Strange case You can no more rid yourself of your darkness
The sun was hiding behind the city skyline and Regina closed her eyes for a second, rising her face towards the slowly darkening reds and golds. Folding her hands in front of her and keeping her back completely straight she let out a puff of air that seemed to glisten for a second against the slowly chilling night breeze before dissolving itself around her. This time, probably due to the silence that seemed to have fallen around and inside of her, she heard her coming, hesitant, her boots scrapping against the asphalt and what seemed to be a slowly forming intake of breath escaping slightly parted lips as she tried to talk.
Her hair glowed with the sun, Regina noticed, it burnt fiery and proud in the same way she felt resigned and tired; tired of the very same kind of story being repeated with her time and time again. Emma's eyes gave away the same kind of weariness and for a split second Regina felt the need to take a step closer to the other woman, to look closer to the green-eyed irises that had promised so much at the docks, that had burned with the same kind of fire she felt herself afraid to let loose in case she wasn't able to direct it right.
The sky's light seemed to burn and so did Emma's expression as she folded her arms, guarded, closed, afraid. Regina wished for it to be different, for her to not need to put her in such position, for Emma to not need to be the savior over again with her. Because Emma was much more than just a savior and she felt her resolve shudder for a moment before she steeled herself; gold at her back, the breeze growing stronger as her magic laced her tightly closed fingers, keeping her grounded, keeping her standing; dark, dark as Jekyll, dark as Hyde.
"I thought you were going to go for a walk." She heard herself asking and Emma just tilted her head, her lips quirking, seeming about to say something, to say what she hadn't said a moment ago. Regina beat her to it, her skin scalding, her throat tightening and swelling; full of tremor. "To clear your head."
"What the Queen told me was something I needed to think about, yes." Emma replied, her eyes shadowed by the settling sun, her shadow growing behind her, becoming large and thin and Regina focused for a second on it, on the way her own shadow grew behind her feet, seeming to chase away the specks of light Emma's left behind. "But I also needed to think about what you said, about you dying."
"You said you trusted me." And the words weight her down, made her tremble, made her gasp inwardly for air because she had been so wrong, so wrong thinking she would be able to separate herself from darkness, had been so naïve and stupid… She had wanted to defeat darkness with blankness. Forgetting the words Emma had directed once at them, terrible and evil and lost. "This is who I am."
"And I do." Emma replied unblinkingly and for a moment Regina wondered about the fine line of the blonde's lips, on the way her hair cascaded down, on how beautiful she looked, on how she seemed to scorch her away. "I do trust you, Regina. I do"
And that was good because Regina needed it, needed to be trusted, needed the sureness on someone's voice apart from her; the Damocles sword already hovering over her head. She had once claimed she wasn't afraid of dying and she wondered again if that was truly the case.
If the fire she felt, if the red-hot glow she sensed inside of her, was due to fear or resolution. If Emma's smoldering gaze was something else but just trust.
"I just…"
Silence, weight and the ever growing shadows in front of Regina's eyes, like ink being splayed by a rambunctious kid.
"I was just thinking on what I put you when I asked you the same thing you have done back on Camelot, about me…" Her voice trailed off, hot on Regina's cheeks as the words reached her, as Emma crossed her arms even tighter around her, a frown already forming, her shoulders straining the jacket where she flexed; closed, cold, afraid.
"I know you know how it is to lose one self." Regina found herself replying and she felt the need to just crumble down there, in the middle of main street, before she remembered who she was, who she was supposed to be. "I know you fear it almost as much as myself."
"And that's why I need you."
It wasn't said but it was heard and for a moment even the lazy sketches of shadows at both women's feet seemed to halt before Emma bite down her bottom lip and nodded, eyes pained, one foot trembling, moving a bit, just the ghost of a step, the promise of one. "You know that." Regina found herself thinking, "You know it."
Emma's eyes were dull when she looked back at them, the irises going back and forth as she seemed to focus on the moving shadows and dying sun, on the more than ever dark road, Archie's office standing a few meters at her back, the place she now went in order to talk, the place Regina felt like a burning fire threatening to fall down, threatening to swallow her.
I trust you, Emma had said, soft and sad, still a nod away from giving too much. Regina had saw the doubt the second she had asked for her death for a second time. She found herself asking herself once again the same question, the same doubt.
At her back the settling sun disappeared, shadows taking over her and Emma, leaving them in the dark for a moment before the winking lamps of Storybrooke blinked back to live, casting glowing circles in the middle of the road; far too bright to be gold, far too cold to make her warm. She wondered if a hug would actually warm her, or just the promise of a glass, of a stop in their paths. She never, however, got to ask.
Emma turned and seemed ready to leave, ready to walk away, ready to bring with her all the warmth and the golden fire.
Until she turned and moved her head shyly towards Granny's, voice too rough, vowels too deep, lips too tight. "Come with me?"
And Regina nodded before moving away from the dark, away from the cold lamps and shadows.
"Why not." She replied and from the corner of her eyes she saw the eye roll and a stretched hand that rose and fell quickly and silently as she walked, close to Emma, side by side.
And that was okay.