"What in God's...Miss... Swan!"...
Ems cringed at her own name hissed so openly in public, and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed anything out of the ordinary. The street was quiet however, empty except for the two of them sprawled clumsily against the curved wing of the parked car.
In probably the most graceless position the Mayor had ever found herself in, one boot in the gutter, the other tilted on its side.
Ems almost had the urge to laugh at the flustered look on the brunette's face but what with the snowstorm of worries already clogging up her mind and the fact that she was the quickest out of the two of them to get to her feet, she reacted on pure instinct and reached out a hand to balance the Mayor instead.
A hand that was immediately slapped away with venom.
Then molton eyes were boring into her own as Regina managed to pull herself up to her full height.
"What in the hell are you doing charging down the street Sheriff? Or weren't the hundred sorrys enough to assuage your guilt? You felt that a little daylight assault might help your case?
Out of breath and still undeniably spooked from the incident in Gold's shop Ems simply gawped at her as she tried to work out what she should say; what she could say that wouldn't fuel the other woman's fury. More than anything she wanted to apologize, it was a hard seed in her gut begging to be purged but she'd seen the response that word had gotten Emma on Regina's porch and she didn't want to make things worse.
If that was even humanly possible at this point.
"Well?"
Ems caught the other woman's eye and clamping down the rest of her natural impulses forced herself to hold her tongue. She could feel the buzzing heat radiating off the woman next to her, a rage that seemed to grow brighter the longer she stood there like some lame-ass living statue and she knew she had to make a decision. So she did.
Throwing her hands up in what she hoped was a gesture of contrition Ems backed up a few steps until she was a hairs breadth away from the glass frontage of Ivan's grocery store. Giving Regina the only thing she could- space and silence; however alien those two things felt to her. And they surely did.
They were cold eyed gargoyles at her back but she offered them up nonetheless.
Not caring if Regina thought her insane or not.
It was only when she tried to suck in a breath that Ems suddenly found herself blinking back tears that had started collected at the corners of her eyes; tears she had no idea had even been building at the sight of the bitterly dishevelled Mayor.
The whole thing was like grade school all over again.
What the hell was wrong with her?!
Christ, maybe she really was having some kind of breakdown.
"Oh are we a mute now Miss Swan?! Reverting into playing the idiot child, how impressive..."
The brunette was curling her mouth at her in that way she had back when they'd first met. When they had been enemies and not...not what?
Two women who'd shared enough horrors to start calling themselves...
She slammed the shutters down on that thought immediately. She had to do something. Something else. Regina was peering at her as if she really was a mental patient and it was too much to handle.
All of this was too much.
And that was why she gathered together all her strength and nodded once. Briefly. Painfully. And then, before the next jibe came her way she pitched forward and did the only thing she could think of... Ems kissed Regina the way she'd always dreamed about. Not tentatively because she'd never imagined the brunette liking that romantic nonsense but not violently either. Her lips simply covered soft darker ones pressing against them with all the worry and desire she'd kept inside for what could have been years. With all the wonder and irritation the woman seemed to inspire in her.
Regina's lips barely moved against hers as Ems found herself lost in that soft not-quite-yielding mouth that was every bit as wonderful as she'd imagined; warm and oddly supple in the chill of the roadside. The kiss was chaste and a little hesitant which just seemed to add to the waves of warmth emanating from her stomach as she gently pushed the other woman against the car behind her.
But even through the haze of desire, she knew she should ask herself why. Why Regina didn't return the kiss. Or push her off the moment she felt a pair of lips on hers.
She was probably in shock. Or filled with revulsion and too politically savvy to shove Ems off in the middle of the streets. It wouldn't exactly look good for the town Mayor to be fending off a horny Sheriff.
Either way, as incredible as the kiss was Ems knew she couldn't bear to see the look in Regina's eyes once she broke away whatever it might say. No good would come of it.
So it was with one last affectionate peck to the scar on the Mayor's upper lip that she sighed under her breath and stepped back. Kept her gaze glued to the sidewalk.
Then she was off again, leaving the brunette alone in the empty street as she darted away.
