Much thanks to all of you who dropped in to let me know that you're still reading here! Your feedback is everything to me~~~

This chapter has some possibly triggery discussion of the Regina/Huntsman relationship in it near the end, so tread with care. And extra thanks to the invaluable Maia for her help there! 3

It isn't until she walks into Regina's closet one morning and tugs down one of her more functional vests from where it's hanging that it occurs to her that she's moved in with her girlfriend.

She'd been chagrined the first time her clothes had been washed by a maid and returned to Regina's closet instead of her own, worried about what the people around them had known about the nature of their relationship and what they thought of her now. But she's long since given up on trying to hide whatever's between her and Regina- it's been a moot point since Regina had started spending her days with Snow by choice, anyway, and she's learned to ignore the suggestive leers on the faces of the castle guards when she's alone. It's more convenient to have her clothes handy in the room where she sleeps, and Emma's room isn't nearly as accommodating for two. She'd made one demand of Regina and Regina had rolled her eyes but covered her magic mirror with a cloth, and now there's really no reason not to start her day and end her night in Regina's room.

There's also the added bonus that the resistance can't send her messages in Regina's room, though she doesn't admit that to herself. She'd gone to one meeting since she'd spoken to Snow, cognizant that this is her duty to protect the people she cares about. And she'd stood there and listened to them plot to kill her lover (today it's with a spell that one of the townspeople swears can inflict pain from afar, and she'd worry if not for the way Rumpelstiltskin snickers when the royals get into it) and stared at Jefferson and Abigail and King George and wondered, Which of you kidnapped my baby son?

She knows she has to go back, that she can't keep avoiding them forever, but it's easier to forget them when she isn't getting their messages, when her days are filled with Henry and Regina and Snow and nothing else. And the more she focuses on her outrage on Henry's behalf, the less she has to admit that she's just as uncomfortable with their plans to depose Regina, too. She's reluctant to come to terms with the gnawing guilt that she might come to hurt a woman who certainly deserves to be ousted but doesn't deserve betrayal and heartbreak, so instead she pushes thoughts of the resistance from her mind and throws all her energy into Henry and Regina.

Regina delights in referring to Henry as "our son" now, as though he's a child they've borne together and raised together and who transforms their relationship from coincidental interconnectedness to family, and Emma can't complain. It's an illusion, maybe, but it's one she's longed for for too long to deny when it's as close to ideal as she's going to get in the center of an enchanted forest. She's a little wistful for the normalcy of her own, pre-Regina dreams, of a little house somewhere in the suburbs with privacy and grade school for the kids and a girlfriend who isn't occasionally homicidal.

If she had her way, they'd be packed and in the Bug within moments, heading far from magic and politics and a kingdom that hates them. They'd settle somewhere near Boston and Emma might find a job in law enforcement that wouldn't take her across New England hunting bail jumpers and Regina would probably work in…well, politics, actually, or maybe she'd be a no-nonsense teacher for kids around Henry's age who cares a little too much about her students and doesn't let them dare to fail. Yeah. That would work. Snow could be queen, the village could expand, and if they come back to visit, there'd only be guarded looks and maybe eventual acceptance.

Maybe they'd never come back.

She sighs, slipping on the vest and cinching up her trousers. Dreams, that's all they are. She'd thought she'd outgrown dreaming a long time ago, but there's something about living in a fairy tale land that draws them out again, that has her staring into the future and seeing something more than what she has.

"You seem perturbed," Regina observes from her vantage point on the couch. She's already impeccably dressed, hair and clothes arranged perfectly thanks to her- unfair!- use of magic. Emma had complained about it once and Regina had responded by waving her hands and giving her an updo that had looked absolutely ridiculous on her and refused to remove it until she ceased her whining. Since then, though, Emma's noticed when she wakes up that her hair untangles into the soft waves that she'd worn back before she'd first come to Storybrooke and had had the luxury of a curling iron. Magic, and Regina seems even more besotted with this effect than she is.

