True Love's Kiss (11/?)
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Rating: T. There be language.
Pairings: Swan Queen
Disclaimers: Don't own the characters or anything else from the show. Just borrowing for a bit.
Summary: Determined to break the curse holding his town in thrall, Henry Mills has an epiphany. Eventual Swan Queen.
A/N: So this didn't quite go the way I planned to (Believe it or not I do have an outline. It's not very sophisticated, something like "Scribblescribble-KissyFace-Scribblescribble-Batman-ScribbleScribble" but it does exist) but I actually kinda like it. Anywho, all the love is much appreciated. You guys rock. Happy reading.
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Mary Margret couldn't quite bring herself to look Emma in the eye. She hadn't seen much and it had been a fairly PG eyeful to boot, but it still made her skin crawl to think of it. She went straight from the coat rack to the kitchen, needing something, anything, to do with her hands. "Of all the people in Storybrooke- Of all the people in all the world-"
"You're being over dramatic." She knew Emma had followed her from the scraping of a kitchen chair across the floor and the audible thud as the blond flopped her weight onto it. She knew too that the statement had more than likely been accompanied by an annoyed roll of her roommate's eyes.
Mary set a pot down on the stove a little harder than she had meant to, wincing at the metallic clang that followed. "Oh Emma, I'm really, really not. Are you sure you've thought this through? What about Henry? What does he think of all of this?"
"First of all, there is no 'all of this'. Just two, consenting adults, consenting with each-other. And actually, he's kind of thrilled."
Mary leaned against the cupboard door she'd pulled open, halting her hunt for the cocoa powder. "Really?"
"Yeah, I haven't figured that one out either." There was tapping, Emma rocking backward and forward on the rear legs of her chair. The urge to tell her to straighten up (Followed by a largely inappropriate "Young lady!") was almost irresistible.
"But she's... She's kind of evil, Emma. What about all the things she did? Arresting you-Twice-"
"She was trying to protect her kid. My kid. Our kid. I can't exactly hold that against her."
Click, click, click and the burner on the stove flared to life. Mary finally caved, turning around fully to face the decidedly petulant green eyes that had been boring into her back. "What if she's using you?"
"For what? Even if she had some angle she'd have more than enough material to work with by now. Anyway it's not-It's-She cares about me, okay? I know she does." There was a softness under the fierceness of Emma's assertion, a glimmer of the vulnerability Mary had only rarely gotten glimpses of.
"You love her don't you? Oh my God, you actually love her."
"So what if I do? You were all about me 'letting down my walls' before."
"Yes but- not with her!"
"What do you have against her anyway? I know she's not exactly personable but what has she ever really done to you?"
Mary Margaret opened her mouth and just as abruptly closed it again, brows knitting together. The problem was, she couldn't exactly recall. There was something there, lurking in her memory, almost like a dream that she just couldn't bring into proper focus. She reflexively twisted the emerald ring on her finger round and round, as though that might somehow help her remember. "Actually... I don't know."
"Well there you go then." Emma slapped her palms to the table with an air of finality, using the force of the gesture to spring to her feet.
Mary didn't want to let it go, she felt a little bit like she was fighting for her best friend's very soul, but couldn't really see any leg to stand on. "Just promise me you'll be careful? The last thing I want is to see you get hurt."
"I appreciate that, I do, but I know what I'm doing."
Watching her hop up the stairs, with a little extra pip in her step, to go about her nightly ritual, Mary dearly hoped she was right.
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Late Sunday afternoon when Henry was roused from his reading by knocking at the front door he wasn't surprised to peer through the peep hole, straining on the tips of his toes, and see Emma standing there. He was more surprised that it had taken her until this late in the day to finally show up. Lately, whenever Emma wasn't working she was with them.
Sometimes even just with his mom. They were, Emma had told him awkwardly one afternoon, dating.
Which meant very shortly they would be kissing, which meant breaking the curse. He hadn't worked out exactly what that might entail (Would every one just remember or would they all be sent back? The book didn't specify.) but he was a little more excited to see her each and every time. Would this finally be the day?
"Hey kid. Is your mom around?"
Henry froze in the middle of the foyer, causing Emma, who had followed him in, to nearly collide into his back. She cursed, but he was too busy trying to think of the last time he had actually seen his mother to notice. She had left sometime after breakfast, kissing his forehead in a distracted sort of way and telling him to under no circumstances go outside.
She hadn't been back since.
"Actually... No. I don't know where she went."
Emma didn't say anything but Henry could tell that the news didn't sit particularly well with her. That little dimple that formed at the corner of her mouth when she was worried about something seemed to take up permanent residence for the evening and when they settled in to wait with a round of video games she lost far more than she usually did. When video games progressed to a movie that had the blond nodding off on the couch beside him, the cellphone she had been checking periodically slack in her hand, Henry finally decided he had to do something.