She didn't care though, couldn't focus on what the other woman might be thinking. She couldn't handle the whirlwind of emotions coasting through her body right now and Regina's unending hostility was just one too many things to cope with. So she did what she always did best and ran.
Away from all the things she wanted to say and all the things she couldn't face. She just ran.
From Robin's bemused smile back in the shop that lingered in her mind and Regina's wounded rage.
She ran.
Back to Emma's apartment where she could hide from the world and all the horrors it seemed to throw up that she couldn't even begin to disentangle.
To the one place that made sense.
It was somewhat fitting that back at 108 Mifflin Street the otherworld Regina seemed to be facing her demons as well.
She knew that she shouldn't be doing what she was doing; knew that she was overstepping her bounds as little more than an unwanted guest but the temptation inside her was too strong to fight and as much as she hated to admit it, any desire that cut through the amorphous fog coating her brain felt like a godsend right now.
A ray of light in mid-winter.
And besides, this was her house.
Well, not really her house but a carbon copy except for the smallest mismatched details that only she would ever notice. If she bothered to take the time to detect them.
And well...let's face it, she had nothing but time at the moment.
Wandering through the plush receiving room she was well aware that she didn't need to run her finger along the cool burnished surfaces to know that not a single speck of dust would show up. No-one had ever said as much but back in her world she could tell by their faces that visitors had always assumed that she had some kind of maid surface in place... or if that wasn't the case that she spent all of her free time polishing each and every table top with absolute precision.
It wasn't the truth though.
That was much simpler. She'd simply picked each material used in her home with meticulousness, researching every furnishing and fitting in the search for the perfect material- something elegant, understated and most importantly dust-repellent. They weren't easy to find of course, but anything worth doing...
The Regina of this world had obviously done the same. She found herself smiling at the basalt marble fireplace she had stumbled across in an Alaskan workshop, appreciating the imperfectly freckled stone for the hundredth time. It was exactly the same as hers. Even gave off the same muted lustre where the copper pokers rested against its spine. Each with their own pale halo.
Guardian angels or so she'd always thought.
Only in her home they stood to the left of the fireplace rather than the right, their bulbous heads unwilling to loll or fall from attention.
Interesting.
Such a small thing.
But one that reminded her how lost she was right now.
Just for a moment, the brunette allowed herself to absorb the fractured reflections in the study letting them wash over her skin in all their whites and golds. Willing them to set light to a memory. To tell her what exactly she was doing in this place. To offer up a clue of some kind.
But even here, the response was as murky as ever beyond that familiar sense of threat she'd been carrying around with her since waking in this strange world and the Mayor gave a frustrated scowl as her eyes blinked shut.
There's no point forcing the issue. The mind has its own motivations, dearie.
Rumple had told her that years ago back in the early days of their acquaintance. And as aggravating as it was to confess he was right, she'd never seen anything in her adult life that might contradict that particular pearl of wisdom.
So she would just have to wait.
Not that that was exactly her forte.
She sometimes found herself wondering what exactly her forte was these days.
Memoranda and flawless archiving probably.
A hell of a fall for a former queen.
Drifting through the room into the hallway, Regina decided to distract herself by cataloguing all the differences she could find throughout the mansion. Perhaps it was a childish game, useless and time wasting but something about the exercise whispered to her that it would be worth it. To utilise at least some part of her sleeping brain in the hopes that the rest might catch up. So she began by checking each and every photograph lining the hallway- each gilt frame. Their positions on the wall. The spaces between them. Between each version of her and Henry; the only two inhabitants that hung there albeit each of them with a slightly different hairstyle to mark the passing of time. Kindergarten- shoulder length for her, messy trim for Henry. Harvest festival -straightened and sleek. And one choppy bob from a few years ago that she couldn't believe she'd ever thought looked good.
They all seemed identical though to the ones in her memory though which was something of a disappointment. So she moved on.
Creeping along to the bottom of the staircase Regina snuck a quick glimpse at the door to make sure her counterpart was still out buying extra groceries for dinner then descended the first step with a brief sensation of disobedience. The banister was made of the same woven beech she'd imported from Vancouver and her hand rode the smooth handrail upwards skirting the gloss with barely a touch of the palm.