"Just thinking," Emma says, turning to the door. "We'd better get down to breakfast before Henry makes it there." They're later and later each morning, and while they still haven't had a talk with Henry about them, as undefined a topic as that is, he's prone to watching them carefully when he thinks no one's watching. It's Regina's job to say something, Emma's positive, because she's the actual mom and Emma's the new one. And Regina has never brought it up. So she waits, content to avoid that conversation too for as long as possible. Maybe it's not as conventional to talk about your mother's romantic life in the enchanted forest. Maybe they're not going to have to discuss this at all.

So naturally, it comes as an unwelcome surprise when Henry blurts out over his eggs, "Have you had True Love's Kiss yet?" He's blushing furiously and staring at his plate and Emma nearly chokes on her juice.

"We…What?" She looks to Regina for guidance, but Regina is suddenly very interested on a painting hanging behind Emma's seat, two high spots of color on her cheeks the only sign that she's heard Henry. Asshole. She's going to leave this to Emma. Shameless asshole!

Henry shrugs, still not looking up. "I just wanted to know. True Love's Kiss is special, right? It can break-" He swallows. "So have you?"

Oh. Henry's buying into the fantasy, too, the illusion of a happy ever after that Emma knows is so much further away than it seems. And she doesn't want to destroy it for him, doesn't want to force him to face the reality where his mother is the villain of the story and she's just…Emma, but she can't let him build it up to untenable proportions, either.

"Look, Henry…" She glances back to Regina, who's stopped staring at the wall and is instead waiting expectantly for her response. "It's not that simple. Relationships don't always work like that."

Henry frowns. "Aren't you in love?"

This time it's Regina who chokes, and Emma shoves her drink at her and gives her the stink eye, none too impressed by how the queen is handling the situation. "We're…involved," she says diplomatically.

"So you are in love." It's going to be more difficult to explain this to someone who's grown up in fairytales, who's never known of relationships that aren't all love at first sight and happily ever after.

"I…um…" She kicks Regina under the table.

Regina raises an eyebrow. "Spit it out, Miss Swan." There's barely concealed amusement on her face, and screw it she does not have the right to be laughing at Emma right now, not when she's decided to play the coward in this little chat.

She sighs, surrendering any hope of sheltering Henry, and informs him, "Henry, this… thing is about mutual attraction, nothing else. It's not…it can't be love." She refuses to look at Regina when she says that, biting the inside of her lip so hard that she tastes blood.

Henry's brow furrows. "Mutual attraction?"

Well, if she's scarring him for life, she might as well go for broke. "Sometimes I want to jump your mom's bones." It might be worth it for the instant of satisfaction when the amusement vanishes from Regina's face and is immediately replaced with horror. "Sometimes I want to strangle her," she adds conversationally, smiling sweetly at the queen. "It's kind of complicated."

Henry might not know what jumping someone's bones entails, but he seems to have caught the gist. "So…you're just…having sex?" he tries, saying the words like they're something he doesn't quite understand.

"Exactly," Emma agrees.

"How do you have sex?"

"Well-"

Finally, finally, Regina cuts in. "I don't think any of this is relevant to a ten-year-old boy, do you?" she grinds out, ice in her voice. "Henry, why don't you go ahead to your lessons. Emma and I need to…talk."

Henry sighs, pulling himself out of his seat and dragging his legs as he heads to the door. "You act like you're in love," he mumbles grumpily, and for a moment that's enough for Regina's glare to waver.

The moment he's gone, Emma finds herself pinned against the painting Regina had been admiring earlier, unable to move as the furious other woman stalks toward her. "What the hell was that?" Regina hisses.

"Well, you weren't helping!" Emma snaps back. "I wasn't told that I'm supposed to be the one to have these chats with our son now."

"You told him we were sleeping together!" It's a mark of how livid she is that Regina is standing practically on top of her and hasn't touched her once, both of them caught up in righteous anger that has supplanted desire for the time being.

"What else could I do?" Emma demands. "Am I supposed to say we're in love next time just so he won't ask questions?"

