Neither Snow nor Regina come back, and Emma spends a good amount of time for the next few days staring out the window, hoping for a glimpse of her friend. When Snow and Henry appear at the stables one day, safe and unharmed, she's relieved if a bit disappointed. Her only visitor in days has been the Huntsman, and while he isn't bad company, her tension at being locked in like this is hitting a breaking point, and she wakes up most mornings sweating and terrified that she's imprisoned and pregnant and so, so young once more.
She's had ten years to move on, and it's frightening how easily she can fall back into old patterns, to retreating into herself and watching blankly as the Huntsman wheels in her food and tries to engage her in conversation. She's alone in the world again, no friends, no allies, no one who would care if she were gone.
But when she watches Snow and Henry and sees their tiny, distant faces turn upward together to squint at her window, sees Henry wave when he finally catches glimpse of her, she feels less alone for a precious moment. She's here for Henry and she needs to see him, needs to talk to him and touch him and strengthen her resolve to stay, to remind herself how much he's worth it. Henry is her objective. Henry is the connection that can get her through this, just as he did when he was still within her a decade before.
She forces a smile onto her face and waves back, warmth spreading through her as his eyes brighten and he chatters to Snow.
Henry makes this dim place a little brighter, sparks it with a magic that Regina could never touch or corrupt. He should have more than life under the evil queen's thumb. He should have the world, she thinks wistfully, smiling at the son she'd given up. Her satisfaction with his place here rises and falls daily now, driven by her dissatisfaction with her own lot, and it's a struggle to separate her desires for herself from her desires for him.
"You seem more energetic today," the Huntsman notes when he brings in dinner that night. Henry's long gone from the stables but she's still caught in the glow that seeing him brings her, and she's cheerier today than she's been in days.
She tosses him a winning smile. "I've decided to smash the window with my tray and jump out. Better dead than bored, right?"
He snorts. "I wouldn't know." He takes her hands and tugs her up until she's standing opposite him, raising her eyebrows at the way he grips her. His hands are nice, though, warm and smooth, and she doesn't pull away. "It won't be much longer."
"Really. And how many other prisoners has the queen let go just 'cause?"
"How many others have her favorite guard stationed at their doors?" he counters. His voice gentles. "She won't hold you forever." He hasn't dropped her hands yet and she can't help but notice that he is attractive, more than she'd thought at first- but then, she'd been kind of distracted by Regina from the start. And there's the accent, which is rather nice, too. He's a good guy, even without a heart, and she's been lonely for long enough- and sexually frustrated for days, since every encounter with Regina ever- that he's looking really, really appealing.
There are better ways to pass the time than staring out a window and hoping someone walks past.
She shivers and the Huntsman mistakes it for discomfort, finally dropping her hands. "I can talk to Regina," he suggests. "Convince her that we're all better off having you running free. You don't pose a threat to her and all you're doing locked up is making Henry resent his mother. Which he did fairly well at even without you," he adds, smirking.
He brushes his knuckles against her cheek and she remembers Regina's palm pressed there days ago, taunting and teasing and infinitely tempting.
"She has nothing to worry about with you," the Huntsman says again, his eyes seeking hers. "You're just here to be with Henry."
Bottom level, third corridor. Eight knocks. To destroy her. She's been wary until now, doubt brought on by the severe wording and the idea of destroying Henry's mother in any form. And she isn't here to join a coup d'état or threaten a woman who can be vindictive and petty but also loves her son and hasn't killed Emma yet, much as she might want to. Regina isn't her concern and for all her threats hasn't been all that awful, so whoever sent that message won't have her as a pawn or a partner.
"Right." She manages a smile and pushes thoughts of her mysterious note out of her mind.
They're back the next day, when the Huntsman is gruff and irritable and won't meet her eyes. He's limping slightly and she's sure that Regina didn't take too kindly to his suggestion to free her.
