Then punch back
The other shoe
This time it was Regina the one who seeked for the other woman, her footsteps giving her away in the same fashion the blonde's had. The moon hung low on the sky and Emma's face was scantily illuminated by its silver light, her green eyes dark as she set them on her approaching figure, shoulders pushed back and back almost completely straight, the dark color of her leather jacket clashing against her almost white-looking hair, rivulets of gold framing her face. It hurt and bleed just be able to look at her and for a second Regina stilled, drinking on the view, focusing on it.
Behind Emma the sea awaited, the bench she was seated at oozing the essence of wood and salt once Regina approached enough for her nose to pick the scent. She smiled sadly, heart echoing faintly against her temples, hands tightly closed as she took notice on how Emma's chest rose alongside with the train of the waves, coming and receding evenly, warmly. She sat next to her, not wanting to disrupt, not wanting to destroy.
She focused on the blonde's hands; digits curled on her lap, cross-legged and looking younger, way younger than she had ever seen her. She felt her own fingers burning to touch one of hers, maybe even see if she was as cold as she suddenly looked and felt, magic pumping and thriving as she closed her eyes, saving the picture, taking the silvers with her. Taking the screams that she could hear at the other side of those strangely dark green-colored eyes.
"I heard what you have been doing with Snow."
The words came as a surprise, not yet as brazen as the last time they had talked, perhaps not even as strong or bold as they had last even dared to look at each other. Still, they had some kind of inflection that made Regina ache and stare, noticing soft curves and hard planes, noticing the glimmer of power just below the surface, one drop of blood away.
And she still could recognize that, power, potential, but the knowledge came with an ashen taste of something already lost and so she seized her throat, noticing on the careful, almost too-slow movement at her side, a trembling, a shudder. It didn't last long.
"We have a lot of work to do." She settled as an answer, the words scorching her chest as she finally eyed fully the other woman, muscles aching as she thought, as she considered, how many steps there were still between the two of them, how many silences were still hidden below her own words. "I think your mother's plan can actually be useful."
Her words weren't bitter or cold and she found herself eyeing Emma, sighing with relief as she saw the curve of a smile, of something close, resembling, a very similar look she had one time ago seen reflected there, a promise of a happy ending hanging between them. Looking at her own hands she opened them, muscles and tendons working below her own skin, almost white from where she stood.
She didn't glow, not like Emma, she had never intended to to begin with.
Or perhaps yes, she reflected, deciding not to notice Emma's own deep sigh, teeth peeking between her lips.
Perhaps she had indeed tried to glow, to be someone she wasn't, to be something she didn't want until everything she had seen had been that future, that ending.
Perhaps… she thought, glancing at Emma, at her hands, at her wrists, one of them sporting a shoelace, a trail of ink eyeing at her in the in-betweens of the cord, perhaps she had played wrong.
And Emma had known, she had known even before they were nothing else but mayor and stranger, she had known with only a glance, she had trusted and believed, she had fought and learnt. She had pushed and waited.
She wanted the push, she thought, still looking at Emma, at the silence that stretched between them, so close she could feel Emma's warmth, Emma's scent, so close she could almost taste and touch. She wanted the push and the loss that could come with it because she had always become more powerful due to it. Loss meant something, gain meant more to lose.
"Let me die as Regina" She had once said, purple pain coursing through her and Emma had understood, had seen.
The sea kept waving, waiting, droplets touching her skin as the wind grew stronger, the touch of the water leaving behind a trail of almost dried skin. She thought on crying.
And she wanted, wanted and fought and just knew. Because she needed to know, needed to fight and needed to want, to wish for. She slumped slightly and kept staring, noticing the small veins surrounding her green eyes, noticing the freckles and the beauty marks, noticing the strong muscles and shoulders, the outline of her cheekbones and the deep silence that had fall upon them, waiting, expecting.
"We will find a way." She heard being said, her eyes falling to those hands, hands that trembled and seized and she nodded because there was nothing else to do, because she knew that was the right thing to do.
She didn't need hope though, not this time.
And for that she felt alone. Until she felt the breeze of a caress touching her leg, resting there just enough to make her wonder if she had just fell asleep. Emma, however, was still there when she focused on her once again. Silent, waiting.
"I don't know how to read them." Emma finally said, voice almost too deep for her, almost too flat. Eyes on the stars above them, away from the sea, away from the water "Do you?"
"Not exactly." Regina replied back, tilting her head towards the stars, names and numbers she had never known coming back as something she had wanted to understand. She knew however, she wasn't going to get them loss themselves, not if she was still there as they walked.
And, as she let the thought appear on her mind she knew Emma was doing a similar vow too.