"Yes!"

Oh. They both fall silent, staring at each other, flushed and breathless and their ire draining out of the room. Regina exhales, a soft breath against her face, and murmurs, "That's easier to explain, is it not?"

"Yeah," Emma breathes. It escapes as barely a whisper, and there's a frantic sort of heat rising within her when she thinks about it, calming only with her next words. "Yeah, I guess it is."

Usually, Regina tries to conquer her when they kiss, to dominate and overwhelm until it's impossible for Emma to break free, and she's always attributed it to old habits from a queen who'd ruled her subjects with an iron fist. Roughness and gentleness come hand-in-hand with Regina, and it's as exhilarating as it is all-consuming

But now her hands are skimming against Regina's and they're rocking a little as she leans in for a kiss, soft and chaste and unhurried, only their lips and palms touching as they sway together. She pulls away a hair only so she can tilt her forehead against Regina's, and they stand in silence for a few minutes before she ventures, "For Henry's sake, right?"

"Of course," Regina says haughtily, but her eyes are bright with something indefinable and Emma's the first to pull away, moments later than she probably should.

"It's so hideous," Regina complains, running her fingers over the fabric. "The color is too dim, the material is so rough…" She squeezes it in her hands and Emma shifts, putting a hand against the wall to support herself.

"Still, though, it does make my ass look pretty stellar, huh?" Regina snorts in distaste but she's still got one hand on Emma's jeans, her fingers drawn to the rear by a magnetic attraction that's more than a little mutual.

Her hand creeps lower, sliding between Emma's legs, and when she finds traction Emma presses another hand to the wall, her eyes falling closed as she shifts to give Regina more access.

She doesn't remember how this particular outfit had made its way into Regina's room, but Regina had found them under a pile of less anachronistic clothing and ordered her into them as she'd walked in. And she's surprised to find that she misses them, jeans and tank tops and her old favorite jacket. They might not be sensible for fencing or riding a horse, but they're hers, and the last little thing she has left of a home that hadn't really been a home at all.

Regina, meanwhile, clearly has less sentimental reasons for wanting to see her in them. "You know," she hums, freeing Emma from her jeans with some swift maneuvering. "I do remember thinking that these were tasteless when I first saw them…but not unflattering."

"You were…thinking about my clothes when you first saw me?" Emma pants. Regina had been wearing red, she remembers, tight and long and impossibly alluring from the start.

Regina twists her hand and Emma gasps at the pleasure that shoots through her. "They weren't foremost on my mind, but I can't say I've had anyone dressed like you make it into my castle before now."

"You tried to turn me into stone," Emma accuses halfheartedly.

"Yes, well, I didn't, did I?" They're rocking back and forth now in a rhythm, Regina pressing forward as Emma sways against her and then back toward the wall. "I couldn't even take your heart." She laughs for a moment, soft and affectionate. "I thought you were working for Rumpel."

Emma's eyes are still closed, so when her breath catches, Regina attributes it to her ministrations and intensifies them. She moves her thumb over the same spot, faster and harder until Emma's coming with a ragged gasp, her legs splaying out as she slides to the floor in an ungainly heap. Regina smirks down at her, but her eyes are still gentle as she watches her. "I still don't know where your magic comes from, Emma."

"Me neither," Emma agrees, glad that they're talking about something other than Rumpelstiltskin. "And that's why you can't take my heart?"

Regina drops to her knees, a hand sliding into Emma's chest before Emma can protest, and there's that tugging again, sending completely inappropriate desire straight to her core as she shudders and rides a crescendo that had only just been waning from before. "It seems not," she whispers, wonder in her voice. "I don't understand."

Her hand is still loose around Emma's heart, and she can feel the heaviness of it every time her heart beats. "Regina," she says gently.

Regina slides her hand out with reluctance she doesn't explain, and they sit side-by-side against the wall in companionable silence. "It's never happened before," she says finally.