It won't be anytime soon, then, and Emma feels the urgency to see Henry more than ever. She watches him in the garden, playing with a stick like it's an imaginary sword and darting glances in her direction every few minutes. If she could, she'd take him and run now, flee from this prison and worry about how she could possibly take care of him later. This might be his home but it's hard and cruel, Regina more so than even the stone castle that surrounds them, and Henry deserves better than a mother who loves him but hates everything else with the same ardor.
She slumps down onto her bed, and when the Huntsman comes in later to deliver dinner, she glares at him and tells him to send the serving girl in from now on. She doesn't want to see his face anymore, with its pointless promises that will never come to pass.
No, Emma wants a plan.
A serving girl wheels a cart into the room in the morning, shutting the door behind her and bending down to pour water from her pitcher into a glass. Emma lies in bed, her breathing even and her eyes closed in a semblance of sleeping.
The girl turns and Emma springs, clapping a hand over the girl's mouth and whispering lowly, "Don't scream or I'll kill you." It's an empty threat but the girl doesn't speak, just stands trembling in place and waits. "Take off your clothes."
She doesn't have much time before the Huntsman grows suspicious and she dresses in the serving girl's clothes quickly, tying her hair back and waiting for the door to open again. "I'm sorry," she murmurs to the girl now huddled under her blanket, still shaking with fear. She doesn't want to think what the girl's punishment might be for letting her go, what her escape might do to this girl.
The door opens and Emma hurries out, nodding to the Huntsman and keeping her head down as she passes him. Haste is of the essence, and the Huntsman won't be deceived for long.
And in fact it takes only ten seconds before a frustrated "Emma!" sounds through the hall and she takes off at a run, hearing the Huntsman's heavy footfalls behind her. He's still limping from whatever Regina did to him and she's counting on that to outrun him- that and what the sheer panic of being trapped in that room again is doing to her, urging her on away from her prison at any cost.
HenryHenryHenryHenry- It's a chorus in her mind, her sole focus as she darts from hallway to hallway, running down to the second floor where Henry's room is, where she knows he'll be coming down for breakfast soon.
Unless she's already missed breakfast. The sun hadn't been shining into her room earlier quite as obnoxiously as it had back when she'd still been escorted to the meal every morning, and her timing might be more off than she'd thought. Where is Henry? Where is Snow, who can lead her to him and maybe join them in this escape? Her room is on this floor too, back in the corridor behind Emma, but Emma can't afford to go back and lose ground to the Huntsman.
She hasn't thought this through- thought about how to find Henry, about how she'll escape with the Huntsman at her heels- and she falters at the last door in the next corridor, preparing to take a chance and bang on it just as the Huntsman reaches her.
"What's wrong with you?" he hisses, yanking her away by the wrist before she can knock. "You run away to the queen's bedchambers?"
"I thought it was Henry's room!"
He scowls. "Henry's room is there!" He gestures to a door at the other end of the hall, past the balcony that overlooks the main hall, and shakes his head in disbelief. "How can one woman be so impossibly foolish?"
She struggles to yank away her hand but he holds fast, pinning her against the wall too tightly for her to use her knees productively. "Let me go!" she snaps, wriggling in his grasp.
He leans in, close enough that he can whisper in her ear. "Don't you think I would if I could? If I were capable of…" His voice trails off and she stops struggling for long enough to press a hand against his heart.
"There must be a way to get around it. To wiggle past what she's forcing you to do." It's all she can try, her eyes wide and pleading, desperate for something he can't give her no matter how much he might want it. They're both prisoners, bound by the same queen, but his is a far more binding hold.
The Huntsman sighs, and she feels the breath against her entire body as it rises and falls. "I'm sorry, Emma."
They're both still for a moment and Emma tenses, preparing to make another run when the Huntsman pulls away. Without Henry for now, then. She'll hide elsewhere in the castle grounds and grab him once their guard is down. All she needs is to-
The voice cracks through the air, sharp enough to cut through steel, and Emma's heart sinks. "Get your hands off of her."
The Huntsman wrenches himself from his place holding her so quickly that he nearly falls over, and he's crouched on the floor in an instant, knelt before his queen. "Your Majesty," he murmurs, but Regina doesn't look at him. She's scorching Emma with her glare, framed regal and furious in front of her closed door with a pulsing red heart tight in her hand. Never has she looked as murderous as she does now, her eyes raking Emma over with that pure hatred, and Emma is left immobile for a moment, thoughts of escape dead and gone.