It was a strange thing to draw comfort from but that didn't stop her of course.
Twelve steps soon brought her to the upstairs hallway. It had always seemed like an appropriate number although she couldn't quite remember how so at the moment. There was some analogy buried there somewhere, down in the furrows of her brain but she tried her best not to pull on that thread as she paused for a moment in front of an imposing portrait taking up the majority of space on the wall to her right. Somewhat bizarrely she actually remembered having that commissioned in perfect detail. Sitting for hours on end in the alcove downstairs mid morning every day for a week, forcing her bones into what was supposed to be a natural position, her favourite tailored pant-suit sculpted to her frame just so as she offered the barest hint of a smile. It was the ultimate in artifice but she looked beautiful and imposing despite that and even Henry had liked the thing despite its size.
And yet... something wasn't quite right about this version.
Something was missing.
She couldn't quite put her finger on it, even as she leaned in close enough to see the swirl of russet oil and brushstroke on canvas. But something about the painting was...emptier than it should have been. Vacant where it should have been powerful.
What the hell was it?
She almost growled as her eyes moved in a rigid square following the maroons and beiges around the frame, rolling over each and every crest the brush had left behind but no epiphany came to relieve her. There was just a growing sense of dissatisfaction mounting inside her temples that ballooned with every second that she stood there until she couldn't stand it any longer and she swiftly took a step back away from the aggravating thing.
Whereupon she blew out a hot breath.
Then tried to collect herself turning her gaze away with a jerk of the head. Ignoring the rest of the artwork lining the corridor for fear they might just push her over the edge, she stalked forwards not even bothering to turn the lights on overhead as she went.
And it was only when she walked past the door to Henry's bedroom that she stopped abruptly in her tracks...
Frozen for a moment.
When she'd started this game, a large part of her mind had promised the rest that she would leave her son's room alone, that it belonged only to her hostess. That that would be where the line would be drawn even if no-one else knew about it.
And she so desperately wanted to hold to that promise. To that sense of modesty reminding her that she was still the woman she always had been- one with a basic level of decorum if nothing else. Cora Mill's daughter to the end.
But now that she was stood here...the door slightly ajar...the pull was irresistible.
Her hands clenched into fists.
She shouldn't. He wasn't her son and the secrets he kept in there weren't hers to uncover. Logically all of this was indisputable. Without question. But after staring at the painting moments ago there was a new sickly itch to her stomach that whispered how much she needed to see, needed a real link to the one person who mattered most. Something to fortify her in lieu of her actual memories.
She couldn't though...
But she had to.
There was nothing else to cling to...
Oh Gods.
Pressing the hardwood door so that it pushed open a centimetre she stood firm for a moment. Ramrod straight but wavering on the inside. She then took that step closer, letting her toes cross from maroon carpet onto brown. An inch. An inch that meant nothing.
One that certainly didn't mean she was going to...
With another shove of the door, the room opened out in front of her and the decision was made. With a great deal of shame and bile following in its wake but made nevertheless.
The room was tidier than she remembered with the only clothes out of place being a t-shirt hanging half out of the chest's top drawer. Everything else was neatly piled on shelves; comics, soft toys and graphic novels balanced next to a Newton's cradle and a small folksy dream-catcher. The haphazard jumble of belongings instinctively brought a faint smile to her face and although no real memories came bursting through, something intangible did seem to be casually wafting its way through her lungs warming them as she'd hoped it might.
Henry. All mussed hair and shrugging shoulders.
The only thing she'd done right in her entire life.
Just as she had downstairs, the brunette began tiptoeing around the room, coasting the spines of all the books with her fingers picturing the hundreds of times Henry had dragged them out of position and started thumbing through them. Unaware of how perfectly him they had become the more he did so. Alice Through the Looking Glass was there but no Alice in Wonderland. Lord of The Flies. The Hobbit. Swallows and Amazons. A veritable treasure trove of fantasy on display.
She paused for a moment to tuck the grey t-shirt back into the drawer then shut it with a gentle schlock as she turned her head and took in the array of gels and spot creams stood so offhandedly on the dresser. Her little man really was growing up. A weak twinge in her chest seemed to bloom at the thought and the brunette absent-mindedly massaged the skin over her heart as she scanned the rest of the room's contents. Shoes lined up military style underneath the window-sill, a couple of warm woollen scarves hanging from the bedstead.
