A/N: Again, sorry for the delay in posting. At least I made it before the hiatus ended.
Thank you to all those who continue to read, review, and favourite this story of mine. You are the bestest of the best.
Disclaimer: No, in case you actually have to ask I Do Not own Once Upon a Time or any of its characters. I just like to play pretend. It's actually owned by Kitsis/Horowitz and ABC Network.
We're Gonna Need a Bigger Umbrella
Emma was exhausted as she poofed herself to Regina's place. With slumped shoulders, she trudged her way up the steps of Regina's colonial manor, knowing she was late as it was. When she got to Regina's door, the former evil queen yanked it open viciously with an irritated sneer on her face.
"You're late." she barked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Sorry Regina," Emma sighed, gritting her teeth and wishing that Regina would just give her a little bit of a break. Then again, she didn't need coddling, she needed to be battle ready.
"Lost track of time with sword practice. Can we please just…just get to magic lessons? Please?"
Regina paused, taking note of the heaviness in Emma's movements, the weariness in the set of her shoulders, the sigh in her breath, the exhaustion she tried to hide.
"Miss Swan, what are you really doing here?" she asked pointedly.
"I'm here to get magic lessons." Emma replied curtly. "You know this already Regina. I was late to my lesson, remember?"
"Miss Swan, unless there's something specific that you want to know how to do, I have nothing left to teach you," Regina huffed, trying to reign in her temper. "Go home Sheriff. You've already spent more time training in Swordplay, Magic, Archery and who knows what else, than is required to haul Grumpy and his little brothers home after Tequila Thursdays at the Rabbit Hole. And since you've defeated George and successfully quashed his attempts to take over the town, the dwarves and their drunken exploits are about as worrisome as it gets here. Enjoy it while it lasts, because you know how this town can get. Peace never lasts for very long."
"So what, I'm supposed to twiddle my thumbs until the next villain comes along?" Emma growled, digging crescents into the palms of her hands and trying to calm herself down. "Wait until we start getting attacked before I do anything about it? Wait until people start going missing, or people start going at each other's throats and all the shields and safe rooms that we built, we find out that they're no longer safe anymore, huh? Am I supposed to just blissfully enjoy the quiet and wait for flying monkeys to swoop in to pick us off one by one? Maybe I should pretend that the next power hungry or revenge driven asshole isn't just right around the corner waiting to take everyone by surprise? Hell no, I'm the goddamn saviour and it's my job to keep this town and everyone in it safe."
"Okay…..what the hell was that about?" Regina replied calmly, her shrewd eyes narrowing its gaze at Emma. "That diatribe you spewed at me was a little to specific for you to tell me that you're training just in case we are under attack. You know something…something that is on it's way here to Storybrooke, don't you?"
Emma seemed to deflate before Regina's eyes, becoming nervous and skittish for the first time since the mayor has made her acquaintance. Whatever Emma was keeping from her, from her family and her pirate, it was bad.
"Emma, I can't help you if you don't tell me what is going on." Regina sighed, for the first time considering what it was like to have the pressures of being the saviour fall on Emma's shoulders. "If you just tell me, maybe we can tailor your training to whatever we're going to be facing. Or we can have Belle do some research on how to-"
"It's nothing!" Emma piped up, cutting Regina off quickly, an almost pleading expression on her face not to say anything more. "I just want to be prepared. In fact, could we go over how to use magic to transport from place to place again? You know how bad I am at that."
Regina thought it was rather strange of Emma to suggest, especially since she had already mastered teleportation. Emma has also shown that she's a natural at directing her magic, using it as a weapon and to heal injuries. She learned how to use a glamour on herself and others. Emma quickly learned how to build magical shields, protect buildings, people, and enchant objects. Even Regina couldn't break through Emma's white magic shield. It's why she couldn't understand why Emma insisted on continuing her lessons in Magic with Regina.
She raised an eyebrow at Emma, but nodded. With a flick of Emma's wrist, they were wrapped in the white smoke of her magic and was transported to Regina's vault.
"Interesting choice in location." Regina remarked when the white smoke disappeared and she noted the familiar surroundings.
"So this is your vault huh?" Emma muttered, looking around curiously. "Thought it would have been more secure."
With a wave of Regina's hand, a secret door was revealed. The once evil queen gave Emma a haughty "I haven't taught you all my secrets" look before opening the door. Regina stood to the side, allowing Emma to enter into the inner chamber before following her in and closing the door behind her. She let Emma take in the massive stone walls, the potions and boxes stored in the alcoves, the ancient books that lay beside them on the shelves before her lack of patience got the better of her.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on or what?" Regina growled, noting how Emma stiffened, but refused to turn and face her. "Is Henry in danger? At least tell me that!"
Rather than answer her, Emma waved her hand towards the large mirror in the room and within a blink of an eye the mirror, candles and any reflective surface was gone from the room.
"Hey!" Regina snapped indignantly.
"I'll put them back as soon as we're done talking," Emma replied, taking a seat on the stone floor. "I had to make sure that there was nothing that could be listening in on this conversation."
"You picked the right place," sighed Regina, leaning against a stone wall. "And now that you've removed any form of magical communication within the room, are you going to explain what's happened?"
