It had to have been a dream. Some kind of crazy freaky so realistic she could still recall the feeling of the other woman's blood slipping sticky and red between her fingers in vivid detail dream. So realistic she could still taste the bile in her throat and feel the crush of knuckle against plaster and replay with clarity every nuance of that last smirk that had passed between them.
Emma had never had dreams like that, even as a vastly more imaginative child. They had always been blurry and boring, even the nightmares never memorable. And she couldn't even begin to explain how her subconscious had somehow managed to conjure up her roommate's behavior, their conversation, even Regina's dress.
Regina had slipped off a glove to press the back of her hand against the blonde's forehead as though to check for fever and Emma couldn't even tell her to cut it out. She could barely breathe.
"Normal enough. Not physically ill then, I suppose. As for your mental state, well I've long suspected you have-"
"Regina, shut up for a minute."
"Excuse m-"
"Ah." Emma clamped a hand over the brunette's mouth to shush her, ignoring the distracting twist of silken flesh beneath her fingers and the smoldering brown eyes that threatened to separate her from the limb permanently. "I need to think and you're not helping."
This was different, at least. They hadn't lingered outside yesterday- In her dream. "Regina, what do you remember about yesterday?"
"Allowed to talk now, am I?" The mayor jerked away from Emma's grasp, brushing imaginary dust off the shoulders of her coat where the blond had touched her. "Yesterday? We had a city council meeting. That you were late to. Again. How shocking that you've forgotten it already." Regina rolled her eyes.
"And it's Tuesday? Today? It's Tuesday right?"
"Yes, Sheriff, it is Tuesday. What's this all about? Feeling overworked already? It's not too late to run another election. That fool reporter is clearly not up to the task but I'm sure I can find a suitable replacement."
Emma shook her head. "Nothing. I guess, nothing. I'm sorry, I just had the strangest dream..."
"Oh, speak of the devil. If you will excuse me, Sheriff."
"What?" Emma turned to see Sydney stalking down the street towards them, disheveled in his wrinkled, less than dapper suit and long tan overcoat. His tie was crooked and tossed over his shoulder where it flapped about with each step like a royal blue banner. His dark eyes were wide with crazed determination and Emma didn't need to see the glint of sunlight on the muzzle in his shaking hands as he raised it to know how events were going to play out.
There was no decision made, just the Mayor's name being ripped from her throat as Emma spun to push her down behind the car and the crack that seemed to echo for ages and a sudden blooming pain in her back. Burning, burning, burning like nothing she had ever felt or imagined and heavy liquid seeping. They landed in a heap, her weight crushing Regina's smaller, more delicate frame into the oil stained tarmac of the street and was it insane that all Emma could think about was the perfume tickling at her nose? Cinnamon. Maybe just a hint of something a little like vanilla.
"Sheriff?!"
"I always...apples. Woulda'thought apples."
"Sheriff! Miss swan? Emma...Emma!"
The last thing Emma was aware of before the blackness reached up to drag her under was Regina screaming her name, the first time she could ever recall hearing anything other than her surname or title from the Mayor's lips, frantically over and over.
Emma, Emma, Emma...
########
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Emma jerked awake and immediately toppled out of bed, scrabbling and clawing at her own back. There was nothing there, just smooth if sweaty flesh overtop the familiar musculature and she lay panting on the floor in a twist of blankets as the phantom pain finally faded away.
Had she died? Was she dead? Emma felt as though she must have, could almost feel the way consciousness had been ripped away from her body, but here she was, solid and whole on the hardwood floor in her bedroom. Real breath in her lungs, real jersey cotton sheets beneath her fingertips and twisted round her legs. Real pale winter sunlight streaming through the window.
No heaven or hell or angels or whatever. Alive.
'That shit wasn't a dream. No way it was a dream.'
Emma stumbled to her feet and almost tripped down the stairs in her rush to get down them, stubbing her toe on the bannister when she finally skid to a halt on the landing but too full of shaky adrenaline to register the stabbing pain.
There was Mary Margaret, as she had been the morning before, and the morning before that. Rushing around the kitchen dressed to leave for work, scarf akimbo.
"Oh, hey Emma!" Mary Margaret smiled, the same smile, and Emma could only gape. "Sorry can't stick around for breakfast, I'm running late. The kids have-"
"A science fair thing, yeah I know."
"Oh. Did I tell you already? Silly me, scatterbrained. See you for dinner later?"
Emma scrubbed a hand through her messy blond curls, shrugging her shoulders helplessly. "Yeah, I guess."