Emma would likely strangle him if she knew, but looking at her and the dark circles under her eyes that he hadn't noticed earlier he couldn't quite bring himself to wake her. He stole upstairs and slipped into his shoes, leaving the laces unknotted in his haste, securing his coat, gloves and scarf as he went. It wasn't until he had flicked on his flashlight to check the batteries that he realized he didn't really know where he was going.
Something had happened, obviously. Something that Emma thought his mom might find distressing. Where would a distraught Evil Queen go?
He cast around, finally settling on the book, haphazardly discarded on his bed where he had abandoned it earlier, opened on the story of the Huntsman, and could have kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner.
Where did anyone go when they were upset?
Someplace they found comfortingly familiar.
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"Daddy, I'm conflicted." He had always been the one she turned to for advice, though even now she couldn't really explain why. It wasn't as though he he had ever given her anything remotely helpful; even his love was a paltry gift at best. It hadn't saved her, hadn't bid his cowardly spine to stand up for her when she'd so obviously needed him to.
Yet there she stood, before a dusty, empty grave talking to a ghost as though it might offer her more solace in death than the man had ever done in life.
Regina had already placed the flowers on top of the fake casket, the same bouquet she had purchased every Wednesday for the last twenty-eight years. The brilliant white petals were what she chose to focus on as she leaned against the solid stone, her fingers clutching at the smooth surface. The sweet scent of them stuck in her nose and turned her stomach, failing to sooth as it usually did.
"I'm... I'm happy." It felt so strange to admit it. Happiness had been the dream she had chased for the entirety of her adult life. Every thing she had done, every heart she had ripped out, every soul she had crushed, the dark curse she had enacted, all had been done in pursuit of it. To stand there and finally, finally, have it felt a little like winning a long drawn out war. Gods knew enough blood had been spilled over it.
"I have a son. He's beautiful. You would have doted on him horribly, I think. I have a... I don't know. I love her. I didn't think I could but there she is and I do." That was strange too. She had thought her only chance at love, deep romantic love, had died with Daniel. To suddenly find that it hadn't... Well, maybe it was fate. Maybe all that came before had happened to bring her here. "It's not better, exactly. It's different."
True. The most powerful magic of all. Not gone forever, just delayed.
The wind howled balefully outside, pushing a flood of dried and browning leaves in the open mausoleum door. More ghosts, whispering in the night.
"I'm happy. And I think... I think I have to let it go."
The thought of Emma loving her, touching her, never knowing, always thinking her worthy... It was too much.
At the same time that deep, selfish part of her that she'd always paid more attention to wanted to hold on even tighter. She wanted to take all the blond had to give her and enjoy it because damnit, hadn't she earned it by now? There was no fairy godmother to swoop in and grant her wishes. She had to take and take again or all she would do was loose.
"I don't know what to do."
"Mom?" Regina thought at first she had imagined it, brought on by her melancholy mood, but then there he was, a small shadow standing in the doorway, clutching his flashlight and pink around the ears.
"Henry! What are you doing here?"
"Emma came by, she wanted to see you but you were gone and then I remembered that I hadn't seen you either and I thought..." Henry shrugged, humble enough to look guilty for yet again defying her instruction to never, ever leave the house but not exactly sorry for it. "I was worried. I didn't know where you'd go but I thought of this place and here I am." He rocked back on his heels, smiling sweetly, and then added as an afterthought, "It's not Wednesday."
"No, it's not."
"You're thinking about them, aren't you? The people you hurt. Emma healed your heart, didn't she? You can feel it now."
"Not exactly."
He would probably never know it, her darling boy, but his arrival had made the decision easy.
"I have to do something Henry, something that will hopefully give me the strength for what needs to happen but I'm scared."
He was frightened too she thought, glancing sideways at the pale little face almost hidden by the thick scarf wound around his neck. Who wouldn't be, alone in the dark with an evil, evil queen?
"Do you think you can help me?"
He nodded, standing just a little bit straighter. It marked just how repaired the broken strings between them had become that he didn't sneer and push her away.
She braced herself, pushing the coffin until the hidden staircase was revealed in the floor. A little gasp sounded behind her and she couldn't help but smile.
He'd always suspected but it must be something like Christmas to suddenly have something tangible to confirm it.
"Then take my hand and don't be afraid."
She reached for him then and his little fingers twined around hers like a lifeline.
When they reached the wall, the vault that had once contained nearly a dozen hearts but now held only one, Henry froze in place. He knew what it meant of course, had seen the pictures in that damned book.
"Relax, dear. The only heart left in here is mine." His fingers tightened around hers at the admission. The book wouldn't have mentioned that, probably. She hadn't scrutinized anywhere near as closely as she probably should have, but she had gotten the distinct impression that it didn't mention much of her story at all. She was just the villain, a foil even, for dear sweet Snow.
She relinquished her grip on his hand, though she was sorry to loose the warmth of it, and approached the wall alone.
It responded to her presence, the shelf she wanted sliding open without any conscious thought. It wasn't until she reached inside, raising up on her toes to get at it, that she realized it was empty.
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