The urge came out of nowhere to peek under the bed, perhaps to spot that irritating story book he'd put away so many years ago and she was quicker than she should have been to indulge it, crouching down to get a glimpse of shadowy carpet. The leather bound creature was nowhere to be seen of course, he hadn't needed it for a year or two now but there was something there, wedged back almost underneath the headboard. And she had to know what it was. Stretching an arm out until she was almost half under the bed herself, her fingers grasped the edge of a hardback book and dragged it from its hiding place.
Hmmm.
She had no idea if she'd ever seen the volume before but the fact that it had no discernable front cover was enough to pique her interest. Flicking it open to the first page she recognised Henry's scrawled name at the top written in blue biro.
Henry Mills.
Another pang rippled through her chest as she flipped again.
The next page was blank.
The third too.
So it wasn't a novel as she'd thought. Not fiction or fantasy at all. It was a notebook; probably one he'd intended to sketch in when it had dropped down the back of the bed and he'd never even noticed was missing.
Yet another sacrifice on the alter of good intentions. She knew a thing or two about that and it made her more than a little melancholy that her son seemed to be following in her footsteps.
Regina was just about to close the empty journal and put it back where it had come from when she decided to turn one more page for curiosity's sake. After all he would have done the same.
And that was when her son's familiar looped handwriting made another appearance, branded in the middle of the white sheet and her eyes devoured the passage within seconds.
Long is the night
Longer still when you realise it comes from you
That when your eyes close and the mind drifts there is no dawn or dusk
Just grey
Endless grey until you wake
Finally wake and throw gold and green on whatever your eye touches.
The world is ours and we are the world.
You are the one that makes it shine.
She found herself almost frozen in place; the beauty and simplicity of the words he'd written taking her completely aback. She'd had no idea Henry was into poetry, either reading it or writing it. Wasn't aware of any poetry anthologies she'd ever given him from her own collection. Hell, she'd never even seen him wander past the poetry section in the library in all the times they'd been there. He'd always headed straight for the fantasy and adventure shelves.
And all of a sudden those few innocent lines seemed to drive an overwhelming sense of homesickness into her. Homesickness and nostalgia.
The sheer strength of the two sensations stole all the air from her lungs as she sat back on her heels, trying to hold the book steady in shaking hands. Aware, oh so aware that she shouldn't be reading this but too desperate not to go any further. Because ...because what if her Henry didn't write these things, what if the idea had never crossed his mind? Would she think less of him for not producing such wonderful words? Or more because he contained these things inside and kept them safe from the world; safe even from her and undiluted?
And if she ever actually managed to find her way home how could she even bring it up without making her own son feel smaller than he was before, compared to some faceless version of himself he'd never meet?
She had no answers to these awful questions though it didn't stop them from bombarding her mind. And even though she knew it would do nothing but make things a million times worse, she let her fingers frantically flip to another page where she came across an even shorter piece scratched out in his wonderful blue hand.
If hands burn then tears follow.
If we descend to dirt it steals our breath.
Elemental beings convinced we may be more
Than fire, water earth and wind.
Shouldn't that be enough though?
Shouldn't that be enough?
Every sinew in Regina's body shuddered kneeling there at the side of Henry Mill's bed leaching lactic acid and guilt. Guilt at invading this young boy's space. Shame at using a child, to bolster her during her darkest moments. Both emotions liberally tinged with doubt that this would be the last time that would happen. She had to gulp in air in a vain attempt to try fill her lungs again as she screwed her eyes shut. The room was starting to spin and she barely noticed the book falling out of her grip onto her lap, lost as she was in the swirling patterns behind her eyelids. It would be so easy...to just curl up here and wait for her host's wrath when she got home, laying in a pit of her own endless loathing. Perhaps she'd even understand... although the ache in her stomach told her that was unlikely. She wouldn't understand if the tables were turned. If she found another Regina in her son's bedroom however pathetic they might look she'd lose any control she'd once had and order the other woman out of her home. Cast her out in a fit of fire and righteousness.
