Regina waited until she was alone to take out the dagger.
Ruminating, she ran her hand first over the jagged edge, then the words. Emma Swan. Emma Swan. Emma Swan. It was impossible, not knowing where she was. Regina had managed to convince Emma's parents to wait before summoning her. She'd waxed poetic about giving her time to adjust, letting her have some space, allowing her to come to them. And they'd reluctantly agreed.
It was all lies, of course, and she told herself she wasn't even being selfish. Regina simply knew she couldn't allow the Charmings, of all people, to be the first ones Emma saw after her transformation. They were as good as useless when it came to dealing with darkness.
But Regina understood darkness well. She'd dealt with it her entire life. She knew the warning signs, the subtleties others might miss. Most of all, she knew what Emma would be feeling. And she knew what would have helped her when she was battling the darkness herself: a friend. She often felt that if she hadn't been so alone, she might never have become the Evil Queen.
So she raised the dagger. "Emma Swan…I summon thee."
"Please don't."
Regina whirled around. Emma was standing behind her, but she didn't look dark in any traditional sense of the word. She just looked exhausted. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and the dark circles under her eyes combined with her pale face made her seem almost like a ghost.
"Emma," Regina said, starting toward her. But the other woman held up her hand.
"Please don't do that either."
Regina stopped. It hurt to have her affections rejected. "I'm sorry. I needed to know you were okay."
"You didn't need to force me here," Emma said, and she looked upset. "I have a phone. You could have called. Texted. It's been what, two hours? How am I supposed to feel safe when you're doing stuff like this?"
"I…" Regina paused. "You're right. I'm sorry. You don't have to stay."
But Emma didn't move. "I need to know this won't happen again."
"It won't," Regina said, mentally kicking herself. She couldn't believe she'd already broken Emma's trust by doing something so foolish. "I promise. I wasn't thinking, Emma. I'm sorry."
"I need to know," Emma repeated. "If you care about me, about my safety and how I feel, you'll give me the dagger."
"You know I can't do that," Regina said, and Emma gave her a pained smile.
"I know. Because you don't trust me. Because you're afraid of what I might do." The sadness in her eyes looked a lot like defeat, and Regina found herself wondering if Emma was really a threat after all.
"That isn't it," she said. "I just want to make sure you're safe, Emma. We all do. You can't just disappear into the woods when you don't know how this darkness is going to affect you."
"But that's not fair," Emma said, and her voice was small and plaintive. "I'm still my own person. This doesn't change anything about me. You can't just take control of my life."
And for a moment, Regina found herself almost considering it. Emma had always been very good at persuading her…and she knew that, didn't she? Dread hit her as she carefully chose her next words. "I care about you too much to let you face this alone."
The flash of anger in Emma's eyes was subtle, and perhaps not something anybody else would have noticed, but Regina was well accustomed to the way darkness could twist emotions. She internally cursed herself for letting her guard down at the sight of Emma Swan's puppy dog eyes.
"I won't," Emma said, her expression pleading once more. "Regina, I promise I'll stay. I don't want to try to do this myself any more than you want me to. Please trust me."
"I can't," Regina said, and she couldn't help the sharpness that barbed her words. She knew this wasn't truly Emma, but she felt betrayed nonetheless. "You're lying to me. You're trying to manipulate me. I've done that enough to know what it looks like, and that's why I have this dagger instead of your parents or your pirate. Tell me the truth, Emma. Why do you really want the dagger?"
Anger fully did contort Emma's face, then, and her expression of fury looked so out of place that Regina found herself taking a step back. "Why do you think, Regina? Because it's mine. You have no right to it."
"Emma," Regina said, taking a deep breath to calm herself. She knew fighting fire with fire wasn't going to get her anywhere. "You can trust me to keep it safe, and I won't summon you again, if that's what you want. But look at yourself. Think about what you're doing. If you were yourself right now, you would want me to keep this. For the safety of your family. For Henry."
"You think I would hurt Henry?" Emma hissed, taking a menacing step forward. "I would never hurt Henry. I would never hurt anybody I love."
"I know you don't think you would hurt him," Regina said. "But what about accidents? You would never forgive yourself if he got caught in the crossfire. I've had people I care about get caught in mine too many times to believe he would be completely safe."
"I would never hurt Henry," Emma repeated. "And I am myself right now. I'm more myself than I've ever been before. Isn't this what you wanted for me? You wanted me to use magic. To reach my full potential. Well, here it is."
Regina shook her head. "No. This isn't you, Emma."
And she lifted the dagger, and Emma froze, looking so terrified it made Regina's heart ache. "Emma…I'm not going to hurt you. You should know that by now."
"Then what are you going to do?" Emma snarled. It was aggressive, but Regina could hear the fear behind her words. "As long as you have that dagger, you can hurt me any time you want."
"I'm going to tell you that you can't take the dagger," Regina said, and she could feel the magic hum as the command took hold. "And you can't try to convince anybody else to give it to you." She lowered it, then, and the look on Emma's face was somewhere between anger and defeat.
"That's it?" Emma asked. "That's all you're going to do?"
"Yes," Regina replied, then added, "For now." She locked eyes with this woman who was both her best friend and perhaps her new worst enemy. "I'm not going to try to control your life, Emma. But don't think I won't stop you from causing harm."
Regina expected her to disappear then, or to bite back with a nasty retort, but instead she slumped down onto the couch. "I don't want to hurt anyone. You need to believe that."
Unlike before, she could tell this was the real Emma shining through. She placed the dagger into its sheath and sat down beside her. "I know you don't."
"But I don't think Rumplestiltskin did either," Emma said. She didn't meet Regina's eyes. "And you didn't start out wanting to hurt people. You were a good person before you were the Evil Queen."
"I was," Regina said softly. She placed her hand on Emma's shoulder, causing her to look up. "But I stopped being one the moment I chose to turn to darkness to exact my revenge. That's the difference between us. When you chose darkness, it was to…to save me. This is happening to you because you are a good person, not because you were one."
She was startled when Emma flung her arms around her, pressing her face into her shoulder. But before Regina could even begin to return the hug, she was suddenly alone in her living room. Emma was gone. She'd never imagined she would miss her so intensely, and the dagger felt so heavy against her thigh. Unsheathing it, she turned it in her hands, then clutched it to her chest.
It was the closest thing to Emma she had.