"Did you take many hearts?" She doesn't want to know, but she can't shy away from the truth, not when it's so present and painful and necessary to the world built on Regina's crimes.

"Yes." Regina's voice is flat and emotionless, and only when Emma tilts her head to watch her lover does she see the way Regina holds herself rigid, the way she's staring across the room with her lips set and her face dark. "I did."

"What does it mean if you have someone's heart?"

Regina's fingers curl together. "You have control over them when you wish it. You can speak through them, act through them, use them for your purposes."

It's what she'd meant for Emma, what she'd done to enough other people who might have proven to be liabilities to be quantified as "many." It's what she'd done to the Huntsman, and he'd been turned to stone for daring to desire someone else.

A new, disturbing thought occurs to her, and she swallows and asks, "And when you had the Huntsman's heart, he was in your bed."

Regina's words are strained. "Yes."

"Did he have any choice in the matter?" She's sick thinking about it, about the real world implications of a relationship where one party is so securely under the other's thumb. She's spent too much time used and abused by people who'd held her fate in their hands to make excuses now, when it's easier to ignore.

Regina doesn't respond.

"Did he have a choice?" Emma repeats, and her own heart is pounding so hard that Regina could probably have stolen it right then.

"He isn't the first person to be taken by royalty to be used as they desire," the queen says at last, and there's a note of familiarity in her voice that has Emma blink and study her face again. "It's a story told a thousand times in folklore."

"The Huntsman was your revenge," Emma guesses. Against men, against the people who'd loved Snow and hated her evil stepmother, against the world for stripping her of her agency. They'd both been thrust into cages by men, locked in prisons they hadn't deserved; and Emma remembers the hopelessness, the desire to exact vengeance on the world. She'd responded by spending her life chasing down men like Henry's father, liars and cowards who would put themselves before the people they claimed to care about. Regina had responded by dooming an innocent to the same life she'd suffered through. "It was all your revenge. Not just against Snow but against the whole kingdom for everything you'd suffered through."

"No." Regina clenches her fists. "Perhaps that was part of it. Perhaps it would be better if it was." Her voice is shaky, and when she shifts away from Emma, Emma doesn't follow. "But I was never…my life was never my own. I had been sold to a king and lost... lost everything in the process." Her words emerge unsteadily, shuttered behind windows and peering through at last. "I wanted control. I wanted to dominate and I wanted to rule, rule like I'd been ruled, and I don't think I ever thought it possible for the people around me to not despise me as much as I despised myself."

Emma opens her mouth, but Regina speaks before she can respond, every word enunciated with broken certainty. "I made my own choices at last and they were the only choices I'd known, prisoner or captor. And I surrounded myself with hatred because I was nothing without hate and disgust and my wrath." She looks very small suddenly, without airs or regal bearing. Just Regina, wet-eyed and hoarse-voiced and alone. "I was nothing," she repeats, and she's so far away that Emma doesn't dare venture to reach a queen wracked with regret and shame and bitterness.

She can't forgive, she can't ever say that it's okay when it isn't and it can never be, not even if Snow's beloved savior arrives and the Huntsman is himself once more. None of what Regina has done in the past is close to okay, and it's a fulltime job just struggling to hold her accountable for it all.

But staring at the woman, a gulf apart from her and a few inches away- a woman hasn't been her captor for months but holds her stationary regardless, a woman who Snow insists is finally recovering the shattered pieces of herself and pressing them back together into a jagged, chaotic mosaic, a woman who has altered herself by choice so deeply since they'd met that Emma then wouldn't have recognized her now- Emma thinks it might be okay to say one thing, even if it's only, "I don't hate you."

Regina laughs through the tears that are spilling down her face now, and how does she manage to convey so much condescension even as she's falling apart? "You're a fool not to."

"Yeah." And a tremor passes through the queen's body as Emma speaks. "I know." She doesn't move any closer and Regina makes no motion to change that. But they fall to silence again, the steadily reforming queen and the woman who doesn't hate her, eyes wide open and bright with tears.