Because no-one played the role of protective mother like Regina Mills.
It was the one role she'd been born to play.
They'd been born to play.
Her own words spiralled back at her all of a sudden. She pictured herself inhabiting the other position in that scenario grabbing the ends of dark hair, dragging a stuttering interloper out from her son's room, his safe haven and down the stairs barely caring if any ankles got broken on the way. She could see it all; she would be flame and iron. As it was she could practically taste the two things sliding into each other on her tongue.
And it felt good. Felt strong.
Almost as if it were a memory not a flight of fancy. At least close enough to one to send a wave of strength surging through her flesh reawakening the cramp in her heels and highlighting the utter utter ludicrousness of her condition.
What the hell was she doing?
She wasn't the pleading useless Regina in any lifetime she'd ever lived up until now, she was the victor. Bruised and battered at times but very much alive with a son whose every drop of love she had earned. Sleepless nights and skinned knees as penance.
Blinking as she forced her eyes open, the Mayor of a Storybrooke far far away from this one knitted her brows as she looked down at the innocuous journal resting on her thigh. It was such an innocent thing. And one that brought her closer to her son though it might have been in a way she had never expected - wasn't that the very thing she'd hoped for when she had pushed the door open? She'd found her boy. Found a piece of him he didn't show the rest of the world.
And here she was twisting it and tainting it with all her stupid fears rather than drawing strength from the pages contained inside.
It was... unhealthy.
Juvenile even...
Her back straightened. It was also stopping right the hell now.
Picking it back up by the cover Regina opened out the spine and swiftly read through the two poems again, savouring them in a different way than she had the first time, letting their colours and sounds paint the backs of her eyes. Letting Henry's thoughts calm her mind.
She swept to the next page.
And the next, devouring the odd lines and couplets that spread out across the paper. Learning more about her son and his intricate thoughts on kindness and youth.
She was halfway through the journal before she'd even stopped for a break.
There were no dates next to any of the pieces she'd read so far but she could practically see the growth of the mind behind them as the adjectives became longer, the juxtapositions became more complex. It was a glorious thing to witness but this time she didn't falter, didn't think of it as her own Henry versus this one, she simply focused on the honesty and curiosity laid bare at her fingertips that she knew so well. Let it wash over her until nothing existed around her but the book.
White and blue. Her and her son alone against the world.
...
...
It was only when she heard the distinctive click of the front door latch echo downstairs that her eyes widened and she realised just how long she had spent wandering the world through her son's words. Sneaking a glance at the window she saw the mid-day sun shining inwards and her stomach almost dropped into her shoes.
It had to be almost half twelve if her calculations were correct which meant that she was going to have to give some kind of account of how she'd spent the last few hours.
Pulling herself quickly to her feet despite the loud protest from her calves Regina was just formulating some easy lie and closing the book ready to secrete it back in its hiding place when she accidentally caught something out of the corner of her eye. Something written in a darker ink on one of the last few pages of the diary- in thick bold lines rather than spidery handwriting she had come to love. And despite the threat of her hostess appearing at any moment for one last time Regina couldn't help herself. She opened the book to the offending page and stared down at the strange charcoal drawing of an amulet. In horror this time rather than pride.
At am image that sent lightning bolts of dread straight through her ribs.
Carved out in heavy lines the etched jewel glistened with a strange malice which would have been enough to stop her in her tracks on a normal day but it was the three words printed underneath in angry black writing this time that truly chilled the underneath of her skin.
Invidiamon est Gloriacus
Even if she had understood them before, she had no idea what the words meant now but something about them picked at her memory murmuring to her of darkness and all its insidious pieces. They were associated with something sinister and malevolent she was sure of it.
Something that this world's Henry seemed to have gotten caught up in.
Her throat almost closed at the thought, at the idea of Regina's kind hearted son messing around with such devastating forces but before she could do anything else, before she could even look for another clue to what the words might mean the clearing of a throat interrupted her reverie and she looked up to find her counterpart standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips and wild eyes trained directly on her.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
And just like that very lie she could think of fell unceremoniously from her mind.
TBC...
