry reaches for Regina and Regina kisses the top of his head, leans over him and kisses Emma lightly on the lips, holds them both and says shakily, "I believed in happy endings because of you, Henry. You were my happy ending."
"You're my happy ending," Emma echoes, and she doesn't know if she's talking to Henry or Regina or both of them together but her heart feels overfull and stretched with so much feeling in its damaged center. "I swear, Henry, I'm going to do what I can to be better."
"To feel better," Henry emphasizes, still so concerned for her that she wants to cry. "I don't want you to be miserable here. I…I was," he says, sparing a worried glance at his other mother. She tilts her head, dark eyes sorrowful, and he plunges onward. "I know what it's like to find out that nothing you believed in was real. I guess…I mean I guess everyone does. But I can help you. If you want."
A part of her shudders at the idea of it, of being anything but strong for Henry for even an instant, and she doesn't know how Regina manages vulnerability with him so easily but she envies her for it. She musters up the words, "I'll keep that in mind," and presses a kiss to his hair- it's been getting shaggy, she'd thought that Regina would have it cut this past week but it's only gotten shaggier instead with her gone- and his eyes light up in response.
"I'm actually…" She waves vaguely at the door. "I didn't really wash up when I woke up." She makes a beeline for the door of the office and is grateful to see that the front door is closed and her parents are gone.
Home free, she heads up the stairs to the bathroom, remembering just as she's about to enter it that her towel is still in the guest room, and she turns to the left and walks through the door of the bedroom. There's an odd sensation when she passes through the doorway, like walking through ice water, and she blinks with confusion and then stops short, breath hitching in shock.
Zelena looks up from her book and sits back, eyes darkening at the sight of her.
Emma says, "What…the…fuck."
"Emma! Emma, wait, don't–" Regina is hurrying up the steps, sounding harried, and she, too, falls silent when she comes up behind Emma. "I was going to wait to tell you about this after–"
"What is this? Is this a halfway house for Team Dark Magic now?" Emma demands. "Zelena? Do you even remember what she did to you?" She takes a step back. Regina is shaking her head, distraught, and Zelena glares at her, defiance in her eyes. "Our son sleeps in this house!"
"That damned fairy put up wards around the room–"
"That's what you're counting on? Wards? We had wards up, Regina! What good did they do?" Zelena is smirking to herself, pleased with her agitation, and Emma backs up out of the room, storms out to Regina's bedroom, Regina just behind her. "Do you expect us to live in this house with her? Again?" She's repulsed at the idea of it, of knowing that Zelena is here and…
Regina's staring down at Emma's hands and Emma raises them, staring at the magic sparking around them. Oh no. Oh, no. "Regina, I can't," she says pleadingly, gesturing with them. "Look at this. How am I supposed to be here and get better with her around?"
"Actually," Regina says, and Emma's heart sinks deeper still. "I thought we should talk about that, too."
She takes a step back. "No."
Regina steps forward, seizing her hands until the fire quiets from them. "Emma, we're not good for each other. Not now."
"How can you say that?" They'd felt more like a family in that office than ever before, letting go and holding on and finding the right words for Henry together. "Is this about that night?"
"No. Yes." Regina sinks down onto one of the chairs around the bed. "I've been a crutch for you, Emma. You've been a crutch for me. And when things went downhill…I saw what was happening. I knew what you were doing. And I was too caught up in…in us." She shrugs helplessly. "I didn't want to disturb the balance we'd found. I didn't want to acknowledge the path you were going down. And I think I was the only one who would have understood it. I failed you, Emma."
"Like hell." Emma yanks her hands from Regina's, clenching them into fists as her heart protests the separation. "You didn't fail me. You were the only person I could stand to be around. You were the only reason I woke up some mornings. I'm not going to take responsibility for what's been going on and then let you sweep it away from me. You tried to stop me."
"Not hard enough."
"You stopped me from becoming the Dark One, didn't you? You stopped me from hurting Zelena and even killing fucking Spencer." She's furious and frustrated and terrified. "You've been so disappointed with me that when Zelena took your place, I was glad. Because it was easier. Because she didn't care and I could do whatever the fuck I wanted and no one would stop me. And Regina…" She doesn't know how to describe the state she's been in for the past week, like a daze of movement-without-feeling, like she'd been numb and dead and only her anger had brought her to life.
