Our ladies get a moment alone, as promised.

Emma fidgeted uncomfortably, shifting her weight onto either foot. The last time she'd stood on these steps she'd been just as nervous. The only difference was, last time the weight of the unexpected was causing her apprehension. This time she knew exactly what to expect - hence her hesitation.

She'd nearly decided to leave when the pristine door before her swung open to reveal a puzzled looking Regina.

"Emma?"

She's still calling me by my first name, thought Emma, that's a good sign.

"Is everything all right?" asked Regina, clearly stunned to find a tongue tied princess on her stoop. Emma was many things but shy and retiring was not one of them. She tried to piece together what would bring Emma here when it was so obvious the blonde would rather be anywhere else.

"Is it Henry?" she demanded, worried by the Saviour's silence. "Is he okay?"

Emma felt like kicking herself. Of course Regina would assume she was here because of Henry. She hastily made to put the woman's mind at ease. "Henry's fine. This isn't about him. I just needed to speak to you about something. Do you think I could come in?"

The please she left off her request was evident to both of them. Regina stepped back into the house and out of the path blocking the door, gesturing inside. "Of course, come in. Can I get you something to drink?"

Ever the hostess, thought Emma fondly.

"Ah yeah, just a water would be good thanks."

Emma dutifully followed Regina into the kitchen and watched her pour a glass of water into a sparkling crystal glass. She handed the glass over and eyed Emma thoughtfully, resting her back against the kitchen counter.

"What did you want to speak to me about?" Regina tried not to sound haughty or scornful, aware that she slipped into old habits when she was nervous. Which she was – incredibly.

"Ah, do you mind if we have this conversation in the living room. I'd rather not have you around so many knives."

Regina raised a single eyebrow but said nothing. Instead she turned and made her way for the living room, settling into a high backed chair that she knew made her posture look regal. While she intended to enter this discussion peacefully, some part of her still demanded that she at least go into it with some advantage.

Regina's survival instincts were hard earned and they weren't simply going to disappear after one noble gesture on Emma's part.

As if sensing Regina's need to be in control, Emma settled for the comfortable looking armchair across from her and sank into it – allowing herself to appear smaller and less of a threat amongst the soft folds of fabric.

"Are you quite comfortable now?" asked Regina, permitting a hint of snideness to enter her voice. "As you can see I'm at least ten feet away from any sharp objects. I'm sure you'll have ample opportunity to fire off a round should I try anything."

Emma felt the unease drain out of her body, grateful to return to the pattern of banter they'd established for themselves.

"Since you could eviscerate me with a glance I'm pretty sure I'd never be safe around you."

"Probably not," Regina admitted.

Emma sensed that same tone of seriousness to Regina's statement that she'd heard the day they'd spoken in front of Granny's. It was a hint of something more beyond the surface, an allusion to a second meaning that neither of them had been willing to examine.

Until today.

Emma was determined to have it out with Regina today. She didn't care if it meant she was magicked out onto the street on her ass. She needed to say what had been weighing on her mind since she had tasted Regina inside of it. The pressure of their unspoken words was building up inside the blonde until she was convinced she'd burst.

She had to know, once and for all what their experience had meant. And what it meant for their future.

"So…speaking of magic…"Emma started clumsily, aware of the absurdity of her segue way.

"Were we?" Regina cut in.

"Were we what?"

"Speaking of magic? I thought were we speaking about the likelihood of me disembowelling you."

"Yeah, with magic."

"That hardly makes it the main topic of our discussion."

"I didn't say it was the main topic did I? I just said we were speaking about it?"

"Of it."

"Excuse me?"

"You said we were speaking of it dear, not about it."

"Oh Jesus, Regina, as if that matters!"

"If you're going to be co-parenting my son I beg to differ, the consistency of your arguments matter a great deal. Henry's a talented debater and I wouldn't want him besting you on technicalities."

"The consistency of my arguments? Seriously? We're not having an argument!"

"Then why are you yelling?"

Emma was about to launch into a tirade, explaining that her volume was caused by Regina being an irritating grammar Nazi when she caught herself. Regina was doing this on purpose, she realised. A stalling tactic to distract Emma from what they both knew she was here to discuss.

She looked intently into Regina's eyes and found the same voiceless plea she'd seen when she tried to bring up the issue before lunch at Granny's.

This time she pushed past the instinct to protect Regina from discomfort and forged ahead.

"I know what you're doing," Emma said softly.

"Do you?" said Regina harshly. "Since you know me so well."