"Are you sure that this place is secure? Are you 100%, absolutely positive?" Emma asked, and Regina would have lost her temper if not for the desperate look in Emma's eyes. It was obvious that Emma wanted to tell someone the secret she'd been forced to keep, but was afraid to let it out for some reason.
"My vault is completely impenetrable," Regina replied. "I've created all of the charms and protection spells on it myself. If someone can get through them and spy on us, then nowhere in any realm will be safe."
"That's what I'm worried about." Emma muttered to herself. She closed her eyes and tried desperately to keep it together. The risks of revealing what she knew were great, but at the same time, this was too big of a burden to keep to herself. She knew she wasn't up to a "don't worry, everything will be alright" sunshine and rainbows speech that her parents would give if she told them. And if she explained things to Killian, he would go and jump headfirst into danger to protect her and Henry. Henry was just too young to know about any of this and she wanted to protect him as much as she was able. There was no way that she could trust Gold; he may have helped her with her concussion, but then he turned around and magicked Killian into taking her injuries, and she could have inadvertently brought about the death of her soul mate. She needed help to keep her loved ones safe. There was only one person she could turn to for help.
Just as Regina was going to issue an ultimatum (one that was likely to end it in 'or I'll make you tell me'), Emma took a moment to consider where to start when she began talking.
"About a month ago, I had a dream-"
"All this paranoia started with a dream?" Regina scoffed.
"Will you just shut up and listen?!" Emma yelled, and Regina would have yelled back and let loose a fireball, but Emma continued to speak. "This isn't just any dream. Morpheus was there."
"Morpheus? The Morpheus?" Regina muttered, taken aback by this information and feeling oddly unsettled. The Dream God was known to have appeared in the repose of heroes, bestowing them with visions of terrible times that were on the horizon along with helpful advice - so long as you can unravel his cryptic words. Of course, the god hadn't been seen in centuries, so for him to appear to the Saviour….."
"Yeah Morpheus," Emma repeated as though part of her still had trouble believing that as well. "Big guy, wears a floor length grey velvet hooded robe with weird patterns on it. Hides his face in shadows, likes to hang out in a cave surrounded by poppies and flood people's dreams with images and scenes of everyone you love brutally and viciously ripped away from you. The only way to stop the shit storm of hell is to solve these fucking insane riddles he throws at you instead of being helpful and just telling you in plain english. He then snaps his fingers to wake you up, leaving you confused, scared shitless and with a migraine that feels like your head is going to implode when you open your eyes. That Morpheus."
"Okay, so you had a bad dream and Morpheus was there," Regina acquiesced, curious to see what kind of nightmare was bestowed upon the saviour. It had to have been bad for her to have reacted this way. "Tell me about the dream."
"I've been doing some of my own magic research, and there's something I want to try - if it's okay with you." Emma hedged, standing up and approaching Regina cautiously. "It would be easier than trying to find the words and trying to explain everything. Trust me?"
"Alright," said Regina tentatively after a few moments, tensing slightly when one of Emma's hands drifted to her chest, and the other to the side of her head.
"I really hope that you're doing a thought transference spell and not getting fresh with me." Regina muttered, trying her best to stay still as Emma's right hand hovered over her heart and her left hand settled gently against the side of her head, her thumb pressing lightly against Regina's temple.
"Actually, thought it might be fun to turn you into a toad," smirked Emma, trying to ease some of the tension as she took a breath and started to concentrate on the spell.
According to the book on magic spells Belle lent to her months ago (which she will return….eventually…if Storybrooke is still standing after all this) thought transference spells work best when there is an emotional connection between the person sending the thought and the one receiving it. Thanks to their soul mate bond, thought transference with Killian was so easy that it was harder to keep her thoughts from him than it was to share them. With Henry, it was pretty much the same. All it took was a grin from him, a raspy cackle that reminded her of Neal's laugh, or a raised eyebrow that he learned from Killian to tell her he knew what she was thinking. With Mary Margaret and David, as much as she loved her parents, it was still a little more difficult to accept the love she had for them and they for her; she's spent too long being alone, too long being an orphan. She sometimes had trouble saying how much they mean to her, and instead of having a thought in her head that they can read, she has to make physical contact and push the thought over to them. She was always rewarded with a beaming grin from either one or both of her parents.
Regina? Well, most of the time they were able to be civil to one another for Henry's sake. They were warming up - very slowly - towards pleasant. A few times, there were moments they shared that could be called friendly, as long as you were a happy drunk and observed the moments after drinking your weight in hard liquor. Suffice it to say, transferring her thoughts to Regina was going to take some work. At least, they have a connection through Henry, and that was what she counted on.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, some scathing quip on Regina's tongue just waiting to be unleashed when Emma felt her light magic drift towards Regina. It fluttered over her briefly before settling itself on her. She allowed her thoughts to open up, to see the things she had been holding on to for so long burst forth, playing the scenes in both Emma and Regina's minds. When she got to the last image, Emma held back a whimper as she withdrew her hands from Regina. Regina stumbled back slightly, backing herself up against a stone wall, her face pale as she struggled for composure.
"So…." Emma sighed, feeling slightly relieved to be able to share her burden with someone and feeling a glimmer of hope that she could have help with what's to come.
"Who the hell is the wicked one?" sputtered Regina, still slightly shaking. "And Phoebetor? And who was the man with the Lion Tattoo?"