And then Regina's squeezing the Huntsman's heart with that same cold fury, clenching and releasing as he doubles over at her feet, and it's so cruel that Emma chokes back her fear and hurls herself at the queen, pinning her against her door and sending the heart flying from her grasp. It hits the floor and the Huntsman screams aloud.
It's just a heart, magic throbbing within it. It's the Huntsman's freedom at last, closer than anyone could have predicted, and Regina is snapping curses at Emma and clawing at her and Emma is holding her back as tightly as she can but the Huntsman is closest, reaching for his heart, struggling to retrieve the only thing Emma knows he's ever craved. He takes it and holds it up to his face, wonder in his eyes, and stumbles back to a standing position, preparing to push it back into his chest.
In another moment, Regina hurls Emma against the opposite wall with a burst of magic and runs at the Huntsman, fingers outstretched.
Emma watches as though in a dream, still woozy from the magic, as the tips of Regina's fingers hit the Huntsman in the neck just as he begins to push in the heart. Something grey and sickening slides across the skin below her fingers, spreading upward and outward in a moment, encasing the Huntsman's chin and lips and nose and hungry eyes, covering his shoulders and arms and chest.
The red glow of the unreturned heart still shines bright beneath the grey stone of his palm.
His legs twitch once before they're gone as well to the stone that his body has become, a statue as still and dead as the ones in the hall below them, and Emma chokes out a "No!" disbelieving, the Huntsman's face smooth and inhuman, his fingers clenched for eternity, his pose bent over his heart forevermore.
Regina pulls her fingers away, pressing them into a fist as she stares at her newest creation, breathing hard.
This…this is what she's known Regina is capable of, what she's been told too many times since she'd gotten here by everyone she's met. This is the Regina who can be an evil queen, who could hurt a man who'd been forced into slavery to her at the mere thought of freedom, who would punish them all on a whim.
This Regina is a monster.
She's back in front of Regina before she can think it through, rage and horror molding together and producing raw adrenaline that has her flattening the other woman against the wall like the Huntsman had done to her just minutes before, desperate to hurt her, to stop her, to make a difference in this moment and make the evil queen feel pain like she does to everyone around her.
Regina doesn't throw her aside with magic this time. Maybe she's exhausted from the attack on the Huntsman, maybe she just doesn't believe that Emma will do anything to her, but regardless of the reason, she's very still, panting against Emma's grasp, the silk of her dress cool against Emma's thin costume.
"Miss Swan," she says, licking dry lips.
And fury is transformed into something dark and wanting in an instant. "Shut up," Emma snarls, and smashes her lips against Regina's.
It's angry and broken and Emma craves Regina's pain just as acutely as she had before, their lips crashing together with bruising intensity, her hands squeezing Regina's arms with enough force to injure a lesser woman. Regina's lips are startled and unexpectedly soft for only a moment before she's just as hard and angry as Emma, her hands scraping for purchase on her back. Emma has never kissed someone with this kind of loathing behind it, never felt the revulsion that powers them as they move opposite each other, coming to blows with every kiss. It's disgusting and it's awful and she can't stop, pressing closer to Regina, craving more contact until they're practically entwined against the wall as one.
There's a slow buildup within her as Regina takes charge, attacking her with a skillful tongue and tracing her way down along Emma's neck, biting with no concern for the woman keening beneath her. Emma is barely aware of her own voice, too caught up in the sensations twisting her stomach, the aching for friction and the need clawing at her with every motion. Regina tears open her borrowed outfit to trace circles around her breasts with interminable slowness and Emma curses, hating the other woman with every moment unfulfilled.
"Patience, Miss Swan," Regina says silkily, but there's a madness in her voice, a desire begging for release beyond patience. Emma's hands seek it out, ripping at her dress until the fabric splits in the front and she's just as unclothed, and Regina is exposed in all her glory before her. There's no pause for satisfaction or admiration, just desperate hands on a heated body, searching for nothing and everything at once.