Instead she says, "You're the only good place I have now," and it sounds like defeat already. She isn't supposed to give up but her heart hurts and it doesn't feel up to fighting this battle. She's already hurt Regina enough.
Regina shakes her head, smiling sadly. "I can't be your good place when I don't even know how good I am. Me…being like this is new. I don't want to be so afraid of breaking us apart that I won't be able to help you again." She takes Emma's defeat, sees it in her eyes, and she closes her own for a moment.
"Do you…" She's a terrified little girl who knows only rejection for a moment, and she can't stop the words from spilling out of her mouth. "I'd understand if you…if you wanted to hate me for a little while."
"Emma." Regina stands finally, tugs her closer and kisses her properly for the first time in a week. She sinks into it, closing her eyes and opening her mouth and never so grateful that when their shoes are off, they're just about the same height and they can stand like this forever. There are more kisses and assurances- I'm not leaving you, I'll do what I can, I understand, I understand, I understand- and then Regina's forehead touching hers and a whispered promise, I don't know how to hate you anymore, and Emma holds tightly to her like she's still her only anchor in this storm.
"I don't have anywhere to go," she murmurs finally.
"Go home, Emma." Regina's eyes glitter with something mournful and longing. "You have another home here, don't you?"
She laughs harshly, remembering Snow stock-still in Regina's foyer. "They don't want me there."
Regina kisses her again, quick and forceful, and Emma blinks up at her as she murmurs, "You might be surprised."
Emma only takes a few days' worth of clothes in the end, stuffed into one of Henry's old backpacks with a box of pastries Regina had handed silently to her, and she walks past the guest room warily. "I don't want her here."
"There's nowhere else for her."
"There's the crypt," Emma mutters. "You have that snazzy secret room, right? It's a hell of a lot better than prison."
Regina pats her hand and Henry squeezes her other one. "It's okay, Ma," he promises. "I'm not even allowed upstairs without Mom around until we're sure she has no magic."
"Trust me," Regina murmurs, and Emma falls silent with a defeated huff.
"We'll come by for…dinner." Regina says it like it's pulling teeth, but then she leans forward and kisses Emma again, resting her hand against Emma's chest, and Emma wonders if she knows what her nearness is doing to her heart. She must. Regina knows something there that she isn't sharing.
"I don't know where I'll be," Emma says in response, and both Henry and Regina give her identical exasperated looks. "Fine. Bye."
She goes to Granny's first anyway, sees the woman hobbling around in the diner and backs away again, ashamed at the idea of even talking to her.
No, she isn't going to be able to just…rent a room and find a place. There's her Bug, but she has the feeling that Regina won't take kindly to her sleeping outside the house in it.
There's the station. It's a little too close to David than she'd like right now, but he's the lesser of two evils, and–
And the station is full, her former deputies all collected in the cells. All except one. "Shouldn't you be in there?"
"No complaints filed against me," Shenzi says from behind Emma's desk. "No reason to arrest." She twirls a pen between her fingers. "Well, aside from detaining David when he tried to go after his wife last night, but when he remembered that, he also remembered who'd been filing all those other reports like a pro." She preens a little and grins up to Emma with a toothy smile. "So he permanently deputized me instead."
"Deputized you." Emma stares at her. "You were working for Zelena."
"So were you." Shenzi twiddles her thumbs. "Funny how the law seems so unsatisfying when it isn't working for you, hmm?" She cackles to herself and jots something down on a form from the pile in front of her. She's doing all the paperwork, Emma realizes suddenly, from back before even Pan's curse, and Emma backs out of the room, grudgingly mollified.
No cells. No room at Granny's. No Bug. No Regina.
She drags her feet down the road to the loft, mentally preparing some kind of quick opening speech- I just need a little while, I'll pay rent, I swear I'll be out of your hair soon- and she shuffles her way up to the apartment. There's the sound of a baby wailing from inside, Snow calling to David, and Emma reviews her words again, sounds them out and raps on the door with fabricated confidence.
Snow opens the door and Emma forgets everything she'd been about to say. Instead she manages, "Regina asked me to move out," before her voice quavers dangerously and she's afraid to speak again, to do anything but stand alone in the doorway of her mother's apartment with her little knapsack of clothing and pastries and her head down.
Snow doesn't hesitate before she's reaching out for Emma and wrapping her arms around her and Emma can't stifle the choking sobs anymore.