"I do know you. We know each other. And that's what I'm here to talk to you about."

A heavy silence fell between them, punctured only by the sound of Regina squirming in her chair. Emma wondered if she was going to deny it, claiming not to know what Emma was talking about. One look at her though, showed that Regina knew the game was up.

"Do we have to talk about it?" she asked, sounding like a little girl.

Emma leant forward, resting her arms on her knees.

"Yeah Regina, we do. What happened between us….well I don't know if it affected you like it affected me but… I know I'm new to magic so maybe I'm reading too much into this but that didn't feel like your garden variety, light as a feather, stiff as a board type stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong."

"Though embellished with some, no doubt mindless popular culture reference, no – you're not wrong. I've never experienced what happened with our magics before."

Emma took a deep breath, thankful for Regina's honesty and also terrified by it.

"So that must mean something right, that we were able to…fit together like that?"

Regina's face was growing paler by the minute and Emma was starting to grow concerned that she'd pass out.

"I don't know," she said weakly.

"I'm sorry but that's bullshit Regina."

"No it's not!" said Regina forcefully, regaining a little of her strength. "I don't know how it happened so I can't know if it means anything. Perhaps that's what happens when two people who are both very powerful come together to do a spell."

Emma considered this for a moment.

"Okay, I might buy that. Except you said it had never happened to you before and you've done magic with loads of powerful people. I mean, that never happened with you and Gold right?"

"Certainly not!" stated Regina, sounding scandalised. Emma leapt onto her tone.

"See, that's what I'm saying. You're disgusted at the idea of what happened between us happening between you and Gold - so you must have some idea of what it might say about the two of us. About our connection."

Regina felt her defences faltering. The newly awakened side of her was screaming, begging her to tell Emma that of course it meant something, of course it was special. She wanted to. God it would be so easy, she thought. To just say lay all her cards on the table. To close the gap between their bodies and do what both of them had been thinking about non-stop since that first shuddering contact had occurred.

Instead she chose fear, letting it swell inside her and twist into the façade of the Evil Queen. She let the persona rise to the forefront, like a guard stepping in between two brawling inmates.

"And what exactly would you like me to say? Hmm? That because our magics performed some miraculous feat previously unknown to me that we should ride off into the sunset together. Live happily ever after?"

The venom in her voice was a shock to Emma's system. She'd thought they were doing so well and she watched with no small sense of loss as the light in Regina's eyes retreated, replaced with those of the cold, dead woman she'd first met in Storybrooke.

"Don't do this Regina," she warned. "Don't push me away just because you're scared."

"Scared?" the word was scathing and oozing with contempt "And what exactly am I supposed to be frightened of in this situation?"

"You're afraid of what you feel for me," said Emma boldly.

"I feel nothing for you."

"That's not true."

"Tell yourself what you'd like Miss Swan," Regina said dismissively.

"Oh so it's Miss Swan again is it? Now I know you're scared. You don't have to be Regina. I'm not trying to hurt you. Everything you're feeling for me…I'm feeling it too. I just want us to talk about this, figure out where we go from here."

"Where you go from here is out my front door." Regina stood abruptly, towering over Emma. "Get out of my house."

"No."

"I said get out!"

"And I said no," said Emma stubbornly. "I'm not going anywhere. I won't let you run from this."

"Run from what?" Regina asked, continuing her defiance. "From your obvious delusions."

"No, from a chance to be happy. Don't you want that Regina? I could make you happy, I know I could. I felt it." Emma took a step towards Regina, her hands outstretched in a gesture of peace.

She was bearing her soul to Regina, offering up the most vulnerable parts of herself for judgement. And like an adder, waiting to strike, Regina's eyes sought out the jugular.

"You think you have what it takes to make me happy?" She caressed the words, letting them fall from her mouth like poison. "Your arrogance is astounding Saviour. Why on earth would I want you? I had a true love – his name was Daniel and as you may recall, your darling mother stole him from me! I don't want another love in my life. I don't need another love in my life. And even if I did – in no land, in no imagining, would that love be you. You're a loud, uncouth, uneducated thief who couldn't even make her parents keep her."

The slap rang out through the large house.

Emma's wide green eyes were filled with tears, an awful look of betrayal housed on her face. When she turned and ran out of the room Regina didn't go after her.

Instead she sat back down heavily in her armchair and reached up to touch her cheek. She could feel the flesh swelling already. From some abandoned catacomb inside her an echo sounded up her passageway.

What have I done?

Hey – I never promised a happy moment! Do you think our crazy kids can work it out? Stay tuned!