Regina's hands tighten against Emma's back and a leg thrusts between Emma's, stopping her in place so she can only scrabble helplessly at the other woman's skin, rising and falling against it frantically. The queen's hand snakes out to shift aside her skirt and press against her for an instant and Emma sobs out a release- quick and sudden and deadly, like a snake in the grass- before Regina even touches her clit.
She's riding the waves of her first orgasm when Regina attacks her in earnest, two fingers crooked deep inside her while a thumb presses swiftly against her already sensitive clitoral area, and this hits her so hard that she feels as though she's been slammed with a sledgehammer. She can't breathe or think or do anything but scream into Regina's quickly descending mouth, her whole body seized up as she comes again, clenched around the other woman's fingers and writhing with pleasure and helpless pain.
She doesn't come down from her high for what feels like forever, her nails digging crescent-shaped bruises into Regina's chest, her legs limp and rubbery and her body aloft only by Regina's firm grasp on her, and when Regina finally lets her go she slides to the floor, still dazed and wordless. She leans against something hard that isn't wall-shaped and it's only then that Emma remembers the Huntsman whose destruction had prompted this all, the prisoner/guard statue that they'd somehow twisted mid-passion to have their heated encounter against.
She inhales a gulping sob as the reality of the moment hits her, the knowledge horrible and damning. Fuck, what have I done? And the worst part of it all is how her body still thrums for the evil queen, still craves Regina with the same need as before, still washes over her whole self with naked wanting.
She raises her eyes.
Regina stares down at her, her face spasming with emotions that Emma knows are mirrored on her own. Disgust. Fury. Desire. She must be appalled with herself, loathing Emma, and when her face settles into a mask of cool disdain, Emma flinches. "Get out of my hall," Regina orders, and gathers up the remains of her dress and retreats into her bedchamber.
Emma remains, half-dressed at the foot of the Huntsman's statue, heartsick and furious. At herself or at Regina, she can't quite say, but there's one thought running through her head now, over and over again. Something has to change.
She can't be here anymore like this, can't be reduced to this creature spurred by her needs to a poisonous attraction, can't face this castle knowing what she does about its mistress. Whatever integrity she's had until now feels weak and worthless, her desires to make Regina more…acceptable nothing but self-delusion that she can't deny anymore. Something must change, and it isn't just about her own imprisonment anymore. It can't be righted with her escape when so many others might suffer for it.
And then another thought, equally pervasive and now more tempting than ever. Bottom level, third corridor. Eight knocks. To destroy her.
She drags herself back to her room to change, thankfully encountering no one along the way but an older maid who gapes at her state of undress, shirt torn and baring too much. She isn't going to run, not now, not while Regina is still reigning over this town. Not when Regina still must be destroyed, and now that word has never seemed more apropos.
She doesn't search for Henry- doesn't know if she can face him today, after what she's done, after what his mother has done- and she doesn't try to confront Regina again just yet. Her anger is still boiling at the same temperature as her lust and she focuses on the former, letting it direct her path through the castle.
The bottom level. The third corridor, where the Huntsman had once pulled her away from a locked door.
She knocks eight times and the door swings open on its own, revealing a small room with a bed built into the opposite wall. A girl who can't be much older than twenty is stretched out on it. "Hey," Emma tries, wondering if she should come back later. She doesn't know if her resolve would be quite as strong then, if this hate will keep spurring her on much longer or if disgust will win out and she'll flee the castle and her still simmering lust instead.
Fortunately, the girl scrambles up at the sound of her voice, saving her from making the decision. "Oh! You must be Emma," she beams with a softly accented voice.
"That's me," Emma says, guarded. This must be the person who'd sent the message, but Emma's never seen her before, not in the kitchens or around the castle at all.
"Good, we've been waiting for a while!"
"We?"
But the girl is busy, sliding her fingers along the stone wall, gripping onto a nick in the stone and pulling. It slides open, revealing a dark tunnel, and Emma gapes. "Come with me, please," the girl says, and vanishes inside.