"What the unholy FUCK?" She shouted, once the door had closed safely behind her roommate's back. The expletive only marginally improved the pressure of emotion stirring in her chest. She was going insane, that was the only logical explanation. Crazy cakes off the wall totally fucking bonkers.
Premonitions weren't real, if she could even call it that. She was living through it, whatever the hell it was. The same day. Like someone hit a giant reset button.
'Henry would blame magic.'
Magic. Right. She should just check herself into a mental institution right now. Assuming Storybrooke had one, which she doubted.
She could go see Hopper. Maybe he would give her a referral.
Or she could just get the hell out of dodge.
Emma glanced at the wall clock. This time yesterday she had been getting ready to head out the door. The day before that she had been out the door already and heading back to the diner after seeing Henry off to school. So she could change things in this delusion, at least in minor ways. The big constant seemed to be Sydney.
God she had to stop Sydney. Was that the point? Was some higher power, God or fairies or whatever the hell Henry thought made the world spin round trying to get her to stop the tragedy before it happened? Or was she sitting in a padded room somewhere, tormenting herself by trying to work through a way she could have fixed things and Regina already dead and buried?
Neither way seemed fair but Emma couldn't see she had much choice but to try as she pulled on her jeans and grabbed her belt- The sheriff's belt with her cuffs, badge and sidearm- before running out the door as fast as her feet would carry her.
########
"Drop it! I know you've got a gun, Sydney, drop it! Now!"
She'd cut him off at the stoplight two blocks away from the diner where presumably the Mayor was now having her morning espresso uninterrupted. He was startled and coming apart at the seams and as much as she wanted desperately to hate him, she couldn't help but feel he must have suffered some form of mental break. The reporter was almost complacent as she kicked away the dropped fire arm and snapped on the cuffs, mumbling things that didn't make sense to her. Something about someone in his head, which she assumed had something to do with Regina given what she'd heard from him before (She was still thinking of it as the day before yesterday, because trying to put it in any other context made her head ache and throb.), and a he telling him to take back control.
Legally there wasn't much reason to hold on to him this time but Emma felt a hell of alot better locking him in a cell on charges of carrying an illegal firearm until she figured out what to do with him. The man clearly needed help and he wasn't in much state to argue.
Tracing the gun would make a good start. Emma wanted to have a long, violent dialogue with whoever had put the weapon in the reporter's hands in the first place. She was convinced it was a recent acquisition and whoever had sold it couldn't have been completely oblivious to the man's intentions.
First, however, she had to pay a visit to a certain tyrant. Her heart wouldn't stop bouncing around in her chest until she'd seen the woman, whole and kicking.
Emma let herself relax as she hoofed her way over to town hall, basking in the barely there warmth the sun offered as it reached its peak. That was it then, wasn't it? The day would progress. Nobody dead. Crazy averted. She almost could have skipped.
"We don't have an appointment today, Sheriff." Regina didn't even look up from her paperwork when Emma burst through her office door, boredly scrawling her signature. "I suggest you turn around and waltz right back out. You have a job to do now, remember?"
It was tempting to smack that smug condescension off the woman's red lipped face, but remembering the pain and the loss and all the things she'd wished she'd said and done Emma settled for kissing it away instead, strolling around to the other side of the Mayor's desk and pulling her up by the lapels. Regina's protests were muffled by the press of soft lips and finally melted away all together as she sank into the blonde's embrace. Fingers dug into Emma's belt loops, pulling their bodies closer together, and she felt contentment flare in her belly as that sweet, sweet perfume washed over her.
"Oh yeah." Emma said when they finally broke apart, gasping. "We are definitely doing that again. Often. Every day."
"We'll see, Sheriff." She looked like she was trying to affect an intimidating glare, but it was a hard look to pull off when her hands were still firmly wrapped around Emma's hips, lips all bruised and smudged. "Now I really do have work to do. And so do you."
"We'll talk. Later?"
"Dinner. Tomorrow. Seven. If you can be bothered to be on time."
"Only for you, Madame Mayor."
########
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Emma shut the alarm off, stretching lazily. Today was going to be a good day, she was certain of it. If not a good day, certainly a good evening. Spent with her child. And his mother.
The mother of her child.
God she was turning into such a sap.
She flounced gracelessly into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, only to be greeted with a whirlwind of activity.
"Oh, hey Emma!" Mary Margaret smiled. "Sorry can't stick around for breakfast, I'm running late. The kids have this science fair thing- See you for dinner later?"
No. No no